Tuesday, April 09, 2019

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....

5 comments:

  1. Incidentally, said song was released on Stax, and Chris Bell, of Big Star, plays guitar on it.

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  2. Your headphones are in the refrigerator. Behind the OJ.

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  3. Interesting guy. Checkout his website:
    http://www.terrymanning.com/index.html

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  4. You can hear the "Ardent" sound and vibe from the getgo. As noted, Chris Bell plays guitar, and the drummer is Richard Rosebrough, who played on Chris's solo work and Big Star's "Third". Terry was tangental to Big Star in more ways than one.

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  5. Richard Rosebrough also played drums on two or three of the tracks on Big Star's second album (RADIO CITY) as well. We didn't know it at the time but that album was a combination of sessions that Alex Chilton did with a couple of different sets of musicians.

    Chris E.

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