Today's Army Presents The Gene Price Country Express: April, 1974, Program 2

Obviously, this is just my opinion, but there's a drop in quality from the 1st week of April, 1974 to the second on the Gene Price Country Express. Sure, you're got two sure-fire hits with Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, but overall It's not as good as last week.

Also, you get some pretty ridiculous "boys-will-be-boys" material from Mr. Price who refers to Dolly Parton as "two of his favorite singers". Get it? It is because she has very large breasts and there are two of them! He's talkin' 'bout tits, boys! Let's all join the Army! This is hilarious on a level that was maybe unintended, though, because by turning this particular phrase, Gene has sort of insinuated that Dolly Parton's boobs are "singers", my mental image of which is both fascinating and disgusting. Oh, and wait'll you hear the hi-jinx that go down when Gene asks his "sidekick" (who is, you know, Gene Price doin the "grizzled old man" voice) for a "winch". Oh, how you will laugh.

BONUS: there's a terrible, cloying, syrupy, boring, stupid Bobby Bare song that's not mentioned in the program listing. Speaking of the program listing, here:


There's some odd sound stuff going on here if you listen closely, because I literally had to put one of my son's blocks on the tone arm to keep this record from skipping, which I'm sure is bad for both the needle and the record, but it's not really noticeable unless you're listening really closely. If you're looking for audiophile quality in your government-sponsored Country music programs from 35 years ago, you should probably just read a book or something. The rest of you, click here to download week 2 (of April, 1974) of the Gene Price Country Express!

Go Metric #7 (1997)

My stuff is starting to get spread out a little, but that's just because I'm finding people on the internet doing a better job at some of the stuff I am doing here. That's a long way of saying that I'm probably going to send all future music-fanzine-related posts over to the fine folks at the Digital fanzine Preservation Society. They just posted my scan of issue #7 of Go Metric! fanzine from 1997. You can download it here. You should take a look at the other stuff they're doing over there, too. It's awesome. Hooray!

Another internet thing for me to stink up.

I have accepted an invitation to post relevant things over at the WFMU Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban blog. I am totally excited about this, and I'll try to live up to the incredibly high standards set by everyone else posting there.

If you haven't already crammed that blog into your internet information aggregation program, you probably should.

UPDATE: I got my posting privileges taken away with no contact or explanation of any kind. Whatever will be, will be...

Today's Army Presents The Gene Price Country Express: April, 1974, Program 1

When I first worked in radio (at WKIG in Glennville, GA), we ran a few syndicated shows that were shipped on vinyl. We'd play them and then either give them away to any DJ that wanted to take them or, if nobody wanted them, we'd throw them in the trash. All the ones we had were the Rick Dees top 40 and a syndicated Southern Gospel program. I never took any of the records, but I really wish I had.

I was very happy when a friend presented me with the 2 record set of Gene Price's Country Express from April, 1974 (the same month I was busy being born). I have long maintained that the U.S. Armed forces are sitting on a GOLD MINE. I would gladly pay actual money for access to the archives, whether through a digital subscription or buying actual CDs of the Air Force's "Country Music Time" program specifically, but also things like this. Oddly enough, this record was once held in the collection of the Talladega, Alabama public library.

Anyway... This is the first of a 4 part series of all the weekly programs from April 1974 of the Gene Price Country Express. I'm not trying to be clever and "recreate the experience" or anything, I'm just too lazy to record all 80 minutes tonight.

What's on this episode, you ask? Take a look at this!


That Charlie Rich song skips once, by the way, but I was, again, too lazy to go back and fix it. You'll live. Also, check out that not-country-in-any-way-AT-ALL guitar solo in the Webb Pierce song.

Click here to learn about the benefits of joining today's (more accurately 1974's) Army right out of high school!

Nautical but nice!

My Friends The Strangers

Merle Haggard is great. Nobody's gonna argue with that, and if they do then they are wrong. I will repeat that: Merle Haggard is great. Part of what made his late 60's / early 70's output so rock-solid was the backing of his band, The Strangers. So, in 1970, Capitol Records released a record of The Strangers playing songs (mostly) without Merle. Of course, Capitol knew who was selling records, so Merle's on the cover and makes a few appearances on the record.

This is a really good record (even with a somewhat shaky non-Merle vocal performance), and listening to it reminds me of how good Merle Haggard's backing band was as well as how damned short albums used to be. This whole thing's over in less than 20 minutes. But it is 20 minutes well spent.

Click here to meet my friends, The Strangers.