In the past two years, numerous overlooked greats of 1950s and ’60s country have received some measure of recognition with well-received career-retrospective CDs. Among the artists who’ve received long-overdue compilations are Jean Shepard, Wynn Stewart, Faron Young, and Little Jimmy Dickens. But one figure has appeared repeatedly on collectors’ wish lists, to no avail: Johnny Paycheck.
To a generation of ’70s beer-joint jukebox hounds, Paycheck is best known for his career-making 1977 version of “Take This Job and Shove It,” the success of which nudged him over the line into cartoonish outlaw chest-beating. But between 1964 and 1968, for the Hilltop and Little Darlin’ labels, Paycheck and producer Aubrey Mayhew cut some of the spookiest, wildest, most twisted honky-tonk singles and LPs ever recorded. Great as they are, these records have been unavailable for decades, only to be guarded among collectors as jealously as an initiation ritual.
After years in limbo, they’re gathered on an absolutely essential new Country Music Foundation collection, The Real Mr. Heartache: The Little Darlin’ Years, which arrives in stores this week. Worth owning simply for the CD booklet’s back cover—a killer photo of Paycheck sitting at a well-stocked bar, frying holes in the camera lens with his eyes—The Real Mr. Heartache restores Paycheck to his rightful place among the era’s finest honky-tonk singers.
Paycheck had a high, distinctive voice of piercing intensity: When he sang a classic weeper like “Apartment #9” (which he cowrote) or the amazing “He’s in a Hurry (To Get Home to My Wife),” his bottomless guilt and despondency made standard torch-song masochism sound like a bad-hair day. Give him a grim example of what the CMF’s Daniel Cooper refers to as “rubber-room country,” however—the flabbergasting “(Like Me) You’ll Recover in Time,” which sounds like Brian Eno recording Porter Wagoner in the bowels of Bedlam, or the notorious “(Pardon Me) I’ve Got Someone to Kill”—and he offers a pretty good idea of the country album Warren Oates might’ve cut when he wasn’t swatting flies off the blood-encrusted head of Alfredo Garcia.
The tribute comes at a good time for Paycheck, whose roller-coaster life and career appear to be on the rise. His fortunes declined precipitously in the late 1980s, when he served a prison stretch in Ohio for a barroom shooting in 1985. However, at a surprise gig at Wolfy’s earlier this month, Paycheck looked hearty, and he previewed a handful of new songs with renewed lust and fire. Get him the right producer—Steve Earle? Mark Nevers? Rick Rubin?—and a label that knows its ass from a CD tray, and Paycheck sounds fully capable of hitting his stride once again. Picking up a copy of The Real Mr. Heartache is a good way to wish him well.
As the Three-Party Stooges slog to the end of an especially depressing campaign year, New York performance artist Judith Sloan brings her acclaimed “The Muriel for President Show” to Bongo Java’s new After Hours Theatre space this weekend. Billed as “the candidate for voters who suffer from an overabundance of ethics,” Sloan’s Muriel tackles the burning issues of the day. For an additional $2, she furnishes that old campaign-year reliable, a plate dinner—which, in this case, consists of a plate. Sloan performs Friday and Saturday night at 8 and 10:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.; call 385-0575 for reservations.
The Honeyrods will be a lightning rod for out-of-town record execs this weekend. The band’s new studio recordings, which show them progressing from Chili Peppers-style pop-funk to a more tuneful style of college rock, have attracted attention from record companies based in New York and L.A. At least three labels plan to have top executives in attendance at the band’s Saturday show at the Exit/In. Opening for the band will be Orange and Eye-TV.
Who Hit John, which just celebrated its second year together, performs another of its popular “Monsters of Pop” shows at the Exit/In Thursday night with Joe, Marc’s Brother and The Shines. Don’t be surprised if you hear some classic British Invasion tunes—these guys know their Merseybeat.
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