 |
 |
CountryMusicSweden
A nonprofit organisation to promote country music
Nyhetsbrev nr. 12 21 februari 2003
(Titta tillbaka på tidigare nyhetsblad på http://home.bip.net/peruno )
Hej vänner,
Här kommer ett långt nyhetsbrev som mestadels handlar om Johnny Paycheck som just har avlidit efter en lång tids sjukdom. I min extra bulletin igår fick ni den allra första informationen, här kommer fler utförligare artiklar. Men här finns också en del fina tips t ex om countryställen att besöka. Håll till godo! Janne Lindgren
Johnny Paycheck Dead at 64
Posted by Chris Skinker / CMT.COM on February 19, 2003 at 16:58:07:
Johnny Paycheck Dead at 64
Chris Skinker
02/19/2003
Honky-tonk singer and former country music outlaw Johnny Paycheck has died
following a lengthy illness. A Grand Ole Opry spokesperson confirmed that the
singer-songwriter died in his sleep sometime Tuesday night (Feb. 18) in
Nashville. Paycheck had been confined to a nursing home and was hospitalized
several times in recent years since being diagnosed with emphysema and other
medical problems.
Highly regarded by his peers as one of country music’s finest singers, Paycheck has been frequently compared to George Jones. Whenever he appeared on the Grand Ole Opry, it was not uncommon to see other performers lining the stage to watch the singer and guitarist perform any number of the songs he popularized such as “A-11,” “Old Violin” or his most famous song, “Take This Job and Shove It.”
The Grand Ole Opry member lived a life that included many high points, but one that was also wrought with despairing depths. After Paycheck received some long overdue success based on the strength of his 1977 recording, “Take This Job and Shove It,” his stormy personal life -- and subsequently his career -- suffered. Problems with drugs, alcohol and legal difficulties made it difficult for Paycheck to enjoy his good fortune.
Born Donald Eugene Lytle on May 31, 1938, in Greenfield, Ohio, Paycheck was playing in talent contests by the age of 9. Billing himself as “The Ohio Kid,” he left home while still in his teens and knocked around the country playing bar gigs and clubs before enlisting in the U. S. Navy. While in the service, Paycheck was court-martialed in 1956 for hitting a superior officer and served two years in a military prison. After his release, he roamed around until finally settling in Nashville.
His considerable talents did not go unnoticed, and Music Row executive Buddy Killen signed Paycheck to a songwriting deal with Tree Publishing (now Sony/ATV Music Publishing) and landed him a Decca Records contract. Using the stage name Donny Young, the singer recorded four singles for the label that failed to make a dent on the charts. A pair of singles for Mercury in 1962 ended similarly. After his initial attempts at a recording career failed to yield results, Paycheck went to work for some of the top bands in country music including those of Porter Wagoner, Ray Price and Faron Young. From 1962-66, Paycheck was the front man and bass player for George Jones’ band, the Jones Boys.
The singer re-invented himself as Johnny Paycheck, taking his name from a professional boxer. In 1966, he hooked up with producer Aubrey Mayhew and legally changed his name. A pair of singles, “A-11” and “Heartbreak Tennessee,” for the tiny Hilltop label produced some chart activity.
Paycheck and Mayhew formed Little Darlin’ Records in 1966 and during the course of the next three years, Paycheck’s singles were consistently hitting the charts. Paycheck enjoyed his first Top 10 single in 1966 with “The Lovin’ Machine” and quickly followed up with “Motel Time Again,” and “Jukebox Charlie.” In December 1966, Tammy Wynette placed her first single on Billboard’s chart with her recording of Paycheck’s song, “Apartment #9.” Sharing co-writing credits with Fuzzy Owen and Bobby Austin, the song was named the Academy of Country Music’s song of the year. Ray Price had a Top 5 record with Paycheck’s “Touch My Heart” in 1966 as well.
By decade’s end, Paycheck and Mayhew parted ways and the record company, deeply in debt, folded. As a result, Paycheck bottomed out -- for the first time -- and was drinking heavily and living on the streets of Los Angeles. After some keen detective work by CBS executive Nick Hunter, who tracked the singer down, Billy Sherrill signed Paycheck to a contract with Epic Records. By the end of 1971, Paycheck was back on the charts with “She’s All I Got,” which peaked at No. 2. Paycheck’s cover of that Freddie North R&B hit also cracked the lower registers of the pop charts and received a Grammy nomination. Paycheck followed up his success in the spring of 1972 with “Someone to Give My Love To,” which also reached the upper registers of the charts. That same year, more trouble ensued when Paycheck was arrested and convicted on check forgery charges. The judge was lenient on the singer who received a suspended sentence.
For the next five years, Paycheck maintained a presence on the record charts with varying degrees of success. A duet with Jody Miller, “Let’s All Go Down to the River,” made a fair showing, peaking at No. 13 in 1972. Sherrill then set about smoothing out Paycheck’s image by molding him into a singer of love ballads. Singles such as “Love Is a Good Thing,” “Something About You I Love,” “Mr. Lovemaker,” “Song and Dance Man,” “My Part of Forever,” “Keep on Loving Me,” “For a Minute There” and “All American Man” all made admirable showings on the charts.
After the Outlaw movement of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson took hold of country music in 1976, Paycheck was recast by Sherrill to fit that genre of country music. Perhaps hoping to capitalize on Paycheck’s checkered past and rough and rowdy ways, this approach seemingly worked. Paycheck had a fairly good run on the charts beginning with 1977’s “Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets” and “I’m the Only Hell (My Mama Ever Raised),” which both went Top 10.
In June 1977, “Take This Job and Shove It” entered the charts and provided Paycheck with his sole No. 1 song. Written by David Allan Coe, what was intended to be a song about a bad relationship, “Take This Job” was adopted as a battle cry for dissatisfaction in the workplace. Hollywood seized the opportunity to produce a film by the same title in 1981 starring Robert Hays of Airplane fame. The follow-up single, “Georgia in a Jug” (backed with “Me and the IRS”) didn’t fare as well on the charts, but in late 1978 Paycheck bounced back with the Top 10 single, “Friend, Lover, Wife.”
Into the early 1980s a string of singles, many of them dealing with the theme of drinking such as “Drinkin’ and Drivin,’” “Fifteen Beers” and “D.O.A. (Drunk on Arrival),” did little to keep the momentum of Paycheck’s late ‘70s success moving forward. A tour and a duet with Merle Haggard (“I Can’t Hold Myself in Line”) failed to jump-start Paycheck’s career. A quartet of singles with Jones performed a little better with covers of Chuck Berry’s “Mabellene” and Roy Hamilton’s “You Can Have Her” both cracking the Top 20. By 1983, Paycheck and Epic parted company, and he signed on with AMI Records the following year with minimal results.
Paycheck’s personal life continued its downward spiral. Chronic financial woes and problems with the IRS forced Paycheck into bankruptcy a few years earlier. On a trip back to Ohio to visit family for the holidays, Paycheck had his final -- and most serious -- run-in with the law. When a barroom-disagreement turned ugly, Paycheck shot and wounded his antagonist and was sentenced to prison. While going through the appeals process, Paycheck was signed by Mercury Records and scored a Top 20 single with “Old Violin.” After exhausting all of his appeals options, Paycheck was sent to the Chillicothe Correctional Institute. While incarcerated, Paycheck’s old pal Haggard performed a show for the inmates, and the pair recorded an album that, to date, has not been released.
Paycheck served two years in prison and upon his 1991 release, emerged clean and sober. Paycheck also made good on the conditions of his parole. He kept his life on a straight course and gave anti-drug talks to young kids around the country as part of his required community service.
To his credit, and with an uphill battle ahead of him, Paycheck returned to the music industry and tried to once again to resurrect his career. The singer resumed his touring career, which included appearances in Branson, Mo., and recorded for Playback Records. In 1996, the Country Music Foundation released a collection of Paycheck’s early recordings for Little Darlin’ that found favor with young fans of classic country music.
Paycheck became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1997.
Här följer några tips om countrymusikhändelser runt om i vårt land!
"Country på Bysis"
Hej igen, Glömde berätta att så här ser det ut den 8:e
mars lördag: kl 20.00. Bysis på Hornsgatan 82, Stockholm.
Entré 50 kr.
Foxbone True Bluegrass
The Long gone Smiles In the proud tradition of Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams
HotLiners Hardcore Country
Enligt Per-Eriks formuleringar. Han och Ulle plus tre till är i Hotliners.
Jag känner inte till bluegrassbandet men de är fem stycken.
Priset är lagom lågt eftersom vi inte är proffs.
Du får gärna berätta om detta för countryfolket i stan! Kanske
countryradiokollegan Göran Adolph, som verkar gilla gammal stil, vill komma t
ex?
Bästa hälsningar,
Michael Lindgren
Nedan ett meddelande från Ingemar Elf.
Jag glömde skriva senast att Honky Tonkbandet "Jake & The Spitfires" gör en liten tredagarsresa nästa vecka. Torsdag 27/2 Trollhättans Folkets Hus, fredag 28/2 Huskvarna Folkets Park. Där kan man även dansa Linedance från 19.00. Lördag 1/3 hos Rockabilly Cruisers i Kumla.
Hej. Ingemar.
Och här ett tips från Peter i Malmö
Hallå Janne!
Tänkte bara meddela att bandet "Clayfeet Stompers" spelar på Göstas
Strandcafé i Steninge lördagen den 1:e mars. Vi spelar Western Swing och
tidig Honky Tonk.
Adress till spelstället "http://www.gostas.com/main/frameset.htm"
Kenneth Hellström - Gitarr & Sång, Mats Bengtsson - Dragspel, Piano & Sång,
Patrik Malmros – Slagverk, Peter Andersson – Steel, Michael Nilsson -
Kontrabas & Sång
Filip Runesson - Violin
Ha det bra / Peter Andersson
Country Singer Johnny PayCheck Dies at
64 Entertainment - AP By JOHN
GEROME, Associated Press Writer
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Country singer Johnny PayCheck, the hard-drinking
hell-raiser best known for his 1977 working man's anthem "Take This Job
and Shove It," has died at 64.
PayCheck had been bedridden in a nursing home with emphysema and asthma.
He died Tuesday, Grand Ole Opry spokeswoman Jessie Schmidt said.
Specializing in earthy, plainspoken songs, PayCheck recorded 70 albums
and had more than two dozen hit singles. His biggest hit was "Take This
Job and Shove It," which inspired a movie by that name, and a title
album that sold 2 million copies.
His other hits included "Don't Take Her, She's All I Got," (which was
revived 25 years later in 1996 by Tracy Byrd), "I'm the Only Hell Mama
Ever Raised," "Slide Off Your Satin Sheets," "Old Violin" and "You Can
Have Her."
"My music's always been about life. And situations. Situation comedies,
situation life," he said in 1997.
Born Donald Eugene Lytle on May 31, 1938, in Greenfield, Ohio, he took
the name Johnny Paycheck in the mid-1960s about a decade after moving to
Nashville to build a country music career. He began capitalizing the "c"
in PayCheck in the mid-1990s.
PayCheck's career was interrupted from 1989 to 1991 when he served two
years in prison for shooting a man in the head in an Ohio bar in 1985.
He and another ex-convict, country star Merle Haggard, performed at the
Chillicothe Correctional Institute in Ohio while PayCheck was imprisoned
there.
"I heard from fans constantly throughout the entire two years," PayCheck
said after his release. "The letters never stopped, from throughout the
world. I looked forward to mail call every day."
Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste commuted PayCheck's seven-to-nine-year
sentence for aggravated assault, and the singer returned to his career.
His brush with the law wasn't his first. He was court-martialed and
imprisoned for two years in the 1950s for slugging a naval officer.
He was sued by the Internal Revenue Service in 1982 for $103,000 in back
taxes. This landed him in bankruptcy in 1990, when he listed debts of
more than $1.6 million, most of it owed to the IRS.
After his prison release, he seemed to put his life in order. He gave
anti-drug talks to young people and became a regular member of the Grand
Ole Opry cast in 1997.
Still, PayCheck said when people came to hear him play, they still
expected to see the whiskey-drinking, cocaine-using, wild-eyed performer
with unkempt hair and a surly frown - a reputation he built early in
his career.
"They still remember me as that crazy, good-time-Charlie honky-tonker,
and I don't tell 'em any different," he said after his Opry induction.
PayCheck was playing the guitar by age 6 and singing professionally by
age 15. After a stint in the Navy in the mid-1950s, he moved to
Nashville and found work as a bass player for Porter Wagoner, Ray Price,
Faron Young and George Jones.
He recorded for Decca and Mercury records as Donny Young until he
renamed himself and built success first as a songwriter and then as a
singer.
One of his early compositions was "Apartment 9," recorded in 1966 by
Tammy Wynette.
In 2002, a PayCheck compilation album, "The Soul & the Edge: The Best of
Johnny PayCheck," was released.
PayCheck and his wife, Sharon, were married more than 30 years. They had
one son.
På tisdag gör jag ett
hyllningsprogram för Johnny Paycheck i Radio Lidingö och Country, Country Music.
Programmet sänds kl. 20.00 över 97,8 i Stockholm.
Så vill jag än en gång påminna om att det här nyhetsbladet skickas till en
mängd människor som är intresserade av countrymusik. Skulle du av en händelse
inte vilja ha mina brev, så sänder du ett mail till mig och jag stryker dig
omgående från min lista. Ok?
Hälsningar,
Janne
Lindgren
|
|