Takin' It Back....WAY BACK

Three Hundred Twenty

Artist - Joe Tex
Album - Soul Country
Released - 1968
Label - Atlantic
Genre - Folk/Soul/Country

Tracks:
Side One
I'll Never Do You Wrong
Ode to Billie Joe
The Dark End of the Street
Funny How Time Slips Away
Engine Engine Number Nine
Side Two
Skip A Rope
Green Green Grass of Home
Set Me Free
By The Time I Get to Phoenix
Honey

The similarities between R&B and country music are deeper than generally realized by adherents of either field.  Country songs, like R&B songs are about events that touch the minds and hearts of ordinary people.  The main subject matter for both forms of music is love: love that brings joy or love that brings pain, love requited and love unrequited, young love, jealous love, true love.  Country songs may be more descriptive, R&B songs are more emotional.  But both tell it like it is -- without pretense, without adornment.

Perhaps that is why Joe Tex, one of the country's greatest R&B stars, whose recordings have graced the top of the best-selling charts throughout the world, can sing outstanding country hits of the past year and invest them with such warmth and feeling that in spite of their familiarity they sound fresh and new again.  It takes an extraordinary performer like Joe Tex to revitalize Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe, Glenn Campbell's By The Time I Get To Phoenix, or Bobby Goldsboro's Honey, let alone such well known country standards as Engine Engine Number None, Funny How Time Slips Away, Green Green Grass of Home and Set Me Free.

It is not surprising that Joe Tex should turn to country material for this new album.  He is closer to the country field tat most soul artists.  One of his earliest idols was Hank Williams.  His record company, Dial Records, is based in Nashville.  He has recorded all of his hits in Nashville, from Hold What You Got to Skinny Legs and All.  And Joe Tex's record produced, Buddy Killen, is one of the owners of a most successful music publishing firm, Tree Music, which handles a large number of top country songwriters.  (The other owner of Tree is Jack Stapp.)

In addition to the well known country songs in this album, there is a new Joe Tex song, I'll Never Do You Wrong.  Joe is a famous for his songs as his hit records; almost all of his hit singles (and he has had 20 in a row) have contained his own material.  I'll Never Do You Wrong adds another hit to his string.  This album adds a new facet to Joe Tex's career; it stakes out and validates his claim to "Soul Country."

Enjoy!