Candy Kisses By George Morgan

Morgan, Tillis play two NB concerts

Queen of Denial, just floatin' down a river of lies.

- Cleopatra Queen of Denial

By the end of the 1980s, I'd about lost interest in new singers and songwriters on the international country scene. The raw edge of reality was gone. Most singers who had emerged from working-class families of the Depression and post Second World War were dropped by record labels. The new crop of singer-songwriters didn't have the same sense of harsh reality.

Most had university degrees, paid for by comfortably well-off parents, and weren't eking out an existence with their own sweat and labour. That was apparent in their lyrics and the superficial feel of their music.

But then Pam Tillis came along with Cleopatra Queen of Denial, Shake The Sugar Tree and other hits. And then there was Lorrie Morgan with What Part Of No (Don't You Understand), Watch Me and How Do We Keep The Music Playing, sang as background to Frank Sinatra singing My Funny Valentine on his album Duets II. If those hits didn't have a feeling of ground rock reality, they certainly did bubble over with an entertaining new freshness.

Both are daughters of Nashville country hit makers who did grow up in harder times, which might have something to do with their own successes.

These two glamorous veterans of the international country music scene come to Casino NB in Moncton on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saint John's Imperial Theatre on Monday at 8 p.m. on their Grits and Glamour Tour. As well as singing their own hits from the past quarter-century they will also share stories about their famous dads, Mel Tillis and George Morgan. Last week, as she was in the Nashville airport waiting for a flight, I told Pam by phone that I had spoken with her father last year while he was in Saint John performing on the same stage she and Lorrie will grace. I commented on the wonder of his long career.

"Well, it sure is different nowadays," she said. "No more long-term contracts like he signed with a financially sound label that took care of everything: recording, distribution, publicity, tour booking, the whole package. Recording artists, like Lorrie and I in Nashville, have to continually re-invent ourselves; just ask Dolly Parton."

I read in 2007 that she'd started her own label, Stellar Cat Records.

"Yes, and the business and promotional end of ventures like that take more time then you'd possibly believe," she said. "I released Rhinestoned, my first CD, on Stellar Cat in April 2007 and in November that year, Just In Time For Christmas. But expecting radio airplay with big networks is almost hopeless. Thankfully there are more small radio stations than ever and they seem to have an ever-growing listening audience. They are so much more accommodating and a pleasure to work with generally. And YouTube and Sirius Satellite help immeasurably, too.

Classic Album Review-George Morgan “Red Rose From The Blue Side Of ...

Greetings from Asheville, where there’s always good music on the turntable, in the CD, or on the MP3. Regularly reviewing albums since March of last year, and just now getting to a George Morgan release. Can you believe it? If you’re not overly familiar with George, he was, along with Eddy Arnold and Red Foley, one of the original country crooners. George’s extremely smooth, relaxed vocals were heard on twenty-three top forty country singles, between 1949 and 1974, of which the biggest was “Candy Kisses”. George’s most prolific period was 1949 through 1952, with seven top ten singles, of which an incredible six came in 1949. George had a brief resurgence in 1959 and ’60, with his final two top ten hits, then made periodic top forty appearances during the rest of the sixties. His final top twenty hit came with “Lilacs And Fire” in 1970, though he just barely missed one more in 1974 with the title cut of today’s album, which peaked at twenty-one. A year later, he was dead of a heart attack at the age of fifty-one. Sadly, “Red Rose From The Blue Side Of Town” would turn out to be his last hurrah, so to speak. However, the Morgan name would resurface fifteen years later, when his daughter, Lorrie, would score her first hit with “Trainwreck Of Emotion”. Lorrie would go on to enjoy fourteen top ten hits during the ensuing decade. “Red Rose From The Blue Side Of Town” was released by MCA Records in the late spring of 1974. It was George’s eighteenth album, and would peak at thirty-seven. While the title cut was the only single to make any major impression on the charts, three other singles can be found on the album, all were minor chart singles. One other note about this album, veteran steel guitar player “Little” Roy Wiggins is featured throughout the album.

It doesn’t take long to hear “Little” Roy at work, as his distinctive steel playing opens the first cut, “Somewhere Around Midnight”. A mid tempo, rather typical “one-night stand” song, very common to the era. Certainly not the first track to feature a completely different beat in the refrain from the melody, but it’s one of the most interesting ones, as the verses are more of a steady (I’m guessing 4/4) beat with a more contemporary arrangement, then into the refrain we go with a waltz and strong steel. That, as much as anything, makes this track at least interesting to listen to. It was the follow-up single to the title cut, but went basically nowhere. George gives a nice performance, as well. The voice was still there, we find out on the album.

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