Songs about Alabama
Hello friends, Samm Bennett here, with a collection of songs inspired in one way or another by the state of Alabama, where
I happened to be born and raised.
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There are precisely twenty two gazillion versions of this song. This is one of the older recorded versions from banjo bluesman Papa Joe Jackson.
Hank, of course, was a native of ol' Alabam. No one would call this one of his greatest tunes, but there's some hella beautiful pedal steel in this one.
Love that guitar sound...
Appropriately primitive bit of rockabilly from 1958.
Poor Rod was framed for murder, darn it, and wound up in an Alabama jail. Odd little vocal performance, and some curiously, wanderingly inventive guitar solo bits. Also worth noting that 1958 seemed a bit of a boom year for Alabama songs...
Earl Scott, he's a "hard workin' Alabama man". But am I hearing that first line right? "I'm an Alabama man no bigger than a mite..." Really? A mite?
The great Charley Patton! Here's my version of this tune (performed with the Ghost Steppers). Oh, and here's another.
Love the look of this video, mainly.
So cool how how they take their sweet time with the intro to
this tune. And the message? I feel it, y'all, I feel it. The Louvins got a good un' for ya...
Now, I'm just getting started with this collection, y'all, so check back in again soon, cause there'll definitely
be MORE coming. |
"Alabam".Leaving off the last A is permissible.
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong with the old jazz chestnut.
Bluesman and "protest singer" J.B. Lenoir makes it perfectly clear what he thinks of the Heart of Dixie.
Characteristically tight harmonies from the Delmore Brothers who, like Hank Williams, were Alabama natives. "Alabama my own, I'm coming back home..."
Some countryfied rockabilly here from one Hank Mathews, whose vocal phrasing wasn't exactly, um... in the pocket. Don't think ol' Hank had any pockets. If a man were to cross picket lines as much as Hank crosses bar lines, well, he'd be dead.. And listen to him fly way out of bounds on that last note!
Haha! Go, Hank, go! Yours truly, with a question... tell me where's my baby?
Peppy little country-fried number from Wilf Carter. "... we don't go in for fancy bars, we get our kicks from the old fruit jars".
Lotte Lenya's version of this quirky classic is still far and away the best.
Love Jerry's delivery here. Killer bari sax rhythm work too!
Love those minor chords.
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