Sharing that last cigarette

A real slice of prime Country ham for you today, and a record I find it impossible to listen to without hearing Lurleen Lumpkin squealing in my ear.

Nancy Jo Garton, who scored a minor radio hit with her cover of Big Blue Diamonds in 1975 (actually the flip side of I Like What I Got), drawls out this tortuous ballad about a couple battling against poverty in their two-room hovel, one pair of shoes between them, nothing to drink but water in such a fashion that I can't help thinking that the authors of the yellow-skinned songstresses one big hit Your Wife Don't Understand You, But I Do must have heard this first.

I'm sure there are nuances that are passing me by, but to me it sounds exactly like every other depressing Country record I've heard over the years. God, life must be tough in Redneckville.

There's not a lot else I can tell you about this: Nancy Jo seems to have had a short-lived career in the music industry, recording a few sides and at least one album (with the equally unknown Ken Holiday - who produced this cut - titled, with a huge amount of originality, Ken Holiday and Nancy Jo Garton) for Nashville outfit G-Bar between 1975 and 1978 before vanishing into obscurity.

Nancy Jo's career as a Country minstrel may have been short and to have born little fruit, but it does seem that Ken and Nancy Jo managed alright for themselves, as a Ken and Nancy Jo Garton (if we assume that Holiday was nowt but a stage name) now own and run the G Bar Ranch (come on, that has to be more than a coincidence!) in Depew, Oklahoma.

It's immensely satisfying to know that, even if the couple in this horrible record didn't make it, Ken and Nancy Jo did. And good luck to them!