Connie Smith

Born to Sing (Bear Family Records)

Available through Ernest Tubb Record Shops, or visit www.bear-family.de

Listening to Connie Smith’s voice is one of the most sublime pleasures available to any lover of country music. In the course of a career spanning more than 35 years, her rich and powerful instrument has dimmed little in its ability to blow away a listener—whether with depth of emotion or sheer lung power. Even if she’s not as celebrated as peers Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, Smith has nonetheless weathered the ups and downs of the music industry to emerge as one of the great women of country music.

Now Bear Family Records, the compiler of so many box sets of classic country music, has finally turned its attention to this great singer. Connie Smith—Born to Sing compiles every recording Smith cut for RCA in the first two-and-a-half years of her career—from 1965 to 1967—combining straight-ahead production by Bob Ferguson with material from some of the best songwriters in Nashville at the time.

When Smith signed with RCA in 1965, it was a classic show-business success story: A 21-year-old housewife and mother from Beverly, Ohio, becomes an overnight sensation. But as with all such tales, the full story was much more complex than the press accounts made out. Born Constance June Meador, Smith in her early years endured the abuse of her alcoholic father, the divorce of her parents, a string of moves between West Virginia and Ohio, and her mother’s remarriage (which led to Smith being one of 14 children in the combined family). In 1961, she married for the first time and began her singing career at county fairs and local fundraisers.

By 1964, she was a young mother, a housewife, and a regular singer on WSAZ in Huntington, W. Va. A meeting with Bill Anderson at a show in Canton, Ohio, would eventually lead to her signing with RCA, based partially on a promise from Anderson to keep her supplied with material to sing.

And sing she did. Right from her first session, when she recorded such perfectly wrought gems of domestic heartbreak as Bill Anderson’s “Once a Day” and “The Threshold,” Smith demonstrated her unparalleled ability to pack megatons of sheer emotional power into a lyric. All the while, her vocals were showcased by the clear, crisp, stripped-down sound of Bob Ferguson’s production, which played the emotional punch of Smith’s vocals against the bright, acrobatic steel guitar of Weldon Myrick.

Over the next couple years, Smith would go on to record the tracks featured on Born to Sing, including more material from Bill Anderson, along with songs by Dallas Frazier and other top Nashville tunesmiths. She would also lend her voice to country classics, gospel, pop songs, and even a handful of French-language covers of her early hits.

Of particular joy here are sessions for the 1966 album Connie Smith Sings Great Sacred Songs, which she considered “country songs with sacred words” instead of true gospel. As with her “straight” country songs, Smith poured every ounce of emotion into her delivery. Other standouts are the songs she cut for Connie in the Country, which featured the diminutive singer tearing up country favorites, including a fitting cover of Little Jimmy Dickens’ “I’m Little But I’m Loud.”

While Smith conquered just about any type of song given her, the themes at which she truly excelled, and to which she returned time and time again, were the twin notions of survival and salvation. Many of her contemporaries cut out their own niches in country music—Wynette with her musical postcards from the pits of despair, Lynn with her feisty anthems of feminine strength—but Smith’s vocals worked best relating stories of sadness and heartache that may not be conquered, but will be weathered. It’s a legacy she inherited from such grand women of country as Sara Carter and Kitty Wells. These interlocked themes manifest themselves in many ways—echoing through the stoic acceptance of a love lost in “Tiny Blue Transistor Radio,” in the wry denial of “I Can’t Remember,” even in the hardheaded refusal to give up on troubled love in “I Can Turn Your World Around.”

It’s astounding enough that there isn’t one true clunker among the 127 tracks on Born to Sing, but even more amazing is the fact that so many great songs were recorded in such a short span of time. And almost every track was released, with very few staying “in the can” to be unearthed for Bear Family’s box set. It’s a sad commentary on the current state of the music industry in Nashville that some artists now take two or three years just to record one album of 10 or 11 tracks.

As is usual for Bear Family releases, the sound quality and the packaging are first-rate. Nashville-based music journalist and Bear Family regular Colin Escott provides the biographical liner notes, with a particular emphasis on anecdotes from the recording sessions featured in the set. My only real complaint here is the arbitrary cutoff date on the scope of the box set, which leaves the listener wanting more. While it’s true that Smith’s vocals were best served by the stripped-down production on her earliest recordings, even the overproduction of her later, more “countrypolitan” work couldn’t dampen the force and clarity of her vocals. But until a follow-up box set comes out—and knowing Bear Family, there’ll be one—Born to Sing offers as much Connie Smith as any country fan could hope to hear.

—Randy Fox

Hillbilly Hollywood

The popularity of the DVD format has led to some head-scratching, if intriguing, recent releases. While many acknowledged classics still aren’t available in the digital video format, many super-obscure films have managed to find their way to the shelves. Witness two discs recently released by Rhino Home Video that give the country fan a chance not only to hear Connie Smith in her prime, but also to see her, along with a mob scene of other country legends.

In 1967, Marty Robbins teamed up with low-budget movie producer Robert Patrick to produce two country-music-centered movies for the Southern drive-in circuit. The first, Road to Nashville, is a nearly plot-free parade of one great country act after another. The setup is provided by comedian Doodles Weaver, who as “Colonel Beetlebomb” is sent to Music City to audition talent for a big “picture in Nashville.” After being picked up from the Nashville airport by Connie Smith, Colonel and Connie travel around in a convertible to witness “auditions” from the likes of Robbins, Webb Pierce, Waylon Jennings, Kitty Wells, Faron Young, Lefty Frizzell, Bill Anderson, Dottie West, Hank Snow, Porter Wagoner, Johnny Cash, the Carter Family, and many more. Smith also performs herself—in a gold lamé pantsuit (ah, the ’60s).

Rhino’s second feature, Hell on Wheels, doesn’t feature as much country music but compensates with two other classic elements of “hillbilly drive-in” movies—stock-car racing and moonshine running. The film stars Marty Robbins and B-movie fave John Ashley as competing brothers who finally settle their differences on and off the racetrack. In addition to fine musical moments by Robbins, Smith, and the Stoneman Family, the movie also provides plenty of footage of the Nashville Motor Raceway in its heyday.

Both movies are presented full-frame from worn but decent prints, and chapter stops are placed at all the musical numbers—which makes skipping the plot easy to do. And at a $9.95 list price for each disc, they’re a better bargain than if you’d smuggled all your friends into the drive-in in the trunk of your car.

—Randy Fox

Hi times

Saxophonist Ace Cannon and bassist Bill Black are two of the lesser-known contributors to the emerging rock scene of the ’50s. But both were major players at Sun studios when Sam Phillips was conducting the experiments that would radically change American music.

Most rock fans are aware of Black’s contributions to Elvis Presley’s landmark fusion of country, gospel, and blues in the mid-’50s, but they’re unaware that Black was a flashy, entertaining stylist whose onstage antics included slapping the bass and ripping off huge licks. He often upstaged Presley during their early gigs until he was advised to tone it down—a request that ultimately led him to bolt Presley’s band in 1958 and form his own group.

Cannon, whose big tone and fondness for high, squawking solos elicited many comparisons to Boots Randolph, got his start with rockabilly singer Billy Lee Riley in 1957. He was later featured on the very first single released by Memphis’ Hi Records, a cover of “You Are My Sunshine” / “Tootsie” that matched him with drummer Johnny Benero and pianist Carl McVoy, a cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis’. Ironically, Cannon began as a singer but soon discovered he could make a bigger mark as an instrumentalist. During the ’60s, Cannon’s and Black’s paths intersected frequently at Hi. Cannon not only issued sides for the imprint under his own name, he also worked in various editions of Bill Black’s Combo, who were also signed to the label.

Black died in 1965, while Cannon has since returned to the North Mississippi area of his birth. Fortunately, their musical exploits are now being celebrated with two excellent reissues, The Best of Bill Black’s Combo—The Hi Records Years and The Best of Ace Cannon—The Hi Records Years (both issued by The Right Stuff).

These discs reveal both men’s discipline and musical focus. Solo space on their records was extremely limited, the melodies were quite simple, and Cannon in particular had to craft his ideas in restrictive settings. Yet, whether working with Black or heading his own group, he always managed to work in memorable riffs, meaty phrases, or clever quotes.

In addition, Black and Cannon covered a range of material. The Black date includes versions of songs by Hoagy Carmichael and Chuck Berry, plus stomping originals like “Smokie Part 2,” “Honky Train,” and “Twist-Her.” Cannon’s set mixes renditions of Willie Nelson’s “Funny (How Time Slips Away)” and Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” with his own sax classic “Tuff,” a reworking of “Columbus Stockade Blues,” and a pair of Lieber/Stoller R&B gems, “Kansas City” and “Searchin’.” There’s even a highly unusual, R&B-flavored arrangement of “If I Had a Hammer.”

Over the years, instrumental ensembles such as Booker T. & the MGs and The Meters have been celebrated for turning basic melodies and rhythms into unforgettable pieces of music. As these reissues attest, Bill Black and Ace Cannon did the same thing during their tenure at Hi.

—Ron Wynn