Various - Country & Western Hit Parade 1962 - Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Hillbilly Music

1-CD-Album deluxe with 72-page booklet, 31 tracks. Playing time approx. 82 mns.

Nineteen-sixty-two was the year of Don Law. The forgotten pioneer of the Nashville Sound, Law was—statistically at least—more successful than Chet Atkins or Owen Bradley, and quite possibly more successful than the two of them combined. In the early 1960s, his roster comprised Marty Robbins, Ray Price, Johnny Cash, Jimmy Dean, Flatt & Scruggs, Lefty Frizzell, Carl Butler, Billy Walker, Charlie Walker, Claude King, Stonewall Jackson, George Morgan, Little Jimmy Dickens, Carl Smith, and although Johnny Horton was dead, the releases kept coming (in fact, Honky Tonk Man recharted in 1962).

Aside from his skill in assembling the finest roster in the history of country music, Law was willing to take chances. He issued Marty Robbins' El Paso when western music wasn't selling and Ray Price's hillbilly shuffles at the height of the rock 'n' roll era. He okayed Johnny Cash's protest song Ballad Of Ira Hayes and Robbins' Don't Worry with fuzztone guitar. His suave exterior notwithstanding, Law was a career adventurer. Born in London, England, in 1902, he went to Poland as a gun-toting cashier for a timber company and then to New York before ending up in Dallas as a bookkeeper for Brunswick (later Columbia) Records in 1926. There he met fellow Englishman Arthur Satherley, and together they signed artists like Bob Wills, Al Dexter, the Chuck Wagon Gang, and blues legend Robert Johnson. After a spell at Columbia's head office overseeing educational records, Law was a salesman before becoming Satherley's assistant in July 1949. He took over country A&R upon Satherley's enforced retirement in May 1952.

In 1962, Law's productions hogged the top of the charts for twenty weeks, and in February that year he made Owen Bradley's Nashville studio the base of his operations. He’d persuaded Columbia to buy it for a reported $300,000, and ran the label's country division from there as an independent fiefdom until his own retirement in 1967. Interviewed in 1966 by Gene Lees, he admitted that his personal taste ran to Scarlatti and Bach, "but," he added, "I've learned to appreciate this music. And I like it. I like the spontaneity and naturalness." There was even talk in 1962 of handing newly-signed Bob Dylan to Law. In his first 'Rolling Stone' interview, Dylan talked of meeting Law in New York. “I was about to record for him, and never did," he said. The pairing wasn’t quite as far-fetched as it seemed. A few years later, Law made a point of signing Sara and Maybelle Carter who were as raw if not as polemical as Dylan. No doubt to his great surprise, Law had just witnessed the re-release of the recordings he'd made with Delta blues legend Robert Johnson in 1936 and '37. The 1970 release of the second volume featured a front cover illustration almost certainly based on Law's recollection of the sessions.

Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Hillbilly Music

Country & Western Hit Parade

“Collecting an anarchic mix of sex and sentimentality, earnest paeans to family and fanciful tales of drinking and cheating, DIM LIGHTS… affords a fascinating glimpse into black-and-white ‘50s polemics… Established stars, inspired wannabes proffer an intoxicating brew of dancefloor honky tonk, hillbilly boogie, bluegrass, western swing, incipient rockabilly, goofball novelty, and sentimental country-pop.” (UNCUT magazine)

 

The reviews are in and everyone from Australia to Los Angeles to London is raving about Bear Family’s definitive year-by-year country series. Starting in 1945, DIM LIGHTS, THICK SMOKE, AND HILLBILLY MUSIC (COUNTRY & WESTERN HIT PARADE) tells the real story of country music record-by-record. The hits are here, but so are groundbreaking records that went nowhere at the time. This is the true and uncensored history of country music. Everything you need to hear, year-by-year. Stars like Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Eddy Arnold, Ray Price, and Hank Snow are here, but so are beerhall legends like Eddie Noack and Sonny Burns, and roots music mavens like Charlie Feathers and the Stanley Brothers, as well as overlooked giants like Carl Belew and Floyd Tillman. You’ll also hear the incredible original versions of songs like Duelin’ Banjos, Release Me, Lonely Street, and many more!  Every CD is full to the brim with great music, and they’re all individually packaged in hardcover 72-page books by Colin Escott that tell the story of every song as well as the broader music history of the time. Fabulous photos, original record labels, and period advertisements round out the packages.

Bear Family began its journey into year-by-year anthologies with its groundbreaking and award-winning BLOWIN’ THE FUSE/SWEET SOUL MUSIC series that tells the story of R&B from 1945-1970. Look for the series to continue into the Funk era. And look for a year-by-year Rock ‘n’ Roll anthology coming soon.

# After the volumes covering 1945-1955 were released, the word was out. This series is definitive, fabulously packaged, and faultlessly remastered! Everything you'd expect from Bear Family…and more!

# Jack Clement, who produced Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Don Williams, and many others, said, "This is the best country series of all time. No doubt. No question." Robert Hilburn in the 'Los Angeles Times'said, "An invaluable album project…enables fans to step back in time and listen to the radio just like Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, and Bob Dylan did."

# Now the story continues from 1956 until 1960. Every CD is generously full. Every booklet is extensive and chocked full of rare photos and illustrations, as well as complete stories behind the songs!

# In addition to the hits, the series contains rarities that went on to influence country music…and all music…in the years ahead, like Wanda Jackson's original version of Silver Threads And Golden Needles, Carl Belew's original Lonely Street, and Chet Atkins' influential Walk, Don't Run.

# This series is designed to introduce new listeners to the very best that country music has to offer… while keeping longtime fans entertained. Every volume is a fabulous time capsule.

 

Here's the story

For many years, we'd received requests to do a truly definitive country series, but it wasn't until the success of our year-by-year R&B/Soul series, 'Blowin' The Fuse' (now 'Sweet Soul Music' and soon to be continued into the Funk era) that we decided we needed to do something comparable for country music. The first volumes of 'Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Hillbilly Music' took us from 1945-1955, and now the story continues into the era of the Nashville Sound.

The series has been compiled with today's fans in mind. Sure, the big hits are there, but so are the classic performances that weren't necessarily hits at the time, but became influential in the years ahead. Every volume has incredibly detailed behind-the-scenes stories, fabulously rare photos, and an ongoing history of country music set against the backdrop of the broader American music business. The booklets alone are 72 pages! Definitive? You bet!

Superlatives are often overused, but we feel that this series is part of our mission to bring this incredible music to new fans ... as well as entertaining older fans. We pick up the story in 1956....just as country music was coming to terms with the upset of rock 'n' roll!

And, keeping in the spirit of the releases, some of the artists' listings are as they originally appeared - like Jim Edward and Maxine Brown and Bonnie, Wayne Raney - Raney Family (Wayne, Wanda and Zyndall) and Marty Robbins with Ray Conniff -  while the cd in each set is stored in a reproduction of a 45 rpm record label bag appropriate to that year.

Country music author and historian Colin Escott is responsible for these remarkable releases, an obvious labour of love that has taken considerable research effort, offering a valuable insight into the development of country music over the years. Many of country music's foremost entertainers are included alongside others who may have only earned a place in the footnotes of country music history, but all present a variety of voices and differing musical styles that have virtually disappeared, over half a century later, in contemporary country music's conveyor belt output. The songs were also different back then: sometimes relating to current events, they also regularly centred upon themes like boozin', honky-tonking and slippin' around, now generally considered non-pc in these over sensitive times.

Country & Western Hitparade - CD-Album-Series by Bear Family

Read more at: https://www.bear-family.com/bear-family/country-series/country-und-western-hitparade/
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