In 1964, Connie Smith recorded “Once a Day,” creating one of the perfect county records out of the song written by Bill Anderson.
Connie Smith’s 1964 recording of the song “Once a Day” is one of those perfect moments in country music. Smith is one of the great voices in country music, and here she has a perfect song. “Once a Day” was written by Bill Anderson specifically for Smith. The song features catchy music and country heartbreak wrapped up with a clever chorus that would be humorous if were not for the aching it describes.
Connie Smith released “Once a Day” on August 1, 1964 when Smith (born in Indiana in August 14, 1941) was barely twenty-three. According to Wikipedia, the record become the first number one debut on the Billboard Hot Country songs by a woman. It stayed at number one for eight weeks, a feat not duplicated by a female artist until Taylor Swift did it in 2012.
The clever hook in the song is that the singer misses a former love and cries only “once a day.” That does not sound too awful. But then she reveals that the “once a day” is “all day long.”
Once a day, all day long; And once a night from dusk ’til dawn; The only time I wish you weren’t gone, Is once a day, every day, all day long.
Below, a young Connie Smith performs “Once a Day” in 1965 on the WSM Nashville syndicated TV show The Bobby Lord Show. Check it out.
Smith, who is married to Marty Stuart, also played guitar on the hit recording of “Once a Day.” She recorded a number of wonderful songs through her career. But she never had a song that was as big of a hit as “Once a Day.”
Pas Souvent
“Once a Day” has been covered by artists such as Dean Martin and Van Morrison. After Smith initially released her original version, the song was so popular that Smith recorded a French version of the song.
Smith released the French version, “Pas Souvent,” credited to both Bill Anderson and French lyricist Pierre Delanoë, in 1966. Give it a listen.
Great stuff, no matter the language. Leave your two cents in the comments.
For the 20th anniversary of Marty Stuart’s concept album “The Pilgrim,” the artist released a remastered version with bonus tracks as well as a book about the album. Is it worth it?
In 1999, Marty Stuart released his tenth studio album, The Pilgrim. As Stuart has revealed, although the sales were initially a bit of a disappointment, the album “changed the course of [his] musical life.” To celebrate the landmark album, Stuart recently released a remastered version of the album with bonus tracks and also a book about the album, The Pilgrim: A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey. Often such books released by a musician about one of their past albums are full of fluff and not worth it for anyone beyond fans looking for photos of the artist. So, is A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey and the bonus tracks worth the money? The short answer is: “Go buy the book now.”
I have written earlier about my love for The Pilgrim and how I am a sucker for great concept albums. The Pilgrim — featuring a song cycle based on a tragic suicide, redemption, and love story from Stuart’s hometown — is one of the great albums of the last twenty-five years. The songs are stellar and the tale that ties them together is compelling.
The album features amazing guest stars like Johnny Cash, Ralph Stanley, Emmylou Harris, Earl Scruggs, Pam Tillis, and George Jones. Yet the guest stars and their mostly brief appearances never distract from the album that is dominated by Stuart’s voice and the music from him and his band at the time, Rock and Roll Cowboys (Brad Davis, Steve Arnold, Greg Stocki, and Gary Hogue).
Marty Stuart’s new book features plenty of photos taken by the singer-songwriter, whose career and talents have made him one of the living legends connected to many of the old-time greats. Who knew, though, that Marty Stuart is such a wonderful photographer? Photographs in the book capture much of the making of the album as well as other connected images.
Stuart also includes photos of the handwritten lyrics for many of the songs and pictures of the instruments he used on the album. But for those looking for more information about the album, it is a wonderful surprise that Stuart took great care in telling the story of the album in text too.
In A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey, Stuart explains how he came to record the music for The Pilgrim and what initially inspired him to turn to a story from his hometown. In one chapter, he goes into more detail about the true-life tragic story of Rita and “the Pilgrim” that forms the basis for the album.
Other chapters reveal key moments in the making of the album, such as Stuart’s trip to Jamaica to get Johnny Cash to record a few lines of poetry (as well as an interesting story about how Stuart found the poem). Stuart also discusses the release of the album and tells about the aftermath. All of the information is informative, well-written, fascinating, and pretty much essential for fans of The Pilgrim.
The original album is so perfect, one may not really need the additional ten bonus tracks with the new remastered album. But if you love the album, having more is always a good thing. And since the album and bonus tracks are included with the book, the new music is a nice bonus for anyone buying the book.
In short, the remastered album and the book The Pilgrim: A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey do The Pilgrim justice. And Stuart’s work also provides an outstanding example of how to celebrate the anniversary of any classic album.
On Marty Stuart’s latest album, Way Out West, the country singer-songwriter finds inspiration in the western United States. But it is not an album of old cowboy songs. Stuart’s songs find their sources in a more modern West.
These are the sounds of electric guitars, not harmonica and an acoustic guitar. The music of California plays a larger role in the album than a cowboy campfire, with songs inspired by the sounds of surf-rock or the Byrds or mariachi or spaghetti Westerns — with a little dash of visions of psychedelic aliens. Maybe this is what Gram Parsons meant by Cosmic American Music.
The album features Stuart’s long-time band the Fabulous Superlatives, which includes Kenny Vaughan (guitar), Harry Stinson (drums) and new member Chris Scruggs (bass). And Mike Campbell, the guitarist with Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, produced Way Out West.
Stuart’s website boasts: “The new album, with its atmospheric production and primal rock & roll energy, evokes classics like Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs and Cash’s The Fabulous Johnny Cash, one of the first albums Stuart ever owned.”
Check out the title track of Way Out West, which gives you an idea of the atmospheric sound of much of the album, which also features several instrumentals.
One of my favorites on the album is what sounds like a country road song. So, check out the first single, “Whole Lotta Highway (With a Million Miles to Go).”
Marty Stuart continues to work as an artist exploring new sounds and concepts, not staying stuck in any one place. He has made some great concept albums during the last several decades, including The Pilgrim (1999). So it is cool to see him creating new sounds with a concept that ties together the whole album. It is more of an atmospheric ride or a late-night soundtrack than a collection of catchy songs, but that is okay. It is a fun ride out West.
Way Out West hits the Internet on March 10, 2017.
What is your favorite Marty Stuart album? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On September 5, 1877, Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitco) was killed while resisting his captivity in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. During a struggle, a U.S. soldier stabbed Crazy Horse with a bayonet. Many things are still debated about that day, including the name of the soldier and how Crazy Horse resisted. But it was the end of the great military leader of the Oglala Lakota.
Crazy Horse was one of the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory in 1876. After the infamous battle, U.S. soldiers had pursued Crazy Horse and his followers until the Native Americans, suffering cold and starvation, surrendered in May 1877.
Disputed photo that some claim is of Crazy Horse.
In 2005, singer-songwriter Marty Stuart released Badlands: Ballads Of The Lakota. The concept album recounts Native American history and struggle. Stuart brought his outstanding musical and storytelling skills to the music. He has created other wonderful concept albums too, including his excellent The Pilgrim (1999).
On the epic song “Three Chiefs” on Badlands, Stuart sings from the point of view of Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. He recounts what they might have said after their deaths when they went to another world.
In the segment in the song about Crazy Horse, the song recounts his death: “In a jailhouse in Nebraska, it was on September 5,/ Crazy Horse was fighting hard to keep himself alive.” After his death, he meets God, who asks what Crazy Horse has to say. Crazy Horse responds:
“Upon suffering. Beyond suffering. The Red Nation shall rise again. And it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises. Selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again.”
Crazy Horse foretells that the Native Americans will bring healing to the land of suffering.
“I see a time of seven generations when all of the colors of mankind Will gather under the sacred tree of life. And the whole earth will become one circle again. And that day, there will be those among The Lakota, Who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things. And the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom.”
After Crazy Horse’s death, his body was placed on a burial scaffold, and later his parents took his remains to an undisclosed location. Experts suspect the remains are in an area around Wounded Knee, South Dakota, but no one is sure of the exact location.
As Stuart sings, “Touch the Clouds took his body, back home to his family,/ Nobody knows where they laid him down, to set his spirit free.” In the video below, two of Crazy Horse’s great grandsons talk about Crazy horse’s death and burial.
Photo via public domain. Leave your two cents in the comments.
With Governor Dannel Malloy’s signature in April 2012, Connecticut became the fifth state in five years to abolish the death penalty. Connecticut makes seventeen states that do not have capital punishment, along with the District of Columbia, as more states are realizing that the death penalty is expensive, unfair, arbitrary, unnecessary, and risks executing the innocent.
Similarly, recently the man who wrote California’s death penalty law and the man who led the drive for that state to adopt capital punishment have changed their position and said that life without parole is a better option than the death penalty. For various reasons, the civilizing trend around the country is leading to more states abolishing the death penalty.
Capital punishment is still used as a political issue, though. Even as Connecticut abolished the death penalty for future cases, it did not overturn the death sentences of the few people currently on death row in the state.
Johnny Cash’s Last Song: “Hangman”
Speaking of executioners, in this video, Marty Stuart tells about his final meeting with Johnny Cash. Stuart recalls how Cash helped him write the song, “Hangman.”
Stuart was inspired to start writing the song after visiting Folsom Prison and seeing where Cash had performed for the inmates. While working on the song, he told Cash about the song, and Cash gave Stuart some help.
As Stuart explains before he performs the song in the video below, it was probably the last song Cash helped write. Four days after they worked on “Hangman,” Cash passed away on September 12, 2003.
“Hangman” later appeared on Stuart’s album, Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions (2010).
The song begins with the singer talking about killing another man: “I’ve lost count at thirty, and I’ve grown too numb to grieve.” After he tells how alcohol and dope helps him get by, the chorus comes in to reveal the twist. The song is not about a serial killer but the hangman.
Hangman, Hangman, That’s my stock and trade. Hangman, Hangman, Sending bad men to their grave. But who killed who? I ask myself, Time and time again. God have mercy on the soul, Of this Hangman.
In the video, Stuart tells how Johnny Cash helped him with the chorus and the poetic line, “But who killed who? I ask myself.” The line, and the song evoke the concerns of the Connecticut legislature.
Both the legislature and Gov. Malloy realized that the death penalty is not about what we do to convicted murderers. Capital punishment is about what it does to us when our government kills people already in prison for the rest of their lives. Connecticut is saving the hangman, not the prisoners. What do you think of “Hangman”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
