Country Club 41: Almost Cheating Songs

Blogger Mick Hartley, who closely follows events in North Korea, is also a great photographer (and photo and a sharer of great popular music in various genres.  This week he featured the fine Randy Travis song "On the Other Hand," a really fine song.

It got me to thinking that there is an unrecognized country genre: the "almost cheating song." You can find many lists of top country cheating songs like this one.  The finest example to my ears is "Almost Persuaded," a 1966 hit for David Houston.


Wikipedia notes

 "Almost Persuaded" spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart starting in August 1966[2] and has since gone on to become a country standard. The song was also a moderate pop hit, reaching twenty-four on the Billboard pop chart and was David Houston's only Top 40 entry on the pop charts.[3]

 For 46 years and two months, no No. 1 song matched the chart-topping longevity of "Almost Persuaded," until Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" notched its ninth week atop the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart the week of December 15, 2012.

I'm reasonably sure that I heard Almost Persuaded in 1966, though I don't know whether it was country tune played on the (mostly) Wichita or OKC rock station I would have been listening to or perhaps it caught my ear when I crossed KFDI on my way from one station to another.

Regardless, it is a fine song and it has been covered by lots of artists, from the unexpected  like George Jones, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, and the Conway Twitty to the unexpected like R&B giant  Etta James.

It is interesting to note that James places the encounter at a party, while the original is in a bar room, a setting preserved (I think) by most country artists. There seems to be quite a few neo-soul women singers who have learned the song from James and use the party setting.  Female singers naturally need to change the "ruby red lips" lyric, but they differ whether the tempter has "baby blue" or "big brown" eyes.  

I found an interesting "Almost Persuaded" mix that has quite a few versions inspired by James.  Additional versions can probably be found by searching on YouTube, but be aware that there is a gospel song with the same title.

Otto Ruhle: Nine Characteristics of Bolshevism

Otto Ruhle, a leader in the German left in the first half of the 20th century, was mentioned in passing by Dan Gallin during a discussion of his new book Solidarity at last week's LabourStart's Global Solidarity conference in Berlin.

The name seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't recall any details. It turns out that Ruhle wrote one of the first Marxist books I ever read which was a condensed version of Marx's Capital, though it is understandable that his name didn't really register.  The thin paperback was introduced by Leon Trotsky and it was marketed as Leon Trotsky Presents the Living thoughts of Karl Marx . (It is online as Karl Marx's Capital.) 

There's lots more that is interesting about Ruhle. 
 
Ruhle worked closely with Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and was an activist in the Spartacist League. Later he was associated with the Council Communist movement and was an opponent of Leninism from the left.  An early opponent of fascism, he fled to Mexico after Hitler's seizure of power. In 1937 he served on the Dewey Commission which examined and rejected the Stalinist calumnies against Trotsky.

Of the many writings by and about Ruhle at the Marxist Internet Archive, one is particular caught my attention: the 1939 essay "The Struggle Against Fascism Begins with the Struggle Against Bolshevism."

Ruhle  ends his essay by setting forth nine characteristics of Bolshevism.

If one looks with critical eyes at the picture of Bolshevism provided by Lenin’s pamphlet [Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder] , the following main points may be recognized as characteristics of Bolshevism:

1. Bolshevism is a nationalistic doctrine. Originally and essentially conceived to solve a national problem, it was later elevated to a theory and practice of international scope and to a general doctrine. Its nationalistic character comes to light also in its position on the struggle for national independence of suppressed nations.

2. Bolshevism is an authoritarian system. The peak of the social pyramid is the most important and determining point. Authority is realized in the all-powerful person. In the leader myth the bourgeois personality ideal celebrates its highest triumphs.

3. Organizationally, Bolshevism is highly centralistic. The central committee has responsibility for all initiative, leadership, instruction, commands. As in the bourgeois state, the leading members of the organization play the role of the bourgeoisie; the sole role of the workers is to obey orders.

4. Bolshevism represents a militant power policy. Exclusively interested in political power, it is no different from the forms of rule in the traditional bourgeois sense. Even in the organization proper there is no self-determination by the members. The army serves the party as the great example of organization.

5. Bolshevism is dictatorship. Working with brute force and terroristic measures, it directs all its functions toward the suppression of all non-bolshevik institutions and opinions. Its “dictatorship of the proletariat” is the dictatorship of a bureaucracy or a single person.

6. Bolshevism is a mechanistic method. It aspires to the automatic co-ordination, the technically secured conformity, and the most efficient totalitarianism as a goal of social order. The centralistically “planned” economy consciously confuses technical-organizational problems with socio-economic questions.

7. The social structure of Bolshevism is of a bourgeois nature. It does not abolish the wage system and refuses proletarian self-determination over the products of labour. It remains therewith fundamentally within the class frame of the bourgeois social order. Capitalism is perpetuated.

8. Bolshevism is a revolutionary element only in the frame of the bourgeois revolution. Unable to realize the soviet system, it is thereby unable to transform essentially the structure of bourgeois society and its economy. It establishes not socialism but state capitalism.

9. Bolshevism is not a bridge leading eventually into the socialist society. Without the soviet system, without the total radical revolution of men and things, it cannot fulfill the most essential of all socialistic demands, which is to end the capitalist human-self-alienation. It represents the last stage of bourgeois society and not the first step towards a new society.

These nine points represent an unbridgeable opposition between Bolshevism and socialism. They demonstrate with all necessary clarity the bourgeois character of the Bolshevist movement and its close relationship to fascism. Nationalism, authoritarianism, centralism, leader dictatorship, power policies, terror-rule, mechanistic dynamics, inability to socialize-all these essential characteristics of fascism were and are existing in Bolshevism. Fascism is merely a copy of Bolshevism. For this reason the struggle against the one must begin with the struggle against the other.

 [Emphasis added and I've capitalized Bolshevism throughout.]

2014 Euro Election Posters from Germany

While in Berlin last week for the International Trade Union Confederation Congress and LabourStart's Global Solidarity Conference, I observed lots of election posters for the Euro elections which were held last week.

My theory was the party votes would be roughly in inverse proportion to the attractiveness of the posters.  The two leading parties, the CDU and the SPD, seem to have relied more on billboards, while the other parties had more posters.

Here's a defaced CDU (Christian Democratic Union) billboard featuring Chancellor Angela Merkel, followed by a poster featuring another CDU politician, and then an issue themed billboard.

 

Here's the SPD (Social Democratic Party) billboard, features Martin Schultz, President of the European Parliament since 2012. Previously he was leader of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, And their candidate for Euro Parliament President in 2014.

Here is a poster from the Green Party

 Here are two posters from Der Linke,  the "Left Party."  The bottom one also includes one from the "Pirate Party."

T

Two Communist Parties with terrible politics had great posters. Here is one from the DKP, German Communist Party, which considers itself a continuation of the historic Stalinist Party.

Here is a poster for the Marxist–Leninist Party of Germany (German: Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands, MLPD), an anti-revisionist party which still looks kindly on Stalin and Mao.

A poster from the Ecological Democratic Party, an ecological party that is also anti-abortion.

Finally, from the Euro-skeptic Alternative for Germany, contesting the Euro elections for the first time. 

Results:  CDU/CSU  35% (down 3%);  SPD 27% (up 3.5%); Greens (10.7% down 1.4%); The Left (7%, down .08%): AfD (7%, new party). The Ecological Democratic Party (.64%, down .1%). 

The Communist Parties got less than 0.6 percent of the vote, but I haven't seen any detailed results.

Country Club 40: Blame it on Texas

Steve Huey says that Mark Chestnutt's "style combine[s}George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Bob Wills." It has been a creative combination indeed. Chestnutt had five hit singles on each of his first two albums (1990's Too Cold at Home) and 1992's Longnecks & Short Stories). 



For tour, merchandise, and other information, check out Chestnutt's website.

Country Club 39: Iris Dement

Reviewer Steve Leggett hits it on the nail "Iris DeMent isn't a pop star, although she probably could have been had she been at all interested in playing that game. She's a careful, detailed songwriter with a confessional edge and a good sense of narrative, and her voice is a marvelous instrument that seems to rise out of the previous century."

Jason Ankeny writes about Dement on allmusic.com 

her independent label offering Infamous Angel won almost universal acclaim thanks to her pure, evocative vocal style and spare, heartfelt songcraft. Despite a complete lack of support from country radio, the record's word-of-mouth praise earned her a deal with Warner Bros., which reissued Infamous Angel in 1993 as well as its follow-up, 1994's stunning My Life.

Her third LP, 1996's eclectic The Way I Should, marked a dramatic change not only in its more rock-influenced sound but also in its subject matter; where DeMent's prior work was introspective and deeply personal, The Way I Should was fiercely political, tackling topics like sexual abuse, religion, government policy, and Vietnam. In 1999, she collaborated with country man John Prine on his album In Spite of Ourselves. DeMent recorded four duets with Prine that earned her a Grammy nod the following year. Her own recording career was on hiatus for the late '90s and early 2000s, but she returned in 2005 with Lifeline, a collection of gospel hymns. Released in 2012, Sing the Delta, her first album of original songs in 16 years, found her working again within the sparse and emotional quilt of her earlier releases.

The 'Victories' of the Cuban working class

Jimmy Roque Martinez, on the occasion of International Workers Day on May 1, wrote a very fine column "The Earth Trembles in Cuba" on the Havana Times website, one of the few outlets for independent writing from Cuba.

Thousands of workers marched across the Plaza of the Revolution in “support” of the Cuban Revolution and its leaders.

The Cuban working class is one of the few in the world that does not have to fight for better working conditions. They must only show their gratitude and obedience to maintain the gains achieved.

This International Workers Day the Cuban working class jubilantly celebrated several victories achieved. For example:

•  Having a wage labor system.
• That this wage is not even sufficient to feed themselves.
• That they do not own the means of production, although the state says otherwise.
• That they have a union they supports their employers and not them as a working class
• That their union federation supports the massive layoffs of state employees.
• That the retirement age was increased by five years with the support of the CTC.
• That a labor law passed four months ago, still unknown in its final form, eliminated the right to employment.
• That they will receive a measly pension.

Here is his conclusion

May Day is definitely not a day of celebration for the Cuban working class. There are many rights to fight for, much exploitation to eliminate.

The earth trembled in Havana, but with demagoguery, injustice and the exploitation of workers in the name of a nonexistent socialism and the strengthening of capitalism.

Country Club 38: the San Antonio National Anthem

For this weeks Country Club, something on the Hispanic-Country connection seems appropriate with Cinco de Mayo approaching in a few days.  The most obvious selection would be the great Freddy Fender already featured in Country Club #10. Fender was part of the supergroup Texas Tornados.  Doug Sahm introduces "Hey Baby Que Paso" as the San Antonio national anthem, which recalls the Negro National Anthem, the bebop national anthem, and the 2006 controversy over a Spanish version of the Star Spangled Banner.




Country music, though we don't usually think of it that way, is multicultural.  It isn't just the music of the Scots-Irish of Appalachia.  The influence of African-American blues has to be recognized and it often is.  But let's remember the contributions of German and Czech music--where do you think those accordions came from.  The Tennessee Waltz was written by a Polish American from Wisconsin!.

Traditional Mexican tunes entered the repertoire of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and  became country standards: the Maiden's Prayer (which actually comes from a Polish piano piece) and the (New) Spanish Two Step. Both the Tex-Mex and Tejano music styles have incorporated country with other sounds, though both have appealed primarily  to Mexican-Americans.

What will the growth of America's Hispanic population mean for the future of country music? 

Chris Henrichsen on Socialism

Chris Henrichsen, who runs the very interesting Approaching Justice blog shared some of his posts on socialism for May Day.  They are worth reading.  Here are the links.

 Why I am a Socialist. 

Freedom and Socialism

Against Capitalism

Counry Club 37: Pick me up on your way down

Here's Wanda Jackson, the first lady of rockabilly, singing a great Harlan Howard song that has become a country standard "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down," originally a hit for Charlie Walker in 1958. (There is a nice video of Walker performing his signature tune at the Grand Ol' Opry in the 1980s.)

Growing up in Oklahoma City, Jackson was discovered by Hank Thompson, taught to sing rockabilly by Elvis Presley, combined country and rockabilly on two sides of a single, had a career in straight country when rockabilly faded, and has been rediscovered in recent years.




Harlan Howard was one of the most prolific songwriters in country music history.  His songs include "Heartaches By The Number"; "I Fall to Pieces","Busted", originally a hit for both Ray Charles and Johnny Cash.and later for John Conlee. In 1961 alone he had 15 of his compositions on the country music charts.  Howard also wrote Joe Simon's #1 R&B chart hit "The Chokin' Kind", a million-selling record in 1969.

Jackson is still performing. Her website, which features a beautiful painting of Jackson,  has a listing of what seem to be 2014 tour dates. For more information on her extensive discography check out this page at allmusic.com and for compilations here.

The Smithsonian Channel has an hour-plus biography of Jackson called "The Sweet Lady with a Nasty Voice."

Country Club #36: is it okay to like a Garth Brooks song?

I heard "Long Neck Bottle" on the radio earlier this week, but as is the practice nowadays the deejay didn't announce the song or the artist. When I did a web search, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed to learn that LNB was performed by Garth Brooks. Brooks, of course, is one of the top three selling record artists of all time, trailing only Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

Here is a video of Brooks doing the song live with Steve Wariner who co-wrote the song with Rick Carnes. Wariner is given lots of space and there is a nice short scat-guitar vocal reminiscent of George Benson.

 There are some non-musical reasons to dislike Brooks, not least his partnership with Walmart. And, some non-musical reasons to like him, including his support for gay rights and attention to domestic violence. But it is music that is the real point.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes in an insightful artist biography on allmusic.com:

Garth Brooks is a pivotal figure in the history of country music, no matter how much some country purists would like to deny it. With his commercially savvy fusion of post-Merle Haggard country, honky tonk, post-folk-rock sensitive singer/songwriter sensibilities, and '70s arena rock dramatics, Brooks brought country music to a new audience in the '90s -- namely, a mass audience. Before Brooks, it was inconceivable for a country artist to go multi-platinum. He shattered that barrier in 1991, when his second album, No Fences, began its chart domination, and its follow-up, Ropin' the Wind, became the first country album to debut at the top of the pop charts; No Fences would eventually sell a record-shattering 13 million copies. After Garth, country music had successfully carved a permanent place for itself on the pop charts. In the process, it lost a lot of the traditionalism that had always been its hallmark, but that is precisely why Brooks is important. 

<SNIP>

Not only did his record sales break all the accepted country conventions, but so did Garth Brooks' concerts. By the end of 1990, he was selling out stadiums within minutes and was putting on stadium-sized shows, patterned after '70s rock extravaganzas. Brooks used a cordless, headset microphone so he could run around his large stage. He had an elaborate light show, explosions, and even a harness so he could swing out above the crowd and sing to them. It was the first time any country artist had incorporated such rock & roll techniques into stage shows.

In short, Brooks could be blamed for a lot that is wrong with country music today. At least, by those who like me like their country music traditional or neo-traditional. Still, Brooks some very fine songs, including Long Neck Bottle, and "Two of a Kind, Working on a Full House."

April Moon

Country Club 35: Brandy Clark Get High

Brandy Clark is one of a rising group of outstanding women artists in country music. I don't think they are selling as much as the current crop of male performers, but they are doing really substantial music. There have been some un-offical videos of this song from her highly acclaimed debut CD 12 Stories, but this looks like the official video.

Cuba Invites Foreign Investment But Bans Economist Mesa Lago

At the end of March, Raul Castro's Cuba passed a new law to attract foreign investment. Apparently, the goal is to increase foreign investment ten-fold.  Not surprisingly, the law was unanimously by the National Assembly. But whether this will solve the deep problems of Cuba's over-centralized bureaucratic economy is another question.  Within days of the new law, the Cuban government refused permission for the eminent Cuban-born economist Carmello Mesa Lago to speak about his new book on the Cuban economy to a program organized by Espacio Laical, a highly-read magazine of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Havana, which has been allowed a margin of space.

Sam Farber and others have argued that Raul and the other military-party elite have in mind a Sino-Vietnamese model of centralized political power and a capitalized economy.  The banning of Mesa Lago leads credence to that view.

The most powerful economic reform that Cuba could enact would be to break the political monopoly and allow real political freedom.

 Havana Times reports

At the beginning of March, the renowned Cuban scholar Carmelo Mesa Lago was invited to attend an interesting intellectual gathering in Cuba. The organizers – particularly Cuba’s Espacio Laical (“Secular Space”) journal – had planned to pay tribute to Mesa Lago, now 80, and to launch his latest book about the Cuban economy in the era of Raul Castro.

It was an excellent initiative. Mesa Lago is the most important Cuban social scientist of our time. He has an enviable academic career behind him, has published many important books and can boast of an expertise that makes him a world authority on more than one issue. He is the kind of person that graces an academic event with his presence, and does so with the kind of modesty and joviality that often characterize greatness.

Mesa Lago is so discrete that only some time later, and through other channels, have we been able to find out that the Cuban government denied him a visa to visit the country of his birth. That is to say, the Cuban government, instead of rejoicing at the prospects of having someone of Mesa Lago’s intellectual and moral stature visit the country, instead of availing itself of his brief sojourn among Cuban scholars, decided to prevent him from attending the event and enjoying the tribute he deserved.

Here is a 2013 talk by Mesa Lago on his book.



Some questions and answers from the same session.

Here are some remarks about the Mesa Lago book from a review by University of Pittsburgh economist Marla Ripoll

The sad reality described by Mesa-Lago is that the social indicators for the Cuban economy are showing a declining trend. Although back in 1999 the Gini coefficient was 0.41, inequality has most likely increased in Cuba. Public employees have lost their jobs, and there are no private jobs to go to; social spending has been cut; access to schooling has been severed; and taxation remains regressive. With a drop of real wages of 73% between 1989 and 2010, raising poverty rates are as much of a concern as raising inequality.

Not that inequality in Cuba, although lower than in Latin America, has been exempt of the two issues that plague inequality everywhere: gender and race. Economists studying inequality around the world have pointed at technological change as the culprit of its recent increasing trend. But leaving technological change aside, which may anyways be marginal in countries in which barriers to technological adoption still abound, what is left is a society in which women and racial minorities face cultural barriers to economic mobility. One would have thought that the equality ideals of the Cuban Revolution, the very ones that traded off efficiency and equality, would have been conducive to resolving the more fundamental issues of human equality.

 As Mesa-Lago concludes, gradualism of economic reform in Cuba is really a reflection of disagreement within the ruling party on how much market activity to allow. But I think it is also a reflection of the lack of an effective plan that would spur economic development in Cuba.

Here is another review at Americas Quarterly. And here is the book Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms on Amazon.

Country Club #34: instrumental virtuosos

There's a long history of country music virtuosos and few, if any, stand out more than the long-time duo of Speedy West on pedal steel and Jimmy Bryant on electric guitar. Here's one of their pieces.



Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, in 2011,toured a musical tribute to the music of Speedy Weat and Jimmy Bryant. He commented 

My first impression was, ‘Man alive! This is insane! The speed, technique….wacky! I’d never heard anything like it.

If you want to hear, there are some other tunes on YouTube and some fine collections on CD.

• West and Bryant,  Stratosphere Boogie  Razor and Tie collection
• West and Bryant,Flamin' Guitars Bear Family box 
• West and Bryant. Bustin' Thru: Flippin' the Lid 
• Jimmy Bryant Frettin' Fingers  3-cd set

BDS Factless Water Day Libel of Soda Stream

The BDS (Boycott, Divest, and Sanction) movement tried to make March 22 World Water Day an occasion to promote it's campaign to boycott Soda Stream.

There may well be a water crisis on the West Bank and there may be a case for boycotting Soda Stream.  But is there a real causal connection between Soda Stream and water problems on the West Bank?  Or is is just a convenient excuse to attack Soda Stream and demonize Israel?

You might have seen this tweet  on your timeline.

 

Not  surprising, since it was a part of an organized tweetstorm by the U.S. Committee to the End the Occupation.

 

 

I got to wondering about this claim. If one Soda Stream device "helps deny 71,622" Palestinians, things must be pretty dire since there are thousands and thousands of Soda Stream dispensers made at the factory.  And what exactly I wondered was the factual nexus between the production of Soda Stream devices and the lack of running water access.  Since Soda Stream production has been growing, there must be a growing number of Palestinians without access to water.

So I clicked on the link to see what the promised "more information" provided.  It took me to a page from the respected Israeli watchdog group B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. Funny thing, there was no mention of Soda Stream on the page of statistics about the Palestinian Water Crisis.

It turns out the number of West Bank Palestinians in 2011 who lacked access to running water was 71,622 or 2.6 percent of the West Bank population.  But in 2008, the figures were much larger: 188,922 residents without access to running water or 10.4 percent.  

That's a reduction of over 117,000 and 7.8 percent.

(Incidentally, before the 1967 war, only 10 percent of West Bankers were connected to running water.)

There is another thing that stands out in the statistics.  About 30 percent of the water on the West Bank is wasted due to defective pipes or theft.  This is a failure of the Palestinian Authority.

 

Political Duopoly Reconsidered

From Ballot Access News

TEXAS DEMOCRATS HELP GREEN AND LIBERTARIAN PARTIES
 
For the sixth time in a row, Texas Democrats are indirectly helping the Green and Libertarian Parties to remain ballot-qualified for 2016. The indirect help consists of not running a full slate of candidates for statewide office. The two ballot-qualified minor parties must poll 5% for a statewide race (or 2% for Governor) in order to remain on the ballot. When one of the major parties stays out of a race, it is easy for those two parties to meet that vote test. Texas Democrats left three statewide offices unfilled this year.

Country Club #33: PBR

Via Gene at Harry's Place who blogged about "Hipsters, rednecks and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer" who ponders the strange fact that today's hipsters and yesterday's rednecks beer of choice coincidentally happens to be Pabst Blue Ribbon and that conservatives have recently written books attacking hipsters and rednecks. (Greg Gutfeld’s Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You and Charlotte Hays When Did White Trash Become the New Normal? A Southern Lady Asks the Impertinent Question).

Johnny Russell's recording of "Rednecks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbons" was a hit in 1973.  



Lyrics

There's no place that I'd rather be than right here
With my red necks, white socks and blue ribbon beer
The barmaid is mad 'cause some guy made a pass
The juke box is playin' "There Stands the Glass"
And the cigarette smoke kind-a hangs in the air
Red-necks, white socks and blue ribbon beer
A cowboy is cussin' the pin-ball ma-chine
A drunk at the bar is gettin' noisy and mean
And, some guy on the phone says ill be home soon dear
Red-necks white socks and blue ribbon beer


No we don't fit in with that white collar crowd
We're a little too rowdy and a little too loud
There's no place that I'd rather be than right here
With my red-necks white socks and blue ribbon beer

The semis are passing on the highway outside
The four thirty crowd is about to arrive
The sun's go-in' down and we'll all soon be here
Rednecks, white socks and blue ribbon beer


There's no place that I'd rather be than right here
With my red-necks, white socks and blue ribbon beer
"There Stands the Glass" was a Number 1 country hit for Webb Pierce in 1953.  (Video)
 

Country Club #32: Under appreciated

Eddie Rabbitt is an under appreciated country artist.  Perhaps it is his last name, which is his real family name and, unlike John Melloncamp's stage name Cougar, not imposed by a manager. Perhaps it is that he grew up in Brooklyn and New Jersey and, by our geographic stereotypes. Perhaps it is that country music is taken less seriously than other American song moments. should have been a rock-and-roller.  Perhaps it is Rabbitt was an impure country artist, crossing borders, mixing non-country styles, rather than a neo-traditionalist,   Still, he made some very fine music, including some songs which could be considered neo-traditional.

Tom Roland appreciates on allmusic.com

One of country music's most innovative artists during the late '70s and early '80s, Eddie Rabbitt has made contributions to the format that have often gone overlooked. Especially in songs like the R&B-inflected "Suspicions" and the rockin' "Someone Could Lose a Heart Tonight," Rabbitt challenged the commonly recognized creative boundaries of the idiom.

And, he was a very successful artist.

In 1976, he started a string of Top Ten hits that ran uninterrupted until 1989. During that time, he had 16 number one singles,

Here is "Suspicions." one of the most un-country songs ever to reach #1 on the country charts.

It's even been covered by Tim McGraw.


Here's "Drivin' My Life Away," one of many songs based on Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" and Bob Dylan's "Subeterranean Home Sick Blues."

And, here, is "On Second Thought," with a video styled to resemble a country TV show from the 1950s or 1960s.

Claude McKay Explains Why He Opposed Communism

Writer and poet Claude McKay is listed by Molefi Kete Asante in his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. A key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, he  was also active for a while in the socialist and communist movements in England and visited the Soviet Union in 1922-23, attending the 4th Congress of the Communist International.  McKay was impressed and wrote an report "Soviet Russia and the Negro" which was published in the December 1923 issue of  The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP. Later McKay broke with Communism.


I am opposed to the Communists, not, like the Trotskyites and other opposition Communists, on account of their special opportun­ist interpretation of Marxian ideas, but because I do not accept the basic political ideology of Communism.

 (1) I reject absolutely the idea of government by dictatorship, which is the pillar of political Communism.
 (2) I am intellectually against the Jesuitical tactics of the Com­munists:
       (a) their professed conversion to the principles of Democ­racy, which is obviously fake, since they defend the undemocratic regime in Russia and loudly laud its bloodiest acts;
      (b) their skunking behind the smokescreen of People’s Front and Collective Security, supporting the indefensible imperialistic interests of European na­tions and deliberately trying to deceive the American people;
      (c) their criminal slandering and persecution of their opponents, who have remained faithful to the true traditions of radicalism and liberalism.

More important than the fear of Communists dominating the Negroes on work relief (especially through the talents of their colored members among the Federal writers!) is my concern about the Com­munists capturing the entire colored group by cleverly controlling such organizations as the so-called National Negro Congress.

Experience since the Emancipation should have taught the vari­ous colored leaders that it is a mistake to deliver the colored people over to any one political party. The colored minority has special prob­lems to face and should itself organize its powers for social and politi­cal preferments, similar to other American minorities.

It would be bad enough for the colored minority to be owned by any purely American party, as it formerly was by the Republican Party. But it would be disastrous if it were captured by a Communist Party, which, despite its professions to the contrary, is the highly-controlled Propaganda Bureau of the Communist International, which is dominated by the Russian Government.

For in the eventuality of a crisis developing between the United States and Soviet Russia, the colored minority might find itself in a very vulnerable and unenviable position. As a member of this group and also as a radical thinker, I am specially concerned about its future and the danger of its being maneuvered through high-powered propaganda into the morass of Communist opportunism.

Excerpted from a McKay letter to The New Leader vol. 21, no. 37 (Sept. 10, 1938), pg. 5   posted on Tim Davenport's invaluable Early American Marxism website.

Country Club #31: Patty Loveless

Written by Harlan Howard and Kostas, Patty Loveless' "Blame it on your lying, cheating heart " spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Singles and Tracks chart, reaching No. 1 during the week of June 19, 1993.


Loveless has had a long country career. She has had more 40 records on Billboard's top country list including five number one hits. She has recorded 14 albums. Her 1994 When Fallen Angels Fly was the Country Music Association's Album of the Year. It's a very fine album.