By HP pop culture guru Pat Reeder
Thursday night, my wife/co-writer Laura Ainsworth and I attended a fantastic show by the Malpass Brothers (Chris and Taylor.) If you love real traditional country music (Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Lefty Frizzell, Buck Owens, etc.), then you MUST see them. In addition to the great music, they’re funnier than most modern comedians.
After the show, we visited with Chris (best wishes to Taylor, whom we hope is over the food poisoning that was the butt of jokes throughout the show.) Chris signed a CD for us, and he talked of how much they loved the show and appreciated the boost it gave to their career. So I told him we would make this a Malpass Weekend. Here’s a look back at that historic interview from “Huckabee” on TBN, at a time when they were still splitting their time between making music and fixing transmissions at a North Carolina garage. All their music is authentic, but especially when they sing “Working Man Blues.”
To kick off our weekend music picks, here’s their performance from “Huckabee” of “Road of Memories.” At the time, the album “Lonely Street” had yet to be released. That’s the one Chris signed for us, and it’s fantastic. You’d swear it was released in 1963, long before the Grammy Awards decided that America’s greatest country music artist was Beyonce.
You can find out more about the Malpass Brothers and find their music and tour schedule at ** https://www.themalpassbrothers.com**.
For our other picks, we’ll choose some music Chris and Taylor would love. Opening the Thursday show was their friend Jason James, whom Taylor calls “the closest thing to George Jones.” Here he is performing “One More Cry” with the boys on their RFD-TV show.
Finally, since the Malpass Brothers spent seven years touring with the great Merle Haggard, here’s one of his songs they performed live, “If We’re Not Back In Love By Monday.” It’s a reminder of a time when Nashville allowed artists to write serious country songs about real human problems and not just pickup trucks and wearing spangled chaps (we’re back to Beyonce again.)
By HP pop culture guru Pat Reeder
As someone who began my career in small town country radio, I’m very sad to report that country music Hall of Famer John Anderson has died at 71. His family issued a statement that didn’t reveal the cause of death, but asked for prayers and called him their “beloved husband, father, grandfather, and best friend,” and the “heart of our family: “To the world, he was a gifted country music singer whose voice and songs touched countless lives. To us, he was so much more.”
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/john-anderson-country-music-hall-famer-dead-71
Anderson first came to fame in the early ‘80s when his music was part of a return to the traditional country sound. His early hits included “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal” and “Wild and Blue,” with his massive breakthrough being “Swingin’,” which won the CMA Single of the Year Award in 1983. Over his long career, he scored 20 top 10 hits, including five number ones, and was inducted into both the Country Music and Nashville Songwriters Halls of Fame.
As a reminder (or for younger people, an introduction), here’s a live performance of “Swingin’,” or as we all called it on country radio, “Swangin’.” RIP.
It’s the weekend, so let’s check out the Babylon Bee for some fake news besides the names of certain Congress members.
https://babylonbee.com/news/french-shop-owners-hang-hams-over-doorposts-so-rioters-will-pass-them-by
https://babylonbee.com/news/wnba-clarifies-a-woman-is-an-adult-human-lesbian
https://babylonbee.com/news/socialists-condemn-elon-musk-for-voluntarily-redistributing-wealth
Thank you for reading the Huckabee Post.
