Dirty Songs From the 1930s, Feminist Jazz, Rockin’ Blues and an Album-of-the-Year Candidate
Posted in Blogs, Filled With Sound | Tags: blues, fusion, post-bop
August 10, 2018 | Mike Greenblatt
Bear Family Productions has done it again: the German company with the amazing compilations has outdid itself with She’s Selling What She Used To Give Away: 28 Risque Hillbilly Songs from the ‘30s. Complete with fantastic 50-page booklet of lyrics, history and photos, the songs tumble on not only hilariously but with real back-porch Appalachian charm.
The sound has been considerably cleaned up: the fiddles fly, the banjos pluck, the mandolins sooth, the vocals get high and lonesome, but those lyrics! I wish I could reprint the 46-second Gene Autry shocker “Bye Bye Boyfriend.” Who knew? Ditto for Jimmie Davis, who, before he became Governor of Louisiana singing gospel songs and co-writing “You Are My Sunshine,” wasn’t above recording the four dirty little ditties herein, including “She’s A Hum Dum Dinger From Dingersville.” It all starts with those outrageous Bang Boys (“When Lulu’s Gone”) but really hits its stride with “Everybody’s Trucking” (guess what they rhyme that with?) by The Modern Mountaineers, “Let Me Play With It” by Hartman’s Heart Breakers, “She Wouldn’t Be Still” by The Pine Mountain Boys, “Somebody’s Been Using That Thing” by Milton Brown and His Brownies and, my favorite, “It Won’t Hurt No More” by Buster Carter and Preston Young.
