Country Connections
By James and Ellen Perry
As I sit on my front porch listening to Santo and Johnny playing “Tear Drop” on my computer, it puts me in a melancholy mood.
It’s now late August of 2024 and all of my flying friends are coming through on their way to their over-wintering homes either in the deep south of the USA or the butterflies and hummingbirds are heading south crossing the Gulf of Mexico to the Latin Americas or northern South America.
Now summer is beginning south of the equator. Today I’ve had a hummingbird hover a few inches from my face, look me over for 30 seconds, then fly away to find flowers in our yard for nectar to furnish energy for the hundreds of miles flying across the gulf to their over-wintering areas. One just wonders how on earth do they have the stamina to fly that far without a food or water source. The Creator gave them something special that humans cannot explain.
There’s Santo and Johnny again with the last #1 instrumental hit recorded in 1959, written by Santo and Johnny and their sister, Anna Farina, and if you were in middle or high school in 1959 you would know it. The song was “Sleepwalk.”
I sure appreciate YouTube, the only place you can hear these great pleasing songs from the 1920’s ’til the last Doo-Wop #1 hit recorded by a blind country artist in 1985. The artist was discovered by Charlie Pride. That’s all I’ll tell you. Look it up if you’re interested.
Now I’m hearing Jimmy Beaumont and the Skyliners with Janet Vogel singing “This I Swear” showing 1,733,000 views on YouTube. Sad to say, but Doo-Wop music was kept out of East Tennessee by a few who controlled the radio play during the heyday of Doo-Wop which was from 1948 ’til 1962 with two songs recorded during the 1980’s. Doo-Wop was the cleanest of any music during its time.
Do not include Doo-Wop as Rock-N-Roll. Doo-Wop was an entirely different genre. It was much smoother, greater harmony, featured the tenor as lead singer with the bass singer coming behind and the baritone and alto singing harmony.
This style was started in 1838 by Bill Kenney when he became lead tenor singer and leader of the Ink Spots. By the way, Hank Williams favorite singers happened to be the Ink Spots. Hank’s second wife, Billy Jean told David Farmer, who was co-host with me on the international radio show, “The Country Connection Show” that Hank had every single record released by Bill Kenney and the Ink Spots. Hank attended many performances by the Ink Spots. Hank even wrote a song called “If I Didn’t Love You” as a tribute to the Ink Spots. If you want to listen to it just type in “If I didn’t Love You” by Hank Williams on YouTube and enjoy. The recording is from Hanks’ Mother’s Best Shows which aired in the early 1950’s on WSM Radio Nashville, Tennessee.
Now Sarah Vaughn’s “Broken Hearted Melody” is playing on YouTube. This song was a big hit for Sarah and was at its peak in August of 1959. It takes me back in my memory to a time that seems so far removed from my life today.
In late August we (my family) would be cutting tobacco, hauling it to the barn, hanging it to cure, working daylight to dark to get the tobacco in the barn and hope no rain or bad weather ’til it was protected by the barn. In 1959, most East Tennessee rural families went through August working tobacco, digging potatoes, onions, storing them for the winter, cutting firewood and taking our last swims in Norris Lake.
Next on the list was picking up walnuts as they fell from the trees. Picking them up so Dad’s truck could drive over them breaking the hulls from the nuts. The walnuts brought only five to eight cents per pound. But we boys always collected and dried enough to pay for one pair of Stone Mountain Brogan shoes for the winter. We always got the one pair of shoes around October 15th, which is the usual date for the first frost here in East Tennessee. When the shoes wore out then it was barefoot ’til next October.
Today’s kids have no idea of how only two generations before we had to live. But we were taught to work, taught respect for other people, to take care of what few things we had, not to be self-conscious, to speak to our elders with respect, to be honest in dealings and to go the extra 10% on our work.
The generation before ours had 18- to 19-year-old men flying captain, co-pilot, navigator on B-17 bombers with 10,000 pounds of bombs during WWII. Today’s upper teen boys can’t even mow their parents’ yards with riding lawn mowers. Check out the new so-called subdivisions and see who does the mowing. The parents are shelling out a few hundred dollars a month while the boys are playing video games in their bedrooms. Moms and dads are to blame. Who else could it be?
Today’s Americans need to listen to “Skip a Rope,” a #1 1968 country hit by Henson Cargill. The song says it all.
Well, I’ll be saying farewell to my friends the hummingbirds until next spring when they will come through my yard and stay a few days to R&R while on their way home. Have a good trip to warmer winter quarters and visit again next spring.
See you next month.