Rhythm & Western 3 Lovesick Blues (Various Artists)

Volume 3 opens with Lucky Millinder's version of the 1951 C&W classic "Chew Tobacco Rag" followed by velvet-voiced Jimmy Ricks (of the Ravens) doing "Do You Promise" a song he recorded in 1957. The "Queen" Dinah Washington gives a fantastic interpretation of "Cold Cold Heart" (Hank Williams) and Andre Williams belts out the Jimmie Davis stand "You Are My Sunshine". Tunes like "As You Can See" by the Chips, "The Big Rain" by the G-Clefs, and "Let's Forget About The Past" are de facto Western songs marketed as "R&B" only because they were recorded by African-American artists. Same thing for "Dog Gone" by Donna Hightower. I also included "famous" C&W songs such as "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds" by King Curtis, "Funny How Time Slips Away" by Jimmy Elledge, another C&W "classic" penned by Willie Nelson and recorded by countless artists. The Marvelettes are giving "Love Letters" a cool new treatment, "Ballad Of A Boy And Girl" from 1962 by Rudy Ray Moore and Jeanie Marie Anderson it's a "cleaned-up" version of a fun novelty C&W song the duo will re-record again a few years later. A "dirty" version of the song was included in Moore's X-rated comedy album "Eat Out More Often" one of the first records that featured the character of Dolemite. Composer Buck Ram (who also managed the Platters, Benny Joy, and many other artists) always claimed that "Only You" was originally written as a "country" song before he gave it to the Platters, who had a planetary hit with it on Mercury records. The version on this collection is an earlier incarnation of the song (without the famous "triplets" arrangement etcetera) the group recorded for Federal. It's closer to the C&W version Carl Perkins recorded on his debut album for Sun than the Mercury cut that topped the charts all over the world. I always try to show that Black Gospel is actually where most White Country music comes from and "A City" by The Pilgrim Jubilee Singers is one of the zillion songs that sound just like Country & Western.

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