Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Having your own website like this is to some extent a vanity project. And it also allows for some personal indulgences, like posting this throwaway by the great Grady Martin.
People of certain advance years may remember this song becase it was a regular on the childrens' session on Sunday morning wireless. I seem to recall there may also have been a version by Doris Day or someone like that. I am told it was also adapted for a Rinso ad in New Zealand.
I had forgotten all about it until my mother-in-law picked up a few old records from a junk shop for me and among them was Juke Box Jamboree by guitarist Grady Martin and the Slew Foot Five.
It's a collection of country-flavoured tunes for the most part and gives little hint of Martin's gifts.
Tennesse-born Grady Martin holds a number of claims to fame, not the least being he played with Hank Williams and the young Elvis . . . and Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash (that's Grady on Ring of Fire), Marty Robbins (Grady on El Paso), Loretta Lynn (Coal Miner's Daughter), Roy Orbison (the riff on Pretty Woman), Kris Kristofferson, Patsy Cline . . .
The list goes on and on, because for decades he was an in-demand session player in Nashville. Then he toured for 16 years with Willie Nelson.
He was one of the first to explore the fuzz box, and played a distinctive double-necked Bigsby guitar.
He died in 2001 aged 72.
"I'm not a star, " he once said. "Makin' a good record and havin' it accepted – just bein' part of havin' a hit record – that's what mattered to me."
Let's just say that maybe Bimbo wasn't his finest moment.
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