quote:
Jesse Lee "Arkie" Shibley (born Jesse Lee Shibley, 21 September 1914, Van Buren, Arkansas - d. September 1975, Van Buren, Arkansas) was a country singer who recorded the original version of "Hot Rod Race" in 1950. The record was important because "it introduced automobile racing into popular music and underscored the car's relevance to American culture, particularly youth culture."

quote:
"Hot Rod Race" prompted the even more successful answer song "Hot Rod Lincoln", a hit for Charlie Ryan (recorded 1955 and 1959, charted 1960, #33 pop), Johnny Bond (1960, #26 pop) and Commander Cody (1972, #9 pop). Shibley's record also directly influenced Chuck Berry's "Maybellene", Gene Vincent's "Race With The Devil", and the succession of hot rod records by the Beach Boys and others in the early 1960s.

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Posted by Kafka

I am the moral conscience of TD

Member since Jul 2007

142507 posts

Posted on 9/3/13 at 10:29 pm to Kafka

Just finished reading this:

A MUST read for anyone interested in roots music. Charlie Louvin pulls no punches; interestingly, the book's style has not been edited to death. So we get some very salty language and unconventional grammar.

Charlie on modern country music:

quote:
The change in country music was beginning to take effect, and my days were numbered. Chet Atkins always used to say that he carried country music uptown, and he did. But in the same sentence, he’d continue, “And maybe we carried it too far.”

Beginning in the 1980s, most country artists were crossover artists. It was a complete top-to-
bottom turnover in the kind of music you hear on
country radio stations, and we still haven’t
recovered. Country music ain’t country music now.

The so-called country artists now get it as close to pop and rock as they can and still call it country. I got tired of playing their game, so I didn’t record anything, except for one tribute album to Jim and Jesse McReynolds, for two decades.

The Opry hasn’t fared any better. The longer you’ve been at the Opry, the worse they treat you. That’s the truth of it. They treat you ten times worse than they treat the people who come onstage with one song out. But they’re the boss and it’s their Opry, and they’ll tell you in a New York minute, “If you don’t like it, go somewhere where they run a show you like.” They’d be happy if every one of us old-timers dropped dead tomorrow . But I’m gonna be just like a bad tooth. I’m gonna hang in there so’s I can annoy as many of them as I can.