February 13, 2011

Playlist: Black Diamond Show Valentine's Day Special 2/14/11, WNHU 88.7 FM West Haven, CT, and www.wnhu.net

OK, kids. How could I resist? Valentine's Day falls on a Monday this year--and it won't do so again until 2022! So I had to pull out all the stops! The show has some old favorites, some new songs, some you'd expect, and some that I hope surprise you. A mixture of true love songs and heartbreak songs. There were literally dozens and dozens of other songs I could have shared, but this show was a lot of fun to put together.

How can you resist lines like "I thought my heart was fireproof/but you burned your way inside" (Flatt & Scruggs), or "I've got a humpty dumpty heart you dropped it and broke it apart" (Hank Thompson)??

I sure hope you like the show. Below are the details on these songs so you can find them, and a handful of notes. Thanks, as always, for your support!

Artist / Song / Album / Label / Date / Notes

• Don Stover / Black Diamond / Things in Life / Rounder / 1972 / Theme
• Flatt & Scruggs & The Foggy Mountain Boys / Head Over Heels in Love With You / The Golden Era / Rounder / 1950, 1977 / What valentine's day is all about!
• Guy Clark / If I Needed You / Somedays the Song Writes You / Dualtone Music Group / 2009 / A great cover of the Townes Van Zandt song. Clark makes it a cowboy love song.
• Jim & Jesse & The Virgina Boys / When My Blue Moon Turns Gold / Bluegrass Classics / Epic (Columbia) / 1963
• The Blue Sky Boys / Sweetheart Mountain Rose / In Concert / Rounder / 1964, 1988
• Hot Mud Family / Ashes of Love / Buckeyes in the Briar Patch / Vetco / 1975 / A classic Johnny & Jack song of heartbreak if ever there was one.
• Hank Thompson / (I’ve Got a) Humpty-Dumpty Heart / Vintage Collections / Nashville Catalog / 1947, 1996 / I'm a sucker for this kind of song. Sentimental as all get out, I know, but. . . .
• Lynn Miles / Fearless Heart / Fall for Beauty / True North / 2010 / There's something especially haunting about the way she phrases this song. One of the best songs of last year, IMHO.
• Hank Williams / Your Cheatin’ Heart / 40 Greatest Hits / Polydor / 1952, 1978
• Bluegrass Album Band / Hey Lonesome / The Bluegrass Compact Disc, Vol. 2 / Rounder / 1983, 1987
• Lefty Frizzell / All of Me Loves All of You / Look What Thoughts Will Do / Sony (Columbia Legacy) / c. 1953, 1997
• Louvin Brothers / I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby / Live at New River Ranch / Copper Creek / 1956, 1988 / It took me about a decade to NOT get choked up every time I'd hear this song. As soon as the stranger says "My sister wants to marry," all is right with the world. Cue the hankies.
• The Country Gentlemen / Tomorrow’s My Wedding Day / Country Songs Old and New / Folkways / 1960 / Not something you'd think of on valentine's day ordinarily. But heck, if he's not working today or tomorrow because he's getting married, there may be hope that things will turn out as well as they do in the next song.
• David Silva / September Bride / Moorpark Oasis / self / 2010 / No oboes in bluegrass. I know, I know. But on valentine's day, how could I resist playing a song about the love between a married couple, even as he notes the gray in her hair.
• Red Knuckles & The Trail Blazers / I Know My Baby Loves Me / Hot Rize Presents Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers / Flying Fish / 1982 / Ernest Tubb had a hit with this old Shepard and Canton song. Hot Rize made it popular with boomers like me!
• Charlie Feathers / The Man in Love / Essential Sun Rockabillies : Vol. 3 / Charly UK / 1958, 1999 / "I don't know why they say you're just a flirt, Maybe you like to see me hurt." Need I say more?
• Jamie Watson / Weep Anymore / Tell the Truth / self / 1992 / One of my favorite heartbreak songs since I first heard it about 20 years ago. Just banjo and vocals and a very sad tale.
• The Monroe Brothers / On the Banks of the Ohio / Feast Here Tonight / RCA Bluebird / 1936, 1975 / One of the first true love murder ballads a lot of us boomers learned.
• Lonesome River Band / Tune of a Twenty Dollar Bill / Window of Time / Mountain Home Music / 2006 / My new favorite song about true love. Definitely cue the hankies on this one.
• Jerry Reed / A Good Woman’s Love / The Essential Jerry Reed / RCA Nashville / 1974, 1995 / We all know this as a bluegrass standard. Here's the commercial country version.
• ShoreGrass / A Waltz for You / In Connecticut / Shaw Family / 2001
• New Pilot Mountaineers / Yellow Rose of Texas / Down the Road / Yodel-Ay-Hee / 2001
• Ralph Blizzard & The New Southern Ramblers / Girl I Love Don’t Pay Me No Mind / The American Fogies, Vol. 2 / Rounder / 1996
• Caleb Klauder / In My Heart I Love You Yet / Western Country / Padre / 2010
• Mason Williams / You Done Stompt on My Heart / The Listening Matter (Digitally Remastered) / Essential Media Group / 1964, 2009 / Yeah, he wrote this song as a joke, but if your heart is broken, you're better off laughing.
• Bill Keith / Pain in My Heart / Something Auld, Something Newgrass, Something Borrowed, Something Bluegrass / Rounder / 1975
• Kenny & Amanda Smith Band / Always Never Enough / Always Never Enough / Rebel / 2005
• Grandpa Jones / Eight More Miles to Louisville / Bluegrass Then & Now / CMH / 1966, 2000 / Single recorded for Monument in 1966.
• Tony Rice / A Good Woman’s Love / California Autumn / Rebel / 1974, 1975 / That’s not a typo. California Autumn was recorded for Rebel in 1974, released in 1975.
• The Honey Dewdrops / Test of Time / These Old Roots / self / 2010 / True love as sung about by a pair of Virginians, Laura Wortman & Kagey Parrish, married, and traveling the USofA on their music career.
• David Grisman / My Little Georgia Rose / Home is Where the Heart Is / Rounder / 1987
• Flatt & Scruggs & The Foggy Mountain Boys / Til the End of the World Rolls Round / 'Tis Sweet To Be Remembered: The Essential Flatt & Scruggs / Sony (Columbia Legacy) / 1954, 1997 / A classic. One of my favorite bluegrass songs of all time.
• Blueridge / Rock Hearts / Come Along with Me / Sugar Hill / 2006
• Jim & Jesse & The Virginia Boys / I’ll Wash Your Love From My Heart / The Best of the Early Years / Best of the Early Years / Master Classics / 1952, 2009
• Big Country Bluegrass / If You Don’t Have the Heart / Twenty Years of Grass / Hay Holler / 2007
• Cahalen Morrison & Eli West / My Lover, Adorned / The Holy Coming of the Storm / self / 2011 / A cowboy in love from this dynamite duo from way out west.
• Phil Rosenthal / Beautiful Brown Eyes / A Treasury of Bluegrass and Country Songs / American Melody / 2009 / A nice version of the Delmore Brothers' love song.
• Michael Cleveland / Hopelessly In Love / Let ‘Er Go, Boys! / Rounder / 2006 / Pre-Flamekeeper. A lovely sentimental love song (instrumental).
• Ronnie Bowman / Always a Lady / Cold Virginia Night / Rebel /1993 /True love, even on a cold Virginia night!
• The Stanley Brothers / I’ll Be True to the One I Love / Long Journey Home: The Stanley Bros. of Virginia, Vol. 2 / County / 1964, 1973 / Another classic.
• Don Stover / Black Diamond / Things in Life / Rounder / 1972 / Theme

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