Mac Curtis — Pistol Packin’ Mama (1975)

Yeehaw for a little rockabilly this Country Sunday. Al Dexter wrote the original ‘Pistol Packin’ Mama’ in 1944, performing it as a jazzy swing number. Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters also had a big hit with it. This version takes the cake for me though.

Mac Curtis version via Uncle Gil’s Rockin’ Archives

Marvin Rainwater — Baby Don’t Go

from Whole Lotta Woman b/w Baby Don’t Go 7” (1958)

A little vintage rockabilly from Marvin Rainwater, once a country music king, with his handsome looks, buckskin jackets and headbands (he’s a quarter Cherokee) — today an ice-fishing Minnesotan living in the frozen lake country.

Vince Taylor and his Playboys — Shakin’ All Over (1961)

Ladies and gentlemen, the disastrous rock’n’roller in whose image Bowie created Ziggy Stardust. Initially a sort of Elvis rockabilly knock-off, his brain in later years took a dive into the deep end of the pool, swimming as it was in a cocktail of speed, LSD and alcohol.

He touched bottom at a large concert in London in the mid 60s, when he began preaching to the audience, claiming to be the prophet Matthew. His band left him and he embarked on an on-again, off-again solo career. He spent the last years of his life (and happiest, he once said) working as an airplane mechanic in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Oh Ziggy…

Moon Mullican — I’m Just One Tear Away

from Sings I’ll Sail My Ship Alone/Sings Mister Honky Tonk Man

It’s Country Sunday ladies and gents, this time with Aubrey “Moon” Mullican, the key-poundin’, drink-rattlin’, honky tonkin’ rockabilly man from east Texas.

Legend has it that Moon’s father, being a religious man, bought a pump organ for his daughters for the princely sum of $20, so they could play in church. But Moon commandeered the instrument, having already learned some blues from Joe Jones, a sharecropper on the family farm. By the age of 14 he was playing piano in local honky tonks and at 16 ran away, spending his nights playing in brothels.

While touring Florida in 1949, he met Hank Williams and the two became fast friends. Hank convinced the Opry to have Mullican on, and several years later the two wrote ‘Jambalaya’ together on a paper bag.

By the time the 60s rolled around, Moon’s health was starting to fail, and he collapsed of a heart attack at a 1962 concert in Kansas City. Sometime following that he recorded this tune for Spar Records as a b-side to Honky Tonk Man, among others like “I Ain’t No Beatle (But I Want To Hold Your Hand).” Classic.

He died New Year’s Day 1967.