Nashville City Blues

Amazon.com
James Talley is not here to sing polite well-meaning songs of protest. He's angry and frustrated and bitter and fed up. "I ain't leavin' this town, people," he snarls on the title track, "'til I get paid." From this CD-opening lament of Music City's soullessness through the moody closer "I've Seen the Bear" ("is anything sacred, is anything fair?"), Talley is resilient, though not optimistic, in the face of a life where "not a dream comes true." In fact, the concept of dreams arises in nearly every song and, suffice to say, they're not remembered fondly; they're failed or lost or squashed. "Dreams don't mean a thing," he sings on "Workin' for Wages," "just the interest on a loan." Yet, as he writes in the lengthy autobiographical notes (subtitled "The price of dreams and keeping the faith"), "the dream is the spark," whether it comes true or not. "Dreaming," he writes, "is a way of coping with man's discontent." Similarly, the "blues" is a way to come to grips with man's discontent, and here he uses the blues in all of its permutations as a musical backdrop, shading his creations with the strains of mandolin, country-flavored pedal steel, or background soul singers. Ultimately, Nashville City Blues is about the healing effects of the blues, its loyal companionship and its knowing sympathy. On the gripping, reflective "So I'm Not the Only One," he yearns for others to share his misery and dissatisfaction--"play me the miles, play me the years, play me the hurt 'til you can feel it too"--and the blues becomes the ultimate populist thread. That universal bond, that shared disenchantment, is the only thing that makes it all bearable. "If it wasn't for the blues, I'd be crazy too," he moans. We hear you, James. We hear you. --Marc Greilsamer

Nashville City Blues,James Talley,Cimarron Records,Country & Western,Country-Folk,Folk,Pop,Rock,Singer/Songwriter

Average customer rating: A mixed blessing More than COUNTRY music? The Best Music You Never Heard Amazonic Regression . . . Mixed bag, but overall pretty good

Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues 1945-1970) Various Artists Manufacturer: Lost Highway ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Blues | Styles | Music Traditional Blues | Blues | Styles | Music General | Compilations | Blues | Styles | Music Electric Blues Guitar | Blues | Styles | Music Modern Blues | Blues | Styles | Music Jump Blues | Blues | Styles | Music General | Country | Styles | Music Nashville Sound | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music General | R&B | Styles | Music General | Soul | R&B | Styles | Music Soul | Compilations | R&B | Styles | Music Similar Items: Night Train to Nashville, Vol. 2 Roots of Rock N Roll: 1946-1954 Ollabelle The Black and White Roots of Rock and Roll One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found ASIN: B0001DMWFW Release Date: 2004-02-24

Tracks:

1. Nashville Jumps
2. Buzzard Pie
3. Skip's Boogie
4. L & N Special
5. Sittin' Here Drinking
6. Just Walkin In The Rain
7. If You And I Could Be Sweethearts
8. Baby Let's Play House
9. Christene
10. It's Love Baby (24 Hours A Day)
11. Rollin' Stone
12. You Can Make It If You Try
13. Rockin' The Joint
14. Let's Trade A Little
15. Say You Really Care
16. Somebody, Somewhere
17. Pipe Dreams
18. WLAC commercial
19. White Rose

Tracks:

1. WLAC Air Check/Monkey Doin' Woman
2. What'd I Say
3. Really Part 1
4. Just Like Him
5. Anna (Go To Him)
6. Snap Your Fingers
7. Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean
8. Something Tells Me
9. Sunny
10. I Want To Do Everything For You
11. Bigger And Better
12. Since I Met You Baby
13. The Chokin' Kind
14. She Shot A Hole In My Soul
15. Gotta Get Yourself Together
16. Soul Shake
17. Reconsider Me
18. Everlasting Love
19. Everlasting Love - Robert Knight

Amazon.com

The most startling revelation contained on this two-CD compilation is how rich, varied, and deep Nashville's R&B scene was during a 25-year period in which the city solidified its reputation as the undisputed capital of country music. Arranged chronologically, Night Train to Nashville also traces the steady progression of African-American music beginning with the end of WWII--from jump blues, lusty R&B, and smooth-groove vocal groups to proto rock & roll, Southern soul, and Top 40 pop that drew blacks and whites together even as the Vietnam War nearly ripped the country apart. Although this collection contains well-known hits (Bobby Hebb's "Sunny", Robert Knight's "Everlasting Love") and widely acknowledged stars (Etta James and Ruth Brown, both of whom recorded some of their best work in Nashville), many of its most satisfying pleasures come courtesy of lesser-known artists, such as R&B belter Christine Kittrell, swamp bluesman Shy Guy Douglas, and balladeer Sam Baker. In the midst of many ear-opening discoveries, add one more: When listening to the countrified soul of Arthur Alexander, Joe Simon, and Johnny Adams, it's apparent that Nashville in its '60s heyday wasn't two separate but equal towns but one glorious Southern-music Mecca. --Keith Moerer

Album Description

Coinciding with the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum's 2004-05 exhibit, Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970, this collection illustrates the quality and breadth of R&B that emerged from a city more famous for country music. Nashville's 50,000-watt clear channel WLAC reached over half the nation with its late night programming. "To young blacks growing up in East Tennessee the city[Nashville] was our version of Harlem, Chicago, Fifty-second Street, Central Avenue and Beale Street combined..." (excerpted from liner notes by Ron Wynn). Culled from more than twenty record labels, these recordings range from the obvious to the obscure, featuring the best songs of the era. Seventeen of these tracks have been unavailable domestically since release, with seven of them making their CD debut here.

Customer Reviews:

A mixed blessing.......2006-08-26

I found the first record to be wonderful but the second was not to my taste. Perhaps this is because I am firmly embedded in the 50s when I was 13.

More than COUNTRY music?.......2005-08-23

The Country Music Hall of Fame is behind this collection, but they're hoping to remind folks that Nashville is "MUSIC City U.S.A.", not necessarily "Country Music City U.S.A." What you get is 35 cuts ranging from doo-wop to smooth vocals to gritty R&B shouters. Many of the cuts were taken from original 45 and 78 records but the audio restoration has been done well...they don't SOUND like vinyl transfers. Is the thesis of Nashville as R&B focal point realized here? Fairly well: I'm not about to replace Detroit, Memphis or Chicago in my mind as great locations for R&B but this set is fairly solid.

HIGHLIGHTS:
You'll probably already know Arthur `Hardrock' Gunter's "Baby Let's Play House",Arthur Alexander's "Anna (Go to Him)",Bobby Hebb's "Sunny" and Robert Knight's "Everlasting Love". Outside of those, there are plenty of lesser-knowns that make the grade: The Marigolds' rollicking doo-wop number "Rollin' Stone", Rudy Green's "Buzzard Pie" (reminiscent of `Straighten Up and Fly Right' but edgier, with the buzzard goading his intended victim to just die and get it over with), the call and response of Audrey Bryant's "Let's Trade a Little", and Larry Birdsong's ebullient "Somebody, Somewhere" on disc 1. The latter disc's high points include Joe Henderson's Nat King Cole smooth vocal on "Snap Your Fingers", a sassy "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean" from Ruth Brown, Joe Tex's near Temptations sound on "I Want To", The Avons sound like long lost Shirelles on "Since I Met You Baby", and the Hytones are defiantly moving on to "Bigger and Better" things since baby's been gone.

BOTTOM LINE:
There's nothing really poor here and quite a few of these are outstanding, even outside of the hit charters. Not the best collection for soul novices but if you're already an R&B fan, you'll probably enjoy this.

3 1/2 stars

The Best Music You Never Heard.......2004-07-29

This is a a wonderful compilation. The title of my review is stolen from a NY Times review of the Night Train to Nashville that made me go out and buy it. It isn't totally true since I recognized some of the later songs but it was an eye opener. It is pretty sad that most of the country missed out on some of the greatest music of their time; especially when pap like How Much is that Doggie in the Window was being shoved down people throats.

My husband and I enjoyed listening to the CDs on a 5 hour long road trip and thoroughly enjoyed them. There was enough style changes and diverstity to keep you interested and a lot of solid artistry. The White Rose petroleum jelly ad and the Little Richard commercial are a hoot!

Amazonic Regression . . ........2004-06-29

I read all the other reviews and realized that this album is many things to many people. I was impressed by how many people took the effort to review this great collector's item. For myself, it was a bolt out of the blue thanks to being featured on the SUNDAY MORNING TV show. When I was 14 years old (1954) I built a HEATHKIT short-wave radio. I strung 100' of copper wire from our TV antenna tower to the top of the basketball pole. All I had hoped for was to get the BBC or Radio Free Europe. What I got [instead] was Radio Free Nashville ! WLAC, Bill Allen and music I had only heard rumors of. "That kind of music" was not played on mainstream radio in those days. Word got around school that I was listening to Little Richard, Clarence "Frogman" Henry, and Jimmy Reed. I didn't get any more chicks because of it, but it put me in a very elite group of R&B listeners. Once again, AMAZON DOT COM makes regression to our childhoods possible! Thanks, you guys . . . Harrison T.

Mixed bag, but overall pretty good.......2004-06-06

As to be expected, there is some really good stuff on these discs. Unfortunately, some mediocre tunes that are not that impressive crop up here and there.

While I love sixties soul on a personal note, disc one is overall the better side. The early barrellhouse boogie-woogie tunes are quite appealing and hard to sit still to. (The Louis Jordanesqe "Buzzard Pie," obviously inspired by the King Cole Trio's "Straighten Up and Fly Right" is lots of fun). The Prisonaires track is quite beautiful and Little Richard's mentor Esquirita really rocks the house, as well as the tunes by Larry Birdsong and Jimmy Peck's Orchestra.

On disc 2, Etta James rocks out with her version of "What I Say" and "Shy Guy" Douglas does some fine harmonica work. The Vocal Groups like the Avons, Valentines, Hytones, and Frank Howard are okay (as well as Arthur Alexander's original "Anna Go To Him" remembered well by Beatles fans and the lovely original version of "Everlasting Love"). But the rest of this stuff is nothing special.

Average customer rating: James Talley speaks for all the honest Folks James Talley's Back, and I'm Hooked All Over Again! it's just life

Nashville City Blues James Talley Manufacturer: Cimarron Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Outlaw & Progressive Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Folk | Styles | Music Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music General | Rock | Styles | Music Country Folk | Country | Indie Music | Stores | Music Similar Items: Touchstones Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home Journey Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love Blackjack Choir/Ain't It Somethin' ASIN: B00004TXWC Release Date: 2000-07-11

Tracks:

1. Nashville City Blues
2. Down on the Corner
3. Don't You Feel Low Down
4. Rough Edge
5. Baby Needs Some Good Times
6. Streamline Flyer
7. When I Need Some Love
8. If It Wasn't for the Blues
9. You Can't Get There from Here
10. So I'm Not the Only One
11. House Right Down the Road
12. Workin' for Wages
13. I've Seen the Bear

Amazon.com

James Talley is not here to sing polite well-meaning songs of protest. He's angry and frustrated and bitter and fed up. "I ain't leavin' this town, people," he snarls on the title track, "'til I get paid." From this CD-opening lament of Music City's soullessness through the moody closer "I've Seen the Bear" ("is anything sacred, is anything fair?"), Talley is resilient, though not optimistic, in the face of a life where "not a dream comes true." In fact, the concept of dreams arises in nearly every song and, suffice to say, they're not remembered fondly; they're failed or lost or squashed. "Dreams don't mean a thing," he sings on "Workin' for Wages," "just the interest on a loan." Yet, as he writes in the lengthy autobiographical notes (subtitled "The price of dreams and keeping the faith"), "the dream is the spark," whether it comes true or not. "Dreaming," he writes, "is a way of coping with man's discontent." Similarly, the "blues" is a way to come to grips with man's discontent, and here he uses the blues in all of its permutations as a musical backdrop, shading his creations with the strains of mandolin, country-flavored pedal steel, or background soul singers. Ultimately, Nashville City Blues is about the healing effects of the blues, its loyal companionship and its knowing sympathy. On the gripping, reflective "So I'm Not the Only One," he yearns for others to share his misery and dissatisfaction--"play me the miles, play me the years, play me the hurt 'til you can feel it too"--and the blues becomes the ultimate populist thread. That universal bond, that shared disenchantment, is the only thing that makes it all bearable. "If it wasn't for the blues, I'd be crazy too," he moans. We hear you, James. We hear you. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews:

James Talley speaks for all the honest Folks.......2005-12-30

James Talley speaks for all the honest folks. His songs touch your soul like Willie Nelson & Johnny Cash do. If you listen to Nashville Blues, you will hear th real truth about Music Row
God Bless James Talley

James Talley's Back, and I'm Hooked All Over Again!.......2000-07-20

James Talley's music has floated into my head every now and again for years, ever since I first heard him in the 1970's. His voice, his lyrics, his storytelling songs-- he's always touched me with his ability to convey real feelings, about real people. Go check out his earlier stuff if you've not already familiar.

Last fall, I fell in love with Talley's easy-on-the ear musical style all over again with the perfect match for the Oklahoma native-- an album of Woody Guthrie songs (Songs of Woody Guthrie and My Oklahoma Home), all material that Woody either wrote or had sung In an era of fancy big star tribute albums to Guthrie and other icons, Talley delivered it straight and clear -- the it was the best Guthrie tribute ever in my estimation, simply due to the honest simple renderings -- dusty and true.

Now, this new recording, Nashville City Blues, which as I understand was actually recorded some time ago but not released until now, was sure worth the wait. The opening cut rips right in about the music business and even more about all of us fans of music and the corporate muckety-mucks that seem to worry more about financial ledgers than honest artistic expression.

The biographical essay inside the jacket tells an incredible story, one many an American can relate to, when we settle in to explore our own roots and the eras we've all lived through. As Talley says, it's all about "the price of dreams and keeping the faith." I think the songs weave feelings about lots of dreams, his and ours. These songs on Nashville City Blues vary from solid country blues ramblin' feel to a rockin' defiant dance beat, self-confident yet tender.

I hope Talley's faith continues and that there'll be more records to come, and that he'll find a whole new audience, besides guys like me who've been haunted by his songs since "To Get Back Home" spoke to me from his 1974 album "Got No Milk, No Bread, No Money, But We Sure Got A Lot of Love."

it's just life.......2000-07-20

Nashville City Blues is as fine an album of country music as we're likely to hear this year. Of course the country music of James Talley has virtually nothing to do with most of what oozes out of Nashville these days, where the label "country" has been reduced to little than a marketing device, the music as deep and sincere as your average advertising jingle. Talley's music is so deeply rooted that he rhymes "Willie McTell" with "Lefty Frizzell" -- surely a first -- at a time when few Nashville performers have even heard of the latter, much the less the former, a legendary 1920s/30s bluesman. The opening cut, the blistering, blues-inflected title tune, rips into the corruption of a music business that is none of the first and all of the second. Even here, however, Talley injects a welcome note of humor, albeit dark and rueful: "I ain't leavin' town, people/Till I get paid" -- the joke being that in a place like Nashville nobody who deserves his due gets it, and only a noble fool believes otherwise. In a recording utterly devoid of phony or extraneous notes, the emotion is raw, unflinching in the manner of the masters who have been Talley's heroes and mentors, from Merle Haggard to B. B. King, as well as the ordinary working folks who find, against all odds and after bitter experience, a way to hold on to what matters. In life and in Nashville City Blues, dreams are mostly denied, and the dreamer pays even for daring to dream. Yet there's no cloying self-pity here; as Talley says in the moving "If It Wasn't for The Blues": "it's just life, ain't nothin' new." You live and find a way to make sense of it, and Talley makes sense of it with his music. In his first CD of original material in a long time, he and his band are as at home with the blues as with country, and the music is alternately tough, tender, sometimes even joyful, and always exactly right on. And all you Nashville hats, with your sappy greeting-card love songs, listen up to "When I Need Some Loving." Here's a love song for grown-ups. It shows what you can do without cliches. And for all its rootedness, Talley's art speaks in a confident and original voice, no borrowed words or emotions. It's just life, but Talley makes it something new.

Average customer rating: Does NOT contain "16 Tons"

A Proper Introduction to Tennessee Ernie Ford: Rock City Boogie Tennessee Ernie Ford Manufacturer: Proper Introduction ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Blues | Styles | Music Traditional Blues | Blues | Styles | Music General | Country | Styles | Music Nashville Sound | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Outlaw & Progressive Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Bluegrass | Country | Styles | Music Traditional Folk | Folk | Styles | Music Country Gospel | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music Country Folk | Country | Indie Music | Stores | Music Country | Imports | Stores | Music Similar Items: Hot Pickin ASIN: B0001P2KI4 Release Date: 2004-04-05

Tracks:

1. I've Got the Milk 'Em in the Morning Blues - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
2. Tennessee Border - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
3. Philadelphia Lawyer - Tennessee Ernie Ford
4. Country Junction - Tennessee Ernie Ford
5. Smokey Mountain Boogie - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
6. Anticipation Blues - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
7. Mule Train - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
8. Cry of the Wild Goose - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
9. Feed in the Morning, Change 'Em in the Evening Blues - Tennessee Ernie Ford
10. I'll Never Be Free - Tennessee Ernie Ford, Kay Starr
11. Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own - Tennessee Ernie Ford, Kay Starr
12. Cincinnati Dancing Pig - Tennessee Ernie Ford, The Starlighters
13. Bright Lights and Blond Haired Woman - Tennessee Ernie Ford, The Starlighters
14. I Ain't Gonna Let It Happen No More - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
15. Shot-Gun Boogie - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
16. Tailor Made Woman - Joe "Fingers" Carr & the Carr-Hops, Tennessee Ernie Ford
17. She's My Baby - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
18. Mister & Mississippi - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
19. You're My Sugar - Tennessee Ernie Ford, Kay Starr
20. Rock City Boogie - The Dinning Sisters, Tennessee Ernie Ford,
21. Streamlined Cannonball - The Dinning Sisters, Tennessee Ernie Ford,
22. Kissin' Bug Boogie - The Dinning Sisters, Tennessee Ernie Ford,
23. Woman Is a Five Letter Word - The Dinning Sisters, Tennessee Ernie Ford,
24. Hey Good Lookin' - Tennessee Ernie Ford, , Helen O'Connell
25. Cool Cool Kisses - Tennessee Ernie Ford, , Helen O'Connell
26. Blackberry Boogie - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
27. I'm Hog Tied over You - Tennessee Ernie Ford, Ella Mae Morse
28. Hey Mr Cotton Picker - Tennessee Ernie Ford
29. Catfish Boogie - Tennessee Ernie Ford,
30. I Don't Know - Tennessee Ernie Ford, Cliffie Stone Orchestra

Customer Reviews:

Does NOT contain "16 Tons".......2007-06-08

Someone must have the rights to his greatest song tied up! I've checked out 5 "greatest hits" collections, none of which have this, his most well known song.

Average customer rating:

Nashville Jumps-Shot in the Dark Various Manufacturer: City Hall Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Blues | Styles | Music ASIN: B0002B5R2S Release Date: 2000-10-24

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1. One Little Dream
2. Outlaw Family Band
3. Places
4. Post to Wire
5. Ralph Stanley in Japan [Live]
6. Rhymes & Reasons [Import] [Original recording remastered]
7. Rhythm & Westrn
8. San Antonio Rose & Other Hits
9. Should've Been Over by Now
10. Simply the Best [Import]

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