It’s April. This month got here speedily. As it was Blobby‘s turn to pick the theme, he chose… thoroughfares: Streets, Lanes, Roads, Freeways, Trails. Paths. But no Stairways!

I wasn’t sure if I should take this theme literally or not? I failed to ask Blobby that during our brief discourse. Are we talking songs that deal specifically with thoroughfares? Or songs about the journey? And not that new, Filipino-fronted Journey either. Dreck. Total Dreck.

I’ll start my first selection with an a selection that I think was ahead of its time. By about a decade. It was too rock for many in his “native” genre, and actually made it higher on the Rock charts. Nowadays, it’s pretty much par for the course on most country stations.

I give you Steve Earle’s 1988 “Copperhead Road”:

Well my name’s John Lee Pettimore
Same as my daddy and his daddy before
You hardly ever saw Grandaddy down here
He only come to town about twice a year

He’d buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
Everybody knew that he made moonshine
Now the revenue man wanted Grandaddy bad
He headed up the holler with everything he had
‘Fore my time but I’ve been told
He never come back from Copperhead Road

Now Daddy ran the whiskey in a big black Dodge
Bought it at an auction at the Mason’s Lodge
Johnson County Sheriff painted on the side
Just shot a coat of primer then he looked inside

Well him and my uncle tore that engine down
I still remember that rumblin’ sound
When the sheriff came around in the middle of the night
Heard mama cryin’, knew something wasn’t right
He was headed down to Knoxville with the weekly load
You could smell the whiskey burnin’ down Copperhead Road

I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the white trash first, ’round here anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
I came home with a brand new plan
I take the seed from Columbia and Mexico
I just plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road
And now the D.E.A.’s got a chopper in the air
I wake up screaming like I’m back over there
I learned a thing or two from Charlie don’t you know
You better stay away from Copperhead Road

I guess I kind of picked out the music theme for the month. Hopefully Blobby agrees with it. At some point in a previous discussion, he brought up the idea of popular artists doing old timey music. I love old timey music. Well, I guess it depends on who is defining old timey music. Or if you’re a Doctor Who fan, old timey wimey music. I enjoy listening to music from the 1920s to the 1950s. To me that’s old timey music. So I’ll be focusing on songs by modern artists who have more-or-less either covered or been inspired by a song from that time zone. Hopefully Blobby will be able to run with this. Hopefully I will as well.

This category ended up being WAYYYYYYYYYYY more difficult than I imagined for me. I think mostly because I don’t have as many popular artists doing one-off old timey songs as much as I do artists who do all old timey songs. So I’ve been racking my brain trying to find entries.

This one might be reaching a little. Might.

It definitely has that old timey sound to it. In the burlesque fashion. Which I’m all about. Except maybe that movie of the same name. *shudder*

And this from a punk band.

Most fans of the band at the time HATED this song. Because it wasn’t anything like what they was known for.

From Green Day’s 2000 album “Warning”, I give you “Misery”:

I guess I kind of picked out the music theme for the month. Hopefully Blobby agrees with it. At some point in a previous discussion, he brought up the idea of popular artists doing old timey music. I love old timey music. Well, I guess it depends on who is defining old timey music. Or if you’re a Doctor Who fan, old timey wimey music. I enjoy listening to music from the 1920s to the 1950s. To me that’s old timey music. So I’ll be focusing on songs by modern artists who have more-or-less either covered or been inspired by a song from that time zone. Hopefully Blobby will be able to run with this. Hopefully I will as well.

This category ended up being more difficult than I imagined, for me. I think mostly because I don’t have as many popular artists doing one-off old timey songs as much as I do artists who do all old timey songs. So I’ve been racking my brain trying to find entries.

In 2014, pop singer Alecia Moore (aka P!nk) and alternate rock artist Dallas Green (aka City and Colour) teamed up as You+Me to produce what I would call a folk album, titled “rose ave.” Most of the songs have a strong folk base to them, but seem to definitely bring in some of the pop feel. You can go sample it on iTunes if you want.

The title track “You and Me” feels very Appalachian old timey to me. Possibly almost country. But I like it.

I guess I kind of picked out the music theme for the month. Hopefully Blobby agrees with it. At some point in a previous discussion, he brought up the idea of popular artists doing old timey music. I love old timey music. Well, I guess it depends on who is defining old timey music. Or if you’re a Doctor Who fan, old timey wimey music. I enjoy listening to music from the 1920s to the 1950s. To me that’s old timey music. So I’ll be focusing on songs by modern artists who have more-or-less either covered or been inspired by a song from that time zone. Hopefully Blobby will be able to run with this. Hopefully I will as well.

This category ended up being more difficult than I imagined, for me. I think mostly because I don’t have as many popular artists doing one-off old timey songs as much as I do artists who do all old timey songs. So I’ve been racking my brain trying to find entries.

And then I remembered this album that I was given a year ago or so by an record label rep who lives in our area as a vendor to the OGRE. The album is called “foreverly”. It is a late 2013 collaborative effort by the lead singer/guitarist of Green Day–Mr. Billie Joe Armstrong, and pop singer Norah Jones. They are classic Americana songs, and performed that way as well.

I give you Billie Joe and Norah performing “Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine” (written by Gene Autry and Jimmy Long):