RIGHt UNDeR YOuR NOSe

Look out for Sleepy LaBeef, says VALERIE GAIMON

Having shared the stage with Elvis, George Jones, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino and Chuck Berry, “The Human Jukebox,” better known as Sleepy LaBeef, is “a living, breathing, guitar-picking history of American music.” So says the New York Times; yet why haven’t you heard of him? Even the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen cited Sleepy as a major influence, and Kenny Rogers once sang his back-up. But more importantly, a few weeks ago when Sleepy LaBeef played to a sardinepacked Blind Willie’s crowd ranging in age from 20 to 60, why weren’t you there? He performed every song requested and some of his own in a string of endless medleys, from Elvis to Johnny Cash to Chuck Berry And speaking of Johnny Cash, no one alive could sing “Folsom Prison Blues” with a voice of iron soul as well as Sleepy. Sleepy speaking about his concerts: “When we have a performance, the music is alive, and it’s part of life, like breathing. I’ve seen songs that were written before I was born that if you get your teeth into ‘em, it’s just like a new one.”

As for new songs, Sleepy put out a new album last year called I’lll Never Lay my Guitar Down. True to his word, “The Road Warrior” still performs over 200 shows a year, so be sure to catch him next time. You may just find yourself doing the Twist with a little lady older than your mother, the big man in the black Stetson hat rocking right behind you.

A mini-almanac,

It’s easy to forget, especially since popular perception of the genre consists of fifty years of Nashville excrement, that country music was one of the parents of rock and roll. As relics like Sleepy Labeef demonstrate, there was a time before country music was formulaic songs, cliché lyrics, and forced twangs sang by dolled-up imposters like Garth Brooks. There was a time when country music was the voice of rural America, from the Blue Ridge whiskey stills to the Rocky Mountain saloons, the Ohio Valley county fairs to the wide West-Texas plains. A time when early rockers like Elvis, Buddy Holly, and the Rolling Stones seamlessly drifted from stompin’ rocker to country ballad. There was a time before country music became a haggard imitation of itself.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of good musicians playing country music, but for every Whiskeytown there are twenty Toby Keiths. And there’s a plethora of golden country gems stowed away or forgotten in the musical archives. I don’t really believe in genres as anything beyond a marketing device, but most of these musicians would probably be classified as Folk, Bluegrass, Classic Country, or Alternative Country. This is by no means an extensive or complete list, its just a few artists to download if the only good country music you’ve been exposed to is Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash.

Hank Williams: Hank sang every detail of his drunk, manic, ramblin’, cheatin’ life in a voice so simple that every human being in the rural US in the 1950s could understand and associate with him. Check out: “Your Cheatin’ Heart”, “Lovesick Blues”, “Jumbalaya”

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