Root Hog or Die – Music from The Natural State

Big Bill Broonzy.  In 1989, Rand McNally rated Pine Bluff, Arkansas as the worst place to the live in the United States.  Blues guitarist Broonzy had figured that out in the 1920s and had left his hometown for Chicago.  From 1927 to 1942, Big Bill recorded 224 songs including “Key to the Highway,” which was later covered by Little Walter, Derek and the Dominos, and the Rolling Stones.

 

Jim Ed Brown.  Born in Sparkman, raised in Pine Bluff, Jim Ed had a #1 pop hit on the pop charts in 1959 with “The Three Bells” as part of a trio with his sisters known as The Browns.  Crossed over to country as a solo artist and reached #3 with “Pop-A-Top” in  1967.  Remains active in country music radio and still performs on occasion at the Grand Ole Opry.

 

Sonny Burgess.  Sun Studio rockabilly artist Sonny Burgess had a built in advantage when he performed in Newport, Arkansas.  Jackson County was the only “wet” county in the area; legal alcohol sales gave the area the most thriving clubs in Northeast Arkansas.  Despite dyeing his hair “flaming red” to match his guitar and sports jacket, fame never came to call.   The “Arkansas Wild Man,” who still has a weekly radio gig in Jonesboro, Arkansas, has stated that Ricky Nelson’s 1958 version of “My Bucket’s Got A Hole in It” was inspired by his interpretation.

 

Glen Campbell.  Delight, Arkansas native Glen Campbell has been the gift that keeps on giving.  In the early 1960s, he became a member of famed studio musicians known as “The Wrecking Crew,” performing on records for Phil Spector, Frank Sinatra, The Monkees, and many other artists.  He toured for a short time with the Beach Boys and played on Pet Sounds.  He had a string of hit singles in the late 1960s including the Jimmy Webb penned classics “Galveston,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and “Wichita Lineman.”  He had his own variety television show.  He would later become tabloid fodder with Tanya Tucker and gave the world one of the best mug shots ever produced.   Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, his farewell tour is scheduled to end in early November.

 

Johnny Cash.  The community of Dyess, Arkansas was established as an Agricultural Cooperative Project in 1934 as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.  Cash rose from a meager upbringing in Dyess to become a country music legend and, with a late game push from Rick Rubin, a near deity.    One of music’s most popular, enduring, and substantive artists, The Man in Black had over 50 Top Ten country hits, but those dried up in the early 1980s.  At one point in the late 1990s, I saw a flyer for small church gig that he was playing with his wife June in Topeka, Kansas.  I stupidly did not go.

 

Bill Clinton.  Played saxophone but never got a record deal.  My wife and I were walking from lunch in downtown Little Rock one day in 1990 and Clinton (then governor) was walking by himself down the opposite side of the street.  He must have had a lunch date (wink, wink…nudge, nudge).

 

Floyd Cramer.  Cramer grew up in Hutting, Arkansas.  A self-taught piano player, he became a studio musician in Nashville, tickling the ivories on many hit records including “Heartbreak Hotel.”  In 1960, he became famous in his own right as “Last Date” went to #2 on the pop  charts.

 

Iris DeMent.  The song “Our Town” by Paragould native Iris DeMent was used in the final episode of the television show Northern Exposure and “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” was featured in the closing credits of the Coen brothers’ 2010 version of True Grit.  I recently saw Iris perform “The Night I Learned Not to Pray,” which excruciatingly describes the futility of seeking higher assistance, since “God does what He wants to, anyway.”  I do not think that song will go into heavy rotation in Greene County.

 

Jim Dickinson.  He was born in Little Rock (and perhaps had a childhood sweetheart), but moved to Memphis at a young age.  Dickinson played on record with the Stones (“Wild Horses”) and the Flamin’ Groovies, but is best known for his production work (Big Star, Mojo Nixon, the Replacements, and many other acts).  His sons Luther and Cody carry on the musical tradition with their band, the North Mississippi Allstars.

 

Beth Ditto.  Lesbian front person Beth and her group Ditto are all from Searcy, Arkansas, but did not gel as a unit until they moved to the Pacific Northwest.   More famous internationally than in the States, their 2007 single “Heavy Cross” was a Top Ten hit in six European countries.  Their 2012 release “Move in the Right Direction” peaked at #3 in Austria.  In 2006, Ditto (whose real name is Mary Beth Patterson) claimed to have eaten squirrels as a child in Arkansas, stating that is a custom in the state.  Um, Beth, that dining experience may be limited to White County.

 

Evanescence.  Amy Lee and her mopey bandmates formed in Little Rock and have reportedly sold over 20 million albums.  If I type more than two sentences about this group, contact the Suicide Watch Hotline (hey, that’s not a bad name for a band) on my behalf.

 

Barbara Fairchild.  This Knobel, Arkansas native hit #1 on the country charts in 1972 with the detestably bad “The Teddy Bear Song.”  

 

Lefty Frizzell.  Lefty spent his formative years in El Dorado, Arkansas, appearing regularly on a local radio program before he was a teenager.  With his distinctive note curling phrasing, Lefty had five #1 hits, starting with the classic “If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time” in 1950 and ending with the 1964 comeback hit “Saginaw, Michigan.”  Also unique for his time, Lefty wrote or co-wrote the majority of his early hits.

 

Al Green.  The Reverend Al grew up in Forrest City, Arkansas, the son of a sharecropper.  The soul music legend had twenty five Top 40 R&B hits, his signature tune being the eternally moving “Let’s Stay Together,” which our current president crooned to kick off his 2012 campaign.  In 1974, Green was assaulted by an upset girlfriend who doused him with a pan of boiling grits, causing second degree burns to Green’s back, stomach, and arms.  Hopefully, the grits were topped with butter and sugar.  Plain grits are terrible.

 

Levon Helm.  You can applaud Richard Manual and Rich Danko and even (ugh) Robbie Robertson all you’d like, but it was the lad from Turkey Scratch, Arkansas with the beautifully gruff voice that sang “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “The Weight” and “Up on Cripple Creek” and “Rag Mama Rag” and “Don’t Do It.”  As an actor, appeared in Coal Miner’s Daughter and The Right Stuff.  Won Grammys for his 2007 album Dirt Farmer and 2010’s Electric Dirt.  Passed away in April of this year.

 

Sleepy LaBeef.  Smackover native Thomas Paulsley LaBeff had a commanding baritone voice and a big presence, standing tall at 6’ 6”.  He recorded for decades for Starday and Columbia and Plantation and Sun and Rounder Records with no commercial success.  Do yourself a favor and do a YouTube search for his 1968 way beyond campy film turn in The Exotic Ones, also known as The Monster and The Stripper.  Peter Guralnick, everyone’s favorite Elvis biographer, wrote extensively about LaBeef in his book Lost Highway:  Journeys and Arrivals of American Musicians.

 

Little Willie John.  William Edward John was born in Cullendale, which is now part of Camden, Arkansas.  At a young age, his father moved the family to Detroit.  Signed to a record deal as a teenager, both “Fever” and “Talk to Me, Talk to Me” sold over a million copies and John was known as a dynamic stage performer.  In RJ Smith’s James Brown biography The One, he quotes drummer Charles Connor, who chose to be in John’s band instead of working with Elvis, “Elvis Presley was great but, come on, man. I was with Little Willie John.  I’d already reached the mountain.”  John died in a Washington prison in 1968.  An excellent bio on John was released in 2011 –  Fever: Little Willie John; A Fast Life, Mysterious Death and the Birth of Soul, written by Susan Whitall with Kevin John (a son of Little Willie John).

 

Albert King.  Albert’s family moved to Forrest City when he was 8 years old and the early proponent of the Gibson Flying V became a traveling musician in his twenties.  In the late 1960s, he signed with Stax and released his influential albums Born Under a Bad Sign and Live Wire/Blues Power.  “Bad Sign” was later covered by Blue Cheer, Cream, Hendrix, Etta James, and by Homer Simpson on the album The Simpsons Sing the Blues.

 

Tracy Lawrence.  Tracy grew up in Foreman, Arkansas, moved to Nashville in 1990, and has had twenty two Top 40 country hits with eight of those going to the top slot.  He is the only artist in this article that has a bullet embedded in his pelvis.

 

Robert Lockwood, Jr.  Levon Helm reportedly played music as a youngster with fellow Turkey Scratch native Robert Lockwood, who had an interesting mentor – Robert Johnson lived with his mother off and on for a period of ten years.  Lockwood was mainly known as a sideman, working with Little Walter, B.B. King, and Sonny Boy Williamson (Alex Miller).

 

Louis Jordan.  The pride of Brinkley, Arkansas, Louis Jordan is one of the true musical treasures of the pre-rock era and his lively jump blues music serves as a precursor to the sound and attitude of rock ‘n’ roll.  He had fifty Top Fifteen hits on the R&B charts in the 1940s, including “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie,” “Caldonia,” “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens,” and “Saturday Night Fish Fry.”  Feminists beware – “The Chicks I like Are Slender and Tender and Tall” and “That Chick’s Too Young to Fry” popularized that particular euphemism as a way to address females.

 

Skeets McDonald.  Greenway, Arkansas native Enos “Skeets” McDonald was a late bloomer – he had his first country hit, “Don’t Let The Stars Get in Your Eyes,” at the age of 36.  “Stars” held onto the #1 slot for eighteen weeks in 1952, but follow up hits were sporadic.  Skeets is profiled in Nick Tosches’ indispensable book Unsung Heroes of Rock 'N' Roll: The Birth of Rock in the Wild Years before Elvis.  If it weren’t for McDonald’s hit, the world may be living without the Homer & Jethro parody “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyeballs,” which Tim McCluskey and I laughed about endlessly during fifth grade.

 

Elizabeth McQueen.  Thirty one different musicians have called themselves members of the western swing band Asleep at the Wheel since their inception in 1969.  Current acoustic guitarist, singer, blogger, and all around charmer Elizabeth McQueen is a Little Rock native.

 

Patsy Montana.  Patsy (Ruby Blevins) was born in either Hot Springs or Beaudry, Arkansas and grew up in the Hope area.  She became a regular performer on WLS radio in Chicago in 1933 and her 1935 hit “I Want to be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart” was the first million seller by a female artist.  She continued to work in the entertainment industry in the 1940s and recorded her last album, Cowboy’s Sweetheart, in 1995, at the age of 86.

 

Ne-Yo.  Rapper Ne-You is straight outta Camden and he has had five Top Ten pop hits, including the #1 song “So Sick.”  None of which I have ever heard or know anything about.

 

Doug Phelps, Ricky Lee Phelps.  Two of the original Kentucky Headhunters, Doug was born in Leachville, Arkansas and there are conflicting reports on whether Ricky Lee was born in Paragould.  The early Headhunters videos were filmed at the Cardwell Country Club in the bootheel of Missouri (the tales of sin and debauchery about that club are legendary).  Doug is still with the Headhunters, who are no longer on the charts but are doing critically acclaimed work.  Ricky Lee went into the family business and is now a preacher.

 

Collin Raye.  From De Queen, Arkansas, Raye had a string of hits in the 1990s, one of which was “Little Rock,” about a recovering alcoholic.  Unfortunately, it’s not as good as Reba McEntire’s “Little Rock,” which is about fooling around or Hayes Carll’s “Little Rock,” which is about a destination.  

 

Charlie Rich.  The Silver Fox was born in Colt, Arkansas and spent most of his life in Benton (near Little Rock).  An aficionado of jazz and rhythm and blues, Rich hit the pop charts in the 1960s with “Lonely Weekends” and “Mohair Sam.”  A partnership with producer Billy Sherill in the 1970s proved to be commercially successful (with chart toppers like “Behind Closed Doors” and “The Most Beautiful Girl”), if less than satisfying for the artistically ambitious Rich.  In 1975, Rich presented the Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year award to John Denver in spectacular fashion, lighting the award certificate on fire after Denver’s name was announced.

 

Billy Lee Riley.  “My gal is red hot!  Your gal ain’t doodley-squat!,” Pocahontas native Billy Lee Riley exclaimed for Sun Records in 1957.  Sam Phillips put his promotional muscle into “Great Balls of Fire” instead of “Red Hot” and Billy spent most of his life on the fringes of the music industry, a sad fate for the man that gave us “Flying Saucers Rock and Roll.”

 

Pharoah Sanders.  Free jazz pioneer Ferrell Sanders is from Little Rock, which is as weird to me as Ornette Coleman being from Fort Worth, Texas.  I always think these free jazz pioneers are from another planet, one filled with discordant gravity, heroin, and bongos.

 

Mike Saunders.  Little Rock native Mike Saunders coined the term “heavy metal” as a genre of music and later performed in the hysterically offensive Angry Samoans (the Samoans had one album cover that included a band member wearing Razorback t-shirt and another with the infamous “hog hat).  I sent Mike an e-mail years ago and he responded by implying that I might be a homosexual.  I’m not.  NTTAWWT.

 

Sister Rosetta Tharpe.   Cotton Plant, Arkansas is a wonderful name for a town, but maybe not as colorful as Pee Dee or Toad Suck (both of which really exist).  Rosetta began playing guitar and singing at church at a young age and is considered of one the first stars of gospel music.  Her version of the traditional African American hymn “Strange Things Happening Every Day” hit #2 on the R&B charts in 1946 and was later covered by Michelle Schocked, Johnny Cash, Linda Gail Lewis, and Tom Jones.  She toured the gospel circuit for many years with Marie Knight (the relationship between the two was reportedly more than –gasp! – professional).  Her shouting, stomping, testifying gospel performances influenced the rock ‘n’ roll that would replace her music in popularity.

 

Conway Twitty.  Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twitty!  At the age of ten, Harold Lloyd Jenkin’s family moved to Osceola, Arkansas and Conway would transition from an Elvis imitator (“It’s Only Make Believe”) to one of country music’s most bankable acts.  Conway could be a real creep.  Check out lecherous material like “You’ve Never Been This Far Before” or “I’d Love to Lay You Down.”  Makes Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night” seem innocent and pure in comparison.

 

Others with Arkansas connections – Howlin’ Wolf (worked as a broadcaster in West Memphis in his late 30s); Ronnie Dunn (there are some reports he was born in El Dorado), Dale Hawkins (settled in Little Rock), Ronnie Hawkins (born in Huntsville),  Al Hibbler (attended the Arkansas School of the Blind), Buddy Jewell (Lepanto native that won the 2003 Nashville Star competition),  K.T. Oslin (born in Crossett), Trout Fishing in America (the folk duo/children’s music act are currently based in Northwest Arkansas), William Warfield (born in West Helena), and Junior Walker (born in Blytheville).