Tennessee Ernie Ford
Sixteen Tons – His 30 finest, 1949-57
RETROSPECTIVE RTR4329
[78:39]
Tennessee Ernie Ford was a staple of the Country charts and rose to become
a star on American television – he appeared on I Love Lucy and College of Musical Knowledge in the 1950s. He was a Nashville
favourite and the tracks on this disc, recorded between 1949 and 1955,
contain 17 Top Ten hits and four number ones.
The title track is actually a Merle Travis composition, but it suits Ford
well and was, not unexpectedly, a Country No.1 in 1955. He slid lightly
through the repertoire. There is the Vaudevillian Country Blues of Milk ‘em in the Morning Blues – Travis plays electric guitar on
this one – and the generic Country Boogie of Smokey Mountain Boogie where Harold Hensley and Wade Ray are
the fiddlers but who is the pianist not noted in the track listing? There’s
some necessary yodelling on Anticipation Blues where Travis again
provides some neat fills on electric guitar – a springy, sprightly,
superficial number. Mule Train was a cut above and a big hit –
No.1 in the Country charts, No. 9 in the US charts – and soon he was
duetting with Kay Starr in I’ll Never Be Free. This was real
crossover territory which he cemented with Starr in a fantastically
up-tempo Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own – a number best
immortalised two decades earlier via the stentorian minstrelsy of Frank
Stokes.
By now there were novelty, populist additions to the roster, such as the Starlighters
vocal group and the Carr-Hops, who help Ford turn in a truly risible
Stack-o-Lee in Joe ‘Fingers’ Carr’s arrangement, for which
no penance will suffice. The Dinning Sisters had at least listened to
the Andrews Sisters so are much more acceptable even if the roster of
souped-up traditional fare and cod Boogie was beginning to pall. Fortunately,
there are still gems along the way - Hey, Good Lookin’ with
Helen O’Donnell for one and the ever-wonderful Ella Mae Morse backed
by Cliffie Stone and his orchestra. Give Me Your Word was backed
by Billy May, and pretty elite backing one would have thought, but it
offers a strange combination of quasi-concertante piano, odd recording
quality and over-butch balladry.
The Ballad of Davy Crockett
should bring a smile to the face and the final track, appropriately called That’s All and just as appropriately written by Merle Travis, has
some genuinely witty lyrics. It’s a vein that Ford should have pursued
elsewhere and dumped the commercial boogie pastiche, but then there was
money to be made in them thar boogies.
Nice restorations and pertinent notes from the ever-reliable Peter Dempsey
ensure another fine Retrospective.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents
1. Sixteen Tons
2. Milk 'Em in the Morning Blues
3. Tennessee Border
4. Country Junction
5. Smokey Mountain Boogie
6. Anticipation Blues
7. Blues, Stay Away from Me (Feat. Merle Travis)
8. Mule Train
9. The Cry of the Wild Goose
10. My Hobby
11. I'll Never Be Free (Feat. Kay Starr)
12. Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own (Feat. Kay Starr)
13. Bright Lights and Blonde-haired Women
14. The Shotgun Boogie
15. Tailor Made Woman
16. Stack-o-lee
17. The Strange Little Girl
18. Mister and Mississippi
19. Rock City Boogie
20. Hey, Good Lookin' (Feat. Helen O'Connell)
21. I'm Hog-tied Over You (Feat. Ella Mae Morse)
22. Blackberry Boogie
23. Hey, Mr. Cotton Picker
24. Catfish Boogie
25. The Honeymoon's Over (Feat. Betty Hutton)
26. Give Me Your Word
27. River of No Return
28. The Ballad of Davy Crockett
29. In the Middle of an Island
30. That's All
