Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Discovering "Rediscovering Eddy Arnold"



I've been listening to Eddy Arnold for almost 50 years. My grandfather was a huge fan and along with the great 45s of The Beatles, Beach Boys, Four Seasons and The Drifters he let me play with, were no less than a dozen Eddy Arnold records.

Last year, Plowboy Records, a label out of Nashville founded by Arnold's grandson Shannon Pollard and Dead Boy Cheetah Chrome, released "You Don't Know Me: Rediscovering Eddy Arnold," a 19 song tribute featuring artists as diverse as Alejandro Escovedo, Mandy Barnett, Jason Isbell, Pokey Lafarge, Frank Black and Peter Noone covering many of Arnold's classics to celebrate his 95th birthday.

I finally got around to listening to this baby and man, this is one terrific collection. It might help if you love these songs as much I as do, and I'm sure some of you do. "Anytime," "Cattle Call," "Make The World Go Away," and "It's A Sin" are crossover classics. But this collection works because the artists stay faithful enough to the originals and still put their own marks on their contributions. With one painful exception, sorry Bebe Buell, there isn't a bad track on this record.

I couldn't find too much on YouTube other than some "making of" videos and a few live performances, but for those who are not afraid of Spotify, here is a small sampler.






5 comments:

FD13NYC said...

Going to check this out, sounds interesting. Always liked Eddy Arnold, my Father did too. What's He Doing In My World is one of my faves. Great Song Of The Day as usual, also a fave.

Ken D said...

I'm going to have to check this collection out, not because I'm an Eddy Arnold fan, but because I'm not. I too, was "introduced" to EA by my father but it felt much more like "subjected to" him. Unlike Sal's experience, the rest of my father's playlist was in more of the Andre Kostelanetz/Jerry Vale/'Man of la Mancha' vein. To a 14-year-old who was discovering the new sounds coming through on WABC, Arnold was the epitome of everything I rejected (i.e. anything Dad liked). I'm not going to get into the whole story but to this day I can't hear "Cattle Call" without getting a feeling of regret for years of family disharmony, which ultimately left me and my father completely estranged.

buzzbabyjesus said...

I love that 50's-60's country music.

A walk in the woods said...

Cool! I'd never heard of Eddie Arnold. I like OLD country so this fits.

buzzbabyjesus said...

I think of Gram and Emmy Lou when I hear this gem by Red Foley and Kitty Wells.

http://alanwalkerart.com/audio/one_by_one.mp3