Lefty Frizzell

Holy smokes @ ILM: there is no other Lefty thread, as far as I can tell.

I read a book talking about the cross-currents between jazz and country and while the thesis is a little thin wrt sounds (I get the common geography), I buy it for Lefty; I think his closest antecedent is Louis Armstrong. Lefty dances around the rhythm and melody like Satchmo (both as a trumpeter and as a singer).

hadn't really dug into his stuff until recently when I dl'd Life's Like Poetry

obviously an amazing voice

oh yeah definitely one of the greatest of all time singers for me

never thought of lefty & jazz before, but I think you're on to something there.

I guess the jazz influenced country singers I've read most about most is in charlie rich and willie nelson, at least in terms of phrasing and singing around the beat, and I hear a fair bit of lefty in both esp willie. is there maybe even some of that in George Jones?

what's the book you were reading?

iirc Willie cites Lefty and Bob Wills as the biggest formative influences re: mixing jazz and country. I think the jazz phrasings REALLY come through in Willie's guitar playing though, not just his singing - when I saw him live a few years ago I just marvelled at how he never plays a conventional rhythm guitar part, he skirts around the beat with all these strangely phrased licks, and obviously uses a lot of chord phrasings that are more common to jazz than country. (Oddly the guitar player he most reminds me of is um Jonathan Richman)

As for Lefty, I hear the influence more in Willie's voice than anything else.

In terms of pure surface pleasure, his voice beats even George Jones. As such, I bet there's little pain involved digesting his Bear Family box. Anyone here tried?

His greatest fan is Iris DeMent. I knew My Life would wind up on my 1990s decade top ten when I saw that the Lefty she covered was my all-time fave, "Mom and Dad's Waltz."

And his "The Long Black Veil" chills my bones.

The book is called (something like) Highway 61 Revisited; it's an OUP book. On iPod now so tricky to c/p a link but I will tomorrow.

I need to pick up the Merle tribute album to Lefty.

weird was just listening to Merle's version of Mom and Dad's Waltz

Would love to hear that... the Merle tribute to Jimmy Rogers is amazing.

rodgers obv

It was his "Long Black Veil" that first caught my ear.

His rhyme of "Michigan" and "ambitious man", on "Saginaw, Michigan", is godlike---it shouldn't work, doesn't really on paper, but it's all in the phrasing. So delicate.

gawd I adore that song. The ultimate zing!

In pre-internet days, you sent aspie jerks on wild goose chases for gold in Alaska.

Speaking of aspieness, I remember driving into Saginaw Michigan for the first time and having this weird sense of being somewhere special because of that song. Same thing happened when I went to Bangor Maine - thanks to King of The Road.

Wore off real quick both times.

haha, i had the same kind of thing with Oklahoma City because of "Route 66." Oklahoma City is not very pretty.

I have the Bear Family box set and I've made it through most of it. 'Watermelon Time In Georgia', 'Travelin Blues', 'Mom and Dad Waltz', he released so many great singles. He's maybe my favorite classic country singer. The book that comes with the box set has beautiful photos, he was such a sharp dresser.

I think the Bear Family boxes would be too much for me with most performers, but I could listen to Lefty indefinitely.

http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/w/willie-nelson/album-to-lefty-from-willie.jpg

sort of shocked that nobody's yet mentioned merle haggard, who explicitly modeled his singing style after lefty (as he reminds us every time he covers a lefty song which seems to be on every other album).

lefty really can't be beat. all i don't really here more "jazz" in his phrasing than in a bunch of other country voices from jimmie rodgers onward.

what a beautiful voice though. am listening to mom and dad's waltz right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEIcV_rZbfQ

Here's the book I was mentioning last night.

I hear a hell of a lot of Lefty in Merle Haggard

I am always pleasantly surprised at the receptivity to country music on ILM

Bob Wills would be my starting point if I wanted to find a jazz/country crossover.

Yeah, Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, it's there in these guys too, and who knows, maybe more there than it is with Lefty. I've been listening to a lot of Louis Armstrong though and noticed the vocal similarities with Armstrong's singing, though obv. not his playing. I'm guessing with Bob Wills you're talking about the playing (I don't know a lot about Wills except for what I've heard dancing at Western swing places in Texas, which are loaded with Wills tunes, and those are all purely instrumental tunes)).

Yeah, definitely in the playing and the arrangements when it comes to Wills. There are tons of Wills tunes with vocals though I wouldn't say his singing style resembles jazz at all.

wills doesn't take the lead vocal--he just does the "a-ha!"s.

isn't there a rodgers/armstrong duet?

mostly Tommy Duncan singing on Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys' stuff, right?

yep.

man, all i really know about this guy is "if you've got the money". obviously he is a genius because everything about that song is perfect. it makes complete sense that iris dement would worship him, they both sound like they're singing with cracked smiles. i guess i need to get down with lefty!

"my baby's just like money" is another good lefty money tune!

isn't there a rodgers/armstrong duet?

― Brio, Monday, March 8, 2010 12:07 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah louis and his wife are jimmie's backing band for one session. it rules.

I love "You're Always Late with Your Kisses".

almost everything lefty did was gold!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ia6-VJ8Fuk

your told your friends i drink too much / now the whole town knows i drink too much.