Neko Case has called her pal Kelly Hogan “the Zelig of rock ‘n’ roll.” Her name appears in the credits for albums by Mavis Staples, the Mekons, Will Oldham, Matt Pond PA, Amy Ray, Giant Sand, Archer Prewitt, Alejandro Escovedo, Drive-By Truckers, Jakob Dylan, Tortoise and many others, Case included. Hogan’s fourth album has been a long time coming, in part because she’s been busy as a crucial part of Case’s band (anyone who’s seen Case live has witnessed Hogan’s amusing banter), in part because of the nature of the project. For I Like To Keep Myself In Pain (Anti-), Hogan sent letters to her songwriter friends, many of whom she’d sung with, asking them if they would send her a song, either one written specifically for her or one that “you think I could do right by,” as she said. That process started several years ago, and results yielded songs from a veritable who’s who: Vic Chesnutt, Stephin Merritt, Andrew Bird, Jon Langford, Janet Bean, M. Ward and others. Hogan will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our recent feature on her.
Hogan: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to talk about the great musical performances that can be found on that iconic American television show called Hee Haw … Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?
Scoff away, you city people! But Hee Haw was killer, especially in the early years. If what you know of the show consists of being forced to watch later incarnations after dinner at your granny’s house in the 1980s, I invite you to seek out the first few seasons and trip your country-sausage balls off. The first episode of Hee Haw came out during the week of Woodstock, and was just as psychedelic as anything going at the time—and the music was all performed live by some of the legends of true country music.
I dare you to watch Tammy Wynette’s early Hee Haw performance of “Stand By Your Man” and not be moved! She’s wearing go-go boots and a sparkly cotton-candy pink mini-dress, and she looks completely hair-sprayed stiff. I’m not just talking about her hair (which looks like it would certainly go “kla-aang” if you tried to touch it), but it looks like they hair-sprayed the whole Tammy. The tension builds as she looks like she’s got a scoliosis brace holding her back straight, and she’s singing the hell out of the song with one slender butt cheek perched on a porch banister and you just know that big high note’s coming and how’s she gonna hit it without moving?! Aieeee! Look away! But she does it. She does it, and it’s heroic—and it makes your stomach turn inside out in a good way.
There are a jillion other great live musical performances in the Hee Haw archives—Ray Price, George Jones, Charley Pride, Connie Smith, Roger Miller, Waylon Jennings, Faron Young, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn and so many more—including the weekly “picking’ and grinnin'” of the hosts, Roy Clark (a real guitar master whose skills “transcended the corn”) and Buck Owens (another musical genius, they called him “Ol’ Liver Lips” and he was my first crush in kindergarten, go figure … ) To watch the great performances by Buck and his Buckaroos is a bittersweet experience, when you think about the untimely death of Buck’s right-hand man, the brilliant Don Rich. But man, they are kicking ass on these early shows.
So find yourself an amenable hound dog, go sit in a cornfield with a super-hot buxom lady who’s wearing hot pants and some really shiny pantyhose, uncork a jug of white liquor, fire up some Hee Haw DVDs or some YouTube on your handheld thingy—and enjoy what I consider to be a true treasury of a very juicy period in American country music. Next time we’ll talk about how Junior Samples was our country’s greatest storyteller … Hello? Hello?
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD09hBDdw7k
