Tales That Witness Senility

So the other day -- Saturday, to be precise -- for some reason I became obsessed with trying to remember a record I had written about at this here blog approximately a decade ago. All I could recall was that it was by a solo artist (possibly from Texas) and that it had been an interestingly weird cover of -- I thought -- a Buddy Holly song, and that it had originally been released in the late 60s or early 70s..

Research using those parameters turned up nothing at this here blog; neither did impassioned entreaties to various rock critics/historians of my acquaintance. It was driving me fucking crazy.

And then yesterday, while walking down the street to my local watering hole for lunch, it popped into my head unbidden in a classic Eureka! moment: Terry Manning.

And I mean a classic Eureka moment -- I shouted the name so loud that several pedestrians were unnerved enough to give me a wide berth on the sidewalk.

Anyway, here it is. And as it turns out it wasn't a Buddy Holly cover, but rather a revisionist take on an old Johnny Cash song.



Fortunately, it turned out to have been worth the effort, as you can hear. I was also gratified to learn that, yes, it had been originally released in 1970, and that Manning himself was in fact from Texas; he had actually worked with Bobby Fuller in his formative years, and cooler than that it does not get.

Now -- if only I could remember where I left my headphones....