When Ween went country with 12 Golden Country Greats the concept was bizarre brilliant and frequently hilarious, shaking up the earnestness of country music with a mixture of stupidity and satire. Yet at the time they didn’t tell us that it had already been done, from inside Nashville no less, and much much better. Plantation Records was the label established in the mid 60’s by Shelby S Singleton and Omni have plundered the vaults of his and related labels to compile some of the most amazing, hilarious and skewed country music ever produced. The music is audacious, way over the top and totally mind boggling. It’s country music but it’s acid country, tripped out effects, bizarre lyrics, coming from a place that you have never expected country music to ever be. Whilst Ray ‘Wong’ Riley’s sitar country music is downright offensive or at the very least misguided, and possibly the best track here, we’ve got the terrifyingly camp cb operator on Rod Hart’s CB Savage, then there’s Neil Ray’s Big Fanny, which takes talking country to a whole new hilarious level. And the music is great too. Johnny Moore and Col Tex Herring’s Sold To The Highest Bidder features a live auction of a broken home from a hyperactive auctioneer in the place of verses. This is the thinking behind the music and it never gets tired. Words don’t do the music on this 2cd set justice, it’s all just too bizarre, not necessarily musically, as if you chose not to listen to lyrics you could almost believe this is regular country music, vaguely influenced by the pop and psychedelic rock of the time. But once you plug into the words it’s all over the shop. Many of the tunes come across as novelty or joke tunes, yet thanks to the musicianship you’d hesitate to label them as gimmicks. Few have appeared anywhere before, perhaps promotional 7 inches for the label and that’s a real crime. The first disc is all gold, every single one of the 28 tracks and whilst the second disc (30 tracks) is a little patchier it’s still one of the most obscure collections of musical genius you will ever come across.
Bob Baker Fish
