JOE SOUTH
Joe South (born Joseph Alfred Souter; February 28, 1940 – September 5, 2012) was an American songwriter, singer, guitarist and record producer. Best known for his songwriting, South won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1970 for “Games People Play” and was again nominated for the award in 1972 for “Rose Garden”. (More from Wikipedia)
Originally “Jesus music” or “Jesus rock” was not recorded but only sung among people at a gathering. Wikipedia mentions Larry Norman as a pioneer of CCM with his 1969 debut solo album Upon this Rock. Norman had previously been the lead singer and chief songwriter for a band called People! who had a 1968 hit with the Zombies song “I Love You”. A second album listed by Wikipedia is the 1970 release, Mylon – We Believe by Mylon LeFevre and Broken Heart; Joe South appears as a guest musician.
(July 2014)
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Over the past few years, I have found the first two albums by Country Dick Montana’s best known band, the Beat Farmers, Tales of the New West and Van Go; under his real name Dan McLain, he was the drummer for the Crawdaddys. The Beat Farmers are known as one of the best country-punk bands, and it is easy to see why. Then I noticed on Amazon.com an even better album by another Country Dick Montana band, the Pleasure Barons, called Live in Las Vegas.
The Pleasure Barons could be described I guess as a super-group, composed of Country Dick Montana, Dave Alvin of the Blasters, and psychobilly legend Mojo Nixon. Besides three Mojo Nixon classics – somewhat toned down from the original recordings and illustrating how well crafted Nixon’s music actually is – the other songs are mostly over-the-top covers of a wide variety of numbers, ranging from Mickey Gilley’s “Closing Time”, to R. B. Greaves’s “Take a Letter, Maria”, to Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?”, to Joe South’s “Games People Play”, to Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses”, and finally to “The Definitive Tom Jones Medley”: “It’s Not Unusual”, “Delilah” and “What’s New Pussycat?”. That album is more fun than any record that I have bought in a long, long time.
(Year 10 Review)
