Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

Category: Honky tonk

Bonnie Lou
Zeroto180

Bonnie Lou at King Records: Roots of Countrypolitan

Dave Penny‘s opening observation in the liner notes to Doin’ The Tennessee Wig Walk — the 26-song compilation taken from Bonnie Lou‘s King years — reminds me of Roy Lanham‘s similar quandary of being too jazz for country and vice versa: Too pop to be embraced by the country community

Read More »
Country music
Zeroto180

Notable Steel Guitarists Who Recorded for King Records

The steel guitar, it needs to be said, was the “special sauce” in early country music of the 1940s and ‘50s. From the soaring glissando and celestial, ringing harmonics to the scorching, breakneck single-note runs and big stacked chords, whose warm, electrified sound (uniquely) spanned the audio spectrum, the steel

Read More »
"Miss, May I Drive You Home"
Zeroto180

“Miss, May I Drive You Home”: Ends Badly For The Singer

Judy Lynn – “America’s Western Sweetheart” – would get her one and only 45 picture sleeve, tragically enough, for this cheerful-sounding honky tonk tale in which the singer informs us she has only seconds to live before the “kindly” stranger who offered a ride at the train station prepares to

Read More »
Honky tonk
Zeroto180

Blink And You Miss It — Nudie Recording Co.

“Nudie Bows Own Label” reads the headline at the top of Billboard‘s “Country Music” section in the magazine’s May 12, 1973 edition. LOS ANGELES — Nudie, who creates costumes for the leading recording artists in the world ranging from Elvis Presley to The Grateful Dead and almost every other country

Read More »
45 sides +/- obscure tracks
Zeroto180

Curly Chalker’s Dutch-Only 45: Party Game for Steel Guitar Fanatics

Zero to 180’s summertime celebration breezes right along with this parlor game for music nerds: First, launch a new web browser and point it at 45Cat — www.45cat.com(go ahead, I’ll wait) Next, type the name of ace steel guitarist, Curly Chalker, in the search window(and press Enter) Curly Chalker  (c.

Read More »
"Hi-Ballin' Daddy"
Zeroto180

Ann Jones & Her “All-Girl” Band

Is it really true, as Country Music Archive asserts, that Ann Jones And Her Western Sweethearts “was probably the first all-girl band in C & W music”?  Bill Sachs, in his “Folk Talent and Tunes” column for Billboard, reported in the November 13, 1960 edition — Ann Jones, King recording

Read More »
Cassette releases
Zeroto180

King’s ‘Country Done R&B’ LP

Just after I finished putting together the “Chew Tobacco Rag” history piece, I happened to have stumbled upon a 1964 King LP compilation – Top Rhythm & Blues Artists Do the Greatest Country Songs – that no doubt served as a template for the Gusto King cassette compilation, Country Tunes Done

Read More »
"Who Needs Your Cold, Cold Love"
Zeroto180

The Vandergrift Bros @ King Records

I really like the relaxed country boppin’ sound of “Who Needs Your Cold Cold Love” by The Vandergrift Brothers — a King 45 from 1962: “Who Needs Your Cold Cold Love” The Vandergrift Brothers (1962) Good ol’ PragueFrank – along with help from Michel Ruppli, et al. – seems to

Read More »
"Money, Marbles and Chalk"
Zeroto180

King Records Meets “Big Red” – Seymour Stein (Pt. 1)

In May, 2015’s piece about Guitar Crusher, it was pointed out that Seymour Stein, along with fellow Sire Records co-founder, Richard Gottehrer, had done production work on a Columbia recording in 1967, having formed Sire Productions the year before.  As Billboard would note in its chronology of the music industry

Read More »
All Categories
Archives