49 min listen
Ep. 28 - RED SIMPSON ("Close Up the Honky Tonks")
Ep. 28 - RED SIMPSON ("Close Up the Honky Tonks")
ratings:
Length:
43 minutes
Released:
Jan 26, 2016
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Best known for singing a string of successful trucking-themed country songs in the 1960s and 70s, Red Simpson was also a highly influential behind-the-scenes songwriter from Bakersfield, California. Buck Owens recorded more than 30 Simpson originals, including the Top 10 hits “Gonna Have Love,” “Sam’s Place,” and “Kansas City Song.” Additionally, Red penned perennial standards, such as “Close Up the Honky Tonks” and “You Don’t Have Very Far to Go.” As an artist, he released a total of seven albums for Capitol and logged seven charting singles onBillboard’s country rankings, including the Top 40 hits “Roll Truck Roll” and “The Highway Patrol.” He is perhaps best known, however, for singing “I’m a Truck,” which hit the Top 5 in 1972. Simpson played guitar on most of Buck Owens’ recording dates in the mid-1960s, including sessions that produced hits such as “Buckaroo” and “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line.” He went on to play numerous sessions with Merle Haggard, who referred to Simpson as a “hillbilly hippy.” Merle recorded a couple of Simpson originals on his 1969 album Pride in What I Am, and Red went on to play guitar on Haggard’s classic live LP, Okie From Muskogee. A half dozen other Simpson compositions have been recorded by Haggard, who wrote “A Bar in Bakersfield” in tribute to his old friend. As a songwriter, Simpson enjoyed additional charting singles by Charlie Walker, Wynn Stewart, Junior Brown, and others. His songs have also been recorded by Ferlin Husky, Johnny Paycheck, Wanda Jackson, The Byrds, Gram Parsons, Dave Dudley, Roy Clark, Roseanne Cash, Steve Wariner, Lucinda Williams, Alan Jackson, Candi Staton, Dwight Yoakam, and many more. Simpson died on January 8, 2016. This is the final in-depth interview with the California country mainstay Bob Dylan once called "the forgotten man of the Bakersfield Sound."
Released:
Jan 26, 2016
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Ep. 18A - MAC DAVIS ("In the Ghetto") - 1 of 2: Part 1 of 2: Hailing from Lubbock, Texas, Mac Davis began his music career working for Vee Jay Records and Liberty Records in Atlanta. Relocating to Los Angeles in the late 1960s, he became a staff songwriter for Nancy Sinatra’s music publishing company. His early songwriting success came when Elvis Presley recorded several of his songs, including “A Little Less Conversation,” “Memories,” “Clean Up Your Own Backyard,” “Don’t Cry Daddy,” and “In the Ghetto.” Soon his songs were being recorded by O.C. Smith, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, Glen Campbell, Ray Price, and Bobby Goldsboro, who enjoyed a major hit with Mac’s “Watching Scotty Grow” in 1971. Thanks to his success as a songwriter, Davis signed an artist deal with Columbia Records, and later Casablanca Records, scoring thirty-three charting singles between 1970 and 1986. Most of those hits were written by Davis himself, including “I Believe in Music,” “One Hell of a Woman,” “Sto by Songcraft: Spotlight on Songwriters