Lefty Frizzell, "You're Humbuggin' Me" c/w "Cigarettes And Coffee Blues," Columbia 4-41268 (rel. 10/1958) + "No One To Talk To (But The Blues) [with Shirley Caddell]," Columbia 4-40938 (rel. 7/1957)

Happy Labor Day!

Columbia Records encouraged its country artists to at least try out rock ‘n’ roll. Their panic was less extreme than that of RCA-Victor, who tasked producer/guitarist Chet Atkins to develop a blend of country, pop and a little rock that was dubbed ‘The Nashville Sound’ and proved a temporary and needless blight on the music world.

Columbia’s long history of commercial success in the country zone gave them an assurance that there’d be demand for rural music, Elvis or no Elvis. They made forays into the Nashville Sound, but let their artists do their thing most of the time. But what could it hurt for their established acts to take a stab at the youth market? It might get them a pop hit; at worse it was a brief misstep that would be corrected with their next release. The public wouldn’t remember.

Thus, for the single before his 1959 country-folk classic “The Long Black Veil,” Lefty Frizzell, a Columbia country hitmaker since the early 1950s, took a jump into the deep end of the rock ‘n’ roll pool—with solid results. His playful voice—he was a disciple of Texas legend Floyd Tillman, and his vocals swooped up and down with impressive control—worked well for this more hopped-up approach, and he seems to have had fun doing so.

On September 12, 1958, in-between sessions for the LP seen in our marquee, he and a bunch of the boys let loose on a cover version of “You’re Humbuggin’ Me,” first recorded by Rocket Morgan a few weeks earlier. Morgan’s single hadn’t yet been released when Lefty did his cover, and it’s possible he’d heard an early acetate dub of the song. Morgan’s version, on the Zynn label, is considered a rockabilly classic and has been bootlegged—always a sign of musical quality. In the studio for Frizzell’s session were  Grady Martin, Hank Garland and Harold Bradley on guitars, alongside Lefty’s strummed rhythm, Charles O‘ Neal on steel guitar, Bob Moore (bass), the great drummer Buddy Harman, Floyd Cramer on piano and Jack Gregory (sax).

Gregory’s throaty tones kick this one off. Harman’s drums and Grady Martin’s guitar create quite the bouncy racket behind Lefty’s expressive, wry voice. The band works up a rollicking sound; Gregory takes a solo—a unique occurrence in Lefty’s discography. The only thing that could make this record better might’ve been a second solo break by Grady Martin, but in the hope of getting a radio pop hit, they kept it under two and half minutes. It’s a tribute to Frizzell that he handles this material with style; he understood that this, too, was a form of country music, and valid on its own terms. I wish he’d dropped a few more rockers into his catalog, but this was just a one-off to see what might happen. Cash Box loved it, but it didn’t get that crossover pop hit Columbia wanted.

Fellow Columbia country star Marty Robbins penned “Cigarettes and Coffee Blues,” and a stroll tempo accompanies this existential country scenario of a guy who can’t sleep due to a wrecked love affair. Java and coffin nails in some all-night diner are a temporary solution to his woes.

Floyd Cramer’s piano drives this side, along with Harman’s drums and the guitar army who noodle in the background. Frizzell plays this one straight, but he’s still hep to the jive, and his phrasing is bolstered by the Nashville cats. One wishes he’d done more in this vein—it suits him.

And Lefty did. On May 10, 1957, he did a duet single with Shirley Caddell. The sublime “No One to Talk To (but The Blues)” resulted. It has a doo-wah male vocal chorus, but they don’t detract from the gritty shuffle of this powerful bluesy song. Buddy Harman and Grady Martin are, as usual, in top form. This is a supreme triumph of the troubled Nashville Sound; every element meshes and is just right. Bonus fun for the holiday!

Tomorrow: Soulful vocal group The Vibrations on their rare debut disc for Atlantic Records from 1963. A jaunty Latin-beat A-side and a moody, ahead-of-its-time ballad brooder on the B. Ought to eye it.