It Makes Me Want To Holler

 Here’s a fun little album I’ve not featured before.

 

A virtual window into a time gone by, Hollerin’ was issued by roots and rock ‘n’ roll specialists Rounder Records in 1976, but the competition that inspired the album began in 1969 at Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina, where farmers would gather annually to show off their skill at producing these piercing, high-pitched vocalisations. 

 

Although there are similarities, hollerin’ is not the same as yodelling or other farm or hunting calls: its roots can be traced back to the men working on logging rafts in the 1700s, used when transporting felled timber along rivers. Loggers would holler back and forth to each other so that their rafts would not run into each other, or they would holler out distress calls if they became stuck or injured, so that other loggers would come to their aid.

 

As Bill Nowlin, one of the founders of Rounder Records, explains on the company’s website, ‘Hollers were a way to communicate in days before telephones. They could be greetings from one farmer to another, distress hollers, or just a way to have fun while working in the field. Animals responded to them—they could be a way to bring in the pigs. Because of their high pitch, they carried better than shouting. One farmer told me that when he was courting a woman a couple of farms away, he would begin hollerin’ along the way. It was notice for her to put on her perfume so she could be ready.’

 

Most of the tracks on Hollerin’ were recorded at the competition in 1975. Prior to the album an EP, also recorded live at Spivey’s Corner in 1975 was issued by the company, featuring four of North Carolina’s finest hollerers, all of whom would also feature on the LP.

 

Hollerin’ is both an important collection of long-lost folk art, and a tremendously fun and entertaining peek into a world now gone. The album is still available, both on CD and digitally, and I highly recommend it.

 

Here are a couple of examples to whet your appetite: Leonard Emmanuel, the winner of the 1971 Spivey’s Corner Hollerin' Contest, and Old Georgie Buck, and Floyd Lee, the 1973 winner, with the medley Lulu's My Darling/Hollering In An Automobile.

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Georgie HERE

Download Lulu HERE

 

Why So Glum, Lum?

Here’s an little record that is so obscure that there’s absolutely nothing written about it, or its creator, anywhere on the net. I can find nothing about him in the back issues of either Cash Box or Billboard, by searching the Internet Archive or in any of the usual online rockabilly discographies, so any help from you in fleshing out this particular disc’s backstory would be greatly appreciated.

 

Lum Hatcher’s 1966 single, White Lightning ‘n Excess and Behind the Fear, appears to be one of only two 45s issued by Indianhead Records of Wooster, Ohio. The A-side is a decent hillbilly rocker, only really let down by the appalling harmony vocals. Clearly influenced by the Big Bopper’s White Lightning (later covered by the Fall), the song was originally written by songwriter Hank Mills as White Lightning Express around 1959, and covered by, amongst others, Roy Drusky. We’ll never know if Hatcher simply misheard the lyrics, or if he adapted them on purpose. My guess would be the former, as it is clear from the quality of the performance that very little care has gone into the whole production.

Incidentally, the only other Indianhead single I am aware of is Charge! by Chet Good, although in that instance the label is credited as 'Indian Head' (two words, not one). Indianhead/Indian Head was, apparently, one of a number of labels established by Quentin Welty, an artists manager, producer, and radio ad salesman. He's not credited, but my money would be on Welty producing both sides of this particular effort.

 

The flip side is something else altogether. A slice of miserabilist country-western, with the two vocalists making absolutely zero attempt to sing in time or in harmony. Again, the title is wrong: originally penned as Behind the Tear by Ned ‘from a Jack to a King’ Miller and his wife Sue, it was first recorded in 1965 by Sonny James, who took it to Number One on the US Country Music chart. If it were not for the fact that Behind the Tear had not been recorded prior to 1965 it would be difficult to accurately date Lum’s 45: the sound of the A-side is so steeped in hillbilly rock ‘n’ roll that it could have been issued in 1959.. no wonder it often turns up on rockabilly compilations.

 

Actually, both sides of the disc have turned up on compilations over the years, including 1992’s Rock to the Bop and the rather wonderful 1995 album God Less America (which is probably where I first heard it), and despite a couple of plays on the World’s Worst Records Radio Show no one has yet been able to provide any further information on Lum or his band. Over to you!

Download Lightning HERE

Download Fear HERE