1958 - Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Hillbilly Music

Various - Country & Western Hit Parade

1-CD-Album deluxe with 72-page booklet, 30 tracks. Playing time: 74:10 minutes.
'Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Hillbilly Music 1958'
Country & Western Hit Parade 1958
This was the year that Ferlin Husky, who'd been kicking around the country scene since the War, recorded What'Cha Doing After School? It was the year that Webb Pierce, masquerading as 'Shady Walls,' released a vocal version of Bill Justis' rock 'n' roll instrumental Raunchy. And it was the year that Johnny Cash released Ballad Of A Teenage Queen. "It was a very dangerous time," said Acuff-Rose president, Wesley Rose. "In all the years I've been in the business I'd say it was the most critical time for country music. Elvis Presley broke out. They were playing him on all stations. By playing rock artists on country stations, the country listeners began to tune out, and then the country programs began to disappear. We had 600 stations playing country music, and it got down to around 85 stations."
Traditional country music took the biggest hit. "My mom and dad came to a convention in Nashville in 1958," remembered Bill Anderson. "It had been four or five years since they'd been there, when it was wall-to-wall people. They came back and told me that they'd been by the Opry on Saturday night, and they'd stuck their heads in the door, and they were amazed. It wasn't even half full. I remember getting a call from Hank Snow's manager asking me if I wanted to book him. He was coming through Commerce, Georgia, where I was a dee-jay. I thought, 'Goodness, we're probably talking thousands and thousands of dollars.' His manager said, 'I can let you have Hank and the band at a real good price.' I said, 'How much?' He said, 'Two hundred and fifty guarantee.' I was stunned, but that was the real low ebb. Country music came back, but it didn't come back as 'Wreck On The Highway' or 'In The Jailhouse Now.' It came back as 'I Can't Stop Loving You.'"
This was also the year that the 4/4 shuffle became a stiff corrective to the innocuousness of the Nashville Sound. Ray Price had popularized the shuffle on Crazy Arms in 1956 but by 1958 he'd elevated it to an artform, and was attracting imitators. Price and his acolytes were still making country music for middle aged men in bars without a thought to what anyone was doing after school. At the time, it seemed a throwback, but these days the driving simplicity of Price's classic shuffles seems ageless, while Ballad Of A Teenage Queen, Just Married, and several of the other Nashville Sound classics on this collection seem locked in their Cold War, poodle-skirted world.
Changes were afoot in the industry, too. Nineteen-fifty-eight was the year that stereo was finally introduced after thirty years of experiments. And, after sixty years, 78s were on their way out (just 3% of units sold compared with 71% on 45s and EPs). In June 1958, Mercury became the first major label to drop 78s altogether. And, eyeing the rapid growth of the overall business, film giants Warner Bros. and United Artists started record divisions.
A couple of country industry giants made their first appearance in 1958. Kenny Rogers made his solo debut as a rock 'n' roller and on March 22, Hank Williams, Jr., aged nine, made his first public appearance in Swainsboro, Georgia. And 1958 was notable for the breakthrough of Roger Miller. It's true that Miller had recorded for a year or more, but this was the year that three of his songs became hits…albeit not for him. Two of those songs, Invitation To The Blues and Half A Mind, are included here, while That's The Way I Feel (a #9 hit for Faron Young) is included on our 'Classic Years' box set of Young's Capitol recordings. Miller's first hit as an artist didn't come until 1960 and his golden era didn't begin until 1964, but from 1958 onward he was a much in-demand songwriter, and his work will appear regularly from now on.