Dollar Country Newsletter, March 2024
Russ Thompson, Gene Ragas, Hazel Kaleiwahea, Charlie Beverly, Moccasin Gap Quartet, Ruth Runyan
Well, What Are We Doing Here?
Howdy folks. What we’re doing here is making a change. It may not look like it from your end, but from my end things look very different. Since Dollar Country started I’ve used social media as a tool to reach new people. That was over 7 years ago now, and for many of those years I’ve wished I didn’t need social media, but I convinced myself I did. I told myself that without it nobody would care about Dollar Country, without a constant reminder in their feeds people would forget about it and I’d have to get a day job and give it all up.
Well, I think it’s time to make the jump, so I’m stepping away from social media in favor of sending out this newsletter you’re reading right now. There are many reasons for this move, here are a few of my favorites.
To reach the people who want to hear from me. On social media I often found that my followers wouldn’t see what I posted. No matter if I put a lot of effort into a post or a little, sometimes the people who wanted to stay updated just never saw it in their feeds. With an email newsletter I know that it is getting to you, and you know that too.
To be able to write and share more. I enjoy researching the obscure records I collect. With a newsletter I’ll have the venue to do short write ups on records and artists, and you’ll have the chance to read them. Social media often kept my most well researched posts out of your feed. Instead of being a tool to reach you, it was a wall separating us. And to be candid, it was emotionally draining to spend hours working on a write up of a record only to find that the people who might enjoy it never got the chance to. Additionally I’ve been contemplating writing some kind of book about private press and obscure country records and this will be a great way to hone my chops and build up material for that dream.
I wanted something slower. Our society keeps moving faster and faster. Media in general goes in cycles of 24 hours now, often what was written yesterday is forgotten today. We use social media like a bullhorn to yell out our thoughts to the world. Well I wanted to make something worth sitting down with. Like magazines in the mail, I hope this newsletter can be something you look forward to getting, and if I’m lucky then something I wrote will stick with you.
So that’s what we’re doing here. If you are getting this hen you signed up for updates from me. You have my thanks for wanting to hear about Dollar Country. Going forward I’ll be sending this newsletter out once a month. It will be available online and in print on paper (see below subscription options). I plan on sharing records from my collection with audio, books, essays, and any other things I deem fit. The radio show will keep going every other week, and that will be shared here too.
I have a list of things I’d like to do eventually that include having guests share things in their collections, writing a book about private press country, and doing longer writings. We’ll start slow and see what we can accomplish.
To sum up, I thought this would be the best way to share Dollar Country with you. And I guess I have one favor to ask of you too. If you like this, or you like Dollar Country, then let someone else know about it. Without social media I will be relying on word of mouth to spread the word, it’s worked for me in the past and I hope it keeps working.
Cheers
Franklin
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►Hey! What’s New In Dollar Country?
The biggest news is that my wife and I welcomed our son Wyatt into the world in December. We’ve been very busy taking care of him and acclimating to this new phase of our life, which is the first phase of his. I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been very difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible, but it’s getting easier. In January we also had to say goodbye to our beloved dog Bernie. I hope that everyone in their life gets to experience the kind of love we had for Bernie.
I gave myself 10 weeks of paternity leave and had five guest hosts do episodes of the show. Each person brought a different collection to the table and I was very happy with each episode. You can listen to the episodes at the website.
Since I was up at odd hours and was existing on little to no sleep I couldn’t do a lot of my normal projects. What I ended up doing is sorting through every box of records in the basement and pulling the things I knew I already had or major label things I didn’t need for the collection. This project took weeks, and at the end I had 20 boxes of 45s to move along (In fact I still do have a lot of them, if you want to buy a box contact me!). I also logged everything digitally so I could easily look for things when I wanted to find them. In a way this took the mystique out of digging for records in my own basement, but also this was a step towards more efficiency, with a kid I know I won’t have as much time to do, well… anything, so this is a good change.
►Collection Notes
Country Gospel LP Collection (Late 2023)
Late last year I was contacted about a large LP collection that was primarily small label country gospel. It came from a fairly large record seller that normally would have sold them piecemeal, but thought this might be a good deal for both of us if I bought them all and they didn’t have to do the work to sell them. It showed up on Wyatt’s birthday, I came home on a cold night after being up for too long to find 10 boxes of LPs on my porch. After everything was sorted it ended up being between 700-800 LPs. All gospel, bluegrass, and country. I’m excited to jump into these when I have the chance.
Mack 45 Buy (May 2022)
In May of 2022 I drove down to Texas to pick up a car full of records from Mack Stevens. It was a ton of Texas stuff on small labels with a lot of duplicates. Well this collection isn’t a new arrival but I did make some progress with it during my big paternity sort. Specifically sorting out all the duplicates so I can move them along. I hope to get a list together that I can share to sell these to other folks who might want some good country 45s in the future.
►Records From The Archives
Russ Thompson - Beautiful Arkansas Waltz / My Arkansas Baby
Year: Unknown
Label: Blue Bird Records
Genre: Country
Format: 7”, 45rpm
Beautiful Arkansas Waltz:
My Arkansas Baby:
Russ Thompson sounds like a mix of Mr Magoo and J Wellington Wimpy, and it’s amazing. Thompson and his wife Paula self-released a handful of singles on this and a label aptly named Russ, Paula out of North Little Rock sometime around 1970. This particular single stands out from the rest because the B-side, My Arkansas Baby, is an absolute ripper of a song, or at least the band is ripping along while Russ does his signature vocal style above it. He reminds me of those actors who no matter what movie they’re will play the exact same character. His vocal delivery would be the same in front of a 1920s string band as it would be on stage with Led Zeppelin, he’s the sort of star you can guide your ship by. Both songs were copyrighted by Thompson in 1967.
At first I thought the A-side was a version of the more famous Arkansas Waltz done by Bill Urfer & Slim Jones, but this is a different version. It’s also not a version of Johnny Mitchum’s Arkansas Waltz that was released on Rimrock in 1966. There’s a story behind this, in the 1960s Arkansas had a change of it’s state song1 and a few other people started tossing their hat in the ring with songs they thought could be the State Song, including many Arkansas Waltzes. Interestingly enough all three of them I’ve mentioned were all pressed at Rimrock Manufacturing in Concord, AR. As for the song itself, it’s OK. A nice waltzing love song prominently featuring Russ’s gravelly vocals.
Gene Ragas & The Panhandlers
South Of New Orleans / The Country Bomp
Year: 1976
Label: Shadow Records
Genre: Country
Format: 7” 45rpm
South Of New Orleans
The Country Bomp
"And the place I'm gonna go, you probably don't know,
it's a place called Buras, south of New Orleans”
South Of New Orleans is a reverb drenched tribute to Ragas’ hometown of Buras Louisiana. And he’s right, I didn’t know about Buras before this record, but I looked it up and now I do. It exists on a strip of land in the interconnected islands on the tip of Louisiana. This tune is just great, it’s got reverb and echo on just about everything, and the vocal delivery is carefree but not lazy. In a perfect world there would be more pedal steel played with echo just like this. On this release Ragas is with his band The Panhandlers who are based in LaPlace, LA, just west of New Orleans.
The Country Bomp was written by request. Ragas says that “teenagers at dances we play for were always requesting a bump number so they could dance.” It’s a good song with more of the same echoey reverb as before just with less storytelling and more guitar. It’s fun and there’s not a thing wrong with it.
The Shadow label has connections to Floyd Swallow and Flat Town, who released a whole ton of country, cajun, and zydeco out of south Louisiana. Shadow has a mix of soul, rock, and country from the few I’ve been able to hear. Ragas has one more release on Shadow that I know of.
Hazel Kaleiwahea - You Make Me Feel So Special / Mt. St. Helen’s Without A Place To Hide
Year 1980
Label: Hazel K’s Original’s
Genre: Country
Format: 7” 45rpm
You Make Me Feel So Special
Mt. St. Helen’s Without A Place To Hide
This is one of those discs that looks very interesting. It has most of the regular information but it’s in an odd order. The name of the artist is in the name of the label, where the writing credit normally goes is where the full name is, but only on one side. The extra apostrophe on “Original’s.” It just has the look of something privately made, because it is. Both of these tracks were written and performed by Hazel K and put out on Hazel K’s Original’s [sic]. Hazel was born in Arkansas in 1934 but at the time of this recording she lived in Washington and lived there until she passed in 1995.
My eyes gravitated towards the Mt. St. Helen’s song immediately because I always drop a needle on a song about a disaster. The music has the loose feel of a well practiced band playing it for the first time. It’s not hard to play but they don’t know it by heart. Both songs sound dreamy to me, easy to listen to but hard to focus on. In Mt. St. Helen’s Without A Place To Hide she talks about the mountain as if it’s having trouble dealing with new fame. “She sent her signal by the wind, across the nation wide / Now everybody knows her, she has no place to hide.” It’s a confusing way to talk about it, but once I caught on I really started to love it. I’d never thought about what a volcano would think of fame, thankfully Hazel K has. You Make Me Feel So Special is more of the same but the lyrics are a love song, endearing but overshadowed by the flip. For my money it’s all about Mt. St. Helen’s. In an article Hazel states she’s been writing songs since she was 9 years old, but unfortunately this and one other writing credit on a compilation are the only trace of recorded music I could find.
Moccasin Gap Quartet - Take Your Harp From The Willow*
Year: 1973
Label: Self Released
Genre: Gospel
Format: 12” LP
Beyond The Sunset
Not Even A Tombstone
The Moccasin Gap Quartet hailed from Weber/Gate City Virginia, just north over the border from the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee. My best estimate is that they began around 1961 and ended around 1982. At the time of this recording they were Lee Smith, Rev. Lubert Hammonds, James Thompson, and Kathleen Thompson, and although the cover shows a guitar and an autoharp I don’t believe the harp makes an appearance, which is a shame because I think it would only have added to the songs.
The instrumentation is sparse with only one guitar but the vocal harmonies are deep and soulful. One of those quartets that somehow sounds like more than just 4 parts, Miss Thompson’s voice cuts through the tones of the three men quite easily, often occupying a space in the middle of the sound as opposed to soaring over it. The group sounds very well practiced as they show off some complicated and quick vocal movements with no trouble. My personal copy suffers from a bit of surface wear that affects it but I can’t really say that a bit of wear and dust could do anything but add to a gospel record like this.
Even though I thoroughly enjoyed this record I can’t say any tracks stood out. The selected tracks were of similar tempos and feels, as far as gospel goes I’d say this isn’t breaking any new ground, but it’s an enjoyable listen. It’s also worth mentioning that the point of country gospel music isn’t to break new ground, but to share love of the lord, and in that they have succeeded.
Charlie Beverly - Miner’s Dobro*
Year: 1975
Label: Starr Records
Genre: Bluegrass
Format: 12” LP
Darlin Cora
When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again
My favorite thing about this album is that the artist blurb on the back is written by a local steakhouse owner. Joyce Casey, Varsity Steak House in Pound Virginia, says that “this album is a real pleasure to listen to,” and I agree. Of course if you wanted to read what the back of the jacket said you could just find this LP, but I think it illustrates an important point, that music like Miner’s Dobro is centered in the community that made it. In a big world we tend to think of music as global, but the roots of roots music is in the people that live and play it. The intent of music like this wasn’t to make it big and get rich, but to share something they enjoy.
Aspirations or lack thereof aside, this is a solid record. It’s instrumental but for two songs (No Room In My World and Darlin’ Cora) and does feature the dobro but isn’t a “Dobro Album.” There’s no spotlight on one player here. Beverly’s name may be on the album but it feels like a group of friends picking some of their favorites at a weekend potluck. The band, The Kentucky Grass (Columbus OH), is led by Lawrence Lane and featuring Keith Lane, Radford Vance, Bill Ratliff, and Jess Freiley. My assumption is that the band connected with Beverly because of where it was recorded, Rome Studios. Rome and Starr worked in tandem out of Columbus Ohio and recorded and released a lot of regional country acts from the area.
I was assuming a story of a miner gone to music, but Charlie Beverly was a private pilot and I can’t find any connection to mining here. It’s likely that Beverly had some familiarity to mining due to being from Wise, VA, but there’s no specific mention of it. The back jacket mention that Beverly was a “World Champion Dobro Player,” and I found a newspaper article mentioning this too but I couldn’t find the source of this claim. I did read that he played around the states a bit and frequented bluegrass festivals in the 70s and 80s, and even that he knew Dock Boggs. Charlie has at least one other LP and a single on Starr Records.
Ꞁ Book Corner
Favorite Ghost Towns
Author: Ruth Runyan
Year: 1968
Publisher: Self Published
PP: 36
This short booklet feels like a guided tour through the artist’s memories. Throughout 36 pages Miss Runyan tells us about nine of her favorite ghost towns in New Mexico with drawings. Each town has a few pages to itself and multiple labeled pictures of buildings and sights. Ruth Runyan was a multimedia graphic artist based in Las Cruces, NM. She won multiple awards for her art which included watercolor, painting, drawing, and mixed media. In addition to this sketchbook of Ghost Towns she also authored two other booklets of New Mexico drawings.
What I like most about this book is how intimate it is. I can’t imagine any major publisher, or any small publisher really, putting out a small sketchbook of someone’s favorite ghost towns like this, which makes it that much better. I’ve included the section on Mongollon above, and the whole pdf is at the link below. As of the 2000 census Mongollon still had a population of zero.
Ruth Runyan - Favorite Ghost Towns [Database Link]
►Upcoming Events
April: Country Night @ Little Rose (Date TBA)
April 23rd: Grog Shop w/ Nick Shoulders
June 19th: Little Rose w/ Chris Acker
►Upcoming Radio Shows
March 9th: DC Episode 239
March 20th: DC Episode 240
April 3rd: Dc Episode 241
April 17th: Dc Episode 242
Thanks for reading this, I put a lot of work into it and I hope you enjoyed it.
-Franklin
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Read the full story here: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/arkansas-waltz-7960/