1963 - methed-up falcons

If the previous couple of years were more like a relay race – one act getting a hearty run with the baton and then passing it to the next – 1963 was more like a chaotic scramble for a fumbled football, musicians of various stature throwing elbows and shoulders to get a tenuous grasp of a prize so slippery and elusive that the truly scrappy ended up with it at least twice.

Case in point: Carl & Pearl Butler had 1962’s last #1 with the richly-harmonied cheating ballad “Don’t Let Me Cross Over” and held it for a grand total of a week before sly veteran Marty Robbins slipped in with the catchy but slight “Ruby Ann” and nabbed it for a week.  Then the Butlers got it back for a week. Then Flatt & Scruggs, bluegrass wunderkinds who cashed in some cred to score a big TV theme song, ran with it for a couple weeks with “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.”  The Butlers got it back for a week, Flatt & Scruggs swiped it back for two weeks, then the Butlers phoned in a blackmail threat or something (cheating-related maybe?) and got back to #1 for eight straight weeks somehow – a miracle in this cutthroat clusterfuck of a year that was 1963.  Or maybe a huge section of the buying-and-listening public were really going back and forth on whether they wanted to cheat on their spouses or just stay home and watch The Beverly Hillbillies.  I don’t know what it says about marriages in 1963 that the Butlers’ tune came out on top.

Or they did until the next scrum kicked in.  Bill Anderson staked his claim to #1 with the weepy string-laden “Still,” which holds up about as well as most of his performances to modern ears (it was a whisper-friendly age I guess) before Hawkshaw Hawkins stomped in with the relatively swinging “Lonesome 7-7203.”  Hawkins and Anderson yanked the slot back and forth from April through June when a young Buck (Owens) stepped into the fray with his first #1, “Act Naturally.”  The three swatted the ball back and forth until Johnny Cash just stepped in and grabbed that shit with “Ring of Fire” and held it for seven weeks (although forever would’ve been more appropriate).  Oddly, that stomping, horny and horn-laced fireball – co-written about Cash by his eventual wife June Carter and future Hank Williams Jr. manager Merle Kilgore – was a rock of stability in a wild, grabby year.  It eventually ceded the spot (much more likely burning out than fading away, to borrow a much-later tune’s hook) to Canadian nice-dude George Hamilton IV and his suave, slow-loping “Abilene” for five minutes or so before Buck Owens came crashing back in with the giddy, hot-picking joy of “Love’s Gonna Live Here.”  Some guy named Ernie Ashworth borrowed it for a week with a catchy number called “Talk Back Trembling Lips” that my mom used to sing the chorus to and I assumed she’d just made up, but Buck handily snatched it back with “Love’s …” and, presumably breathlessly, held a death grip on that sumbitch from mid-October 1963 through well into 1964 when, as we’ll see, his main competition would be his own bad self.  1964 would be a big year for Buck.  1963 was freaking exhausting for everyone.

THE TREND?

I don’t know what it says about the industry, the artists, or the public that the #1 spot boomeranged around like a methed-up peregrine falcon throughout 1963.  Did diehard fans see their heroes losing ground and run out and buy extra records and burn up the request lines to get them back on top?  Were different radio stations in different camps trying to get their faves back to glory?  For what it’s worth, Bill Anderson’s “Still” was somehow the top-rated single for the whole year, so I’m not sure how much of it is even meant to make sense.  But maybe, just maybe, the relatively long grip that Buck Owens and Johnny Cash managed to have on #1 with their respective standouts speaks to an emergence of genuine star power in country music.  To this day, there’s always room for some act to land a number one hit and then be lucky to land a county-fair gig a couple short years later, but there’s also always a handful of true titans that not only rise above the rabble, but distinguish themselves by doing it again and again until they’re more than just a hit or two: they’re a personality, a sound, and if they cultivate it wisely they’re eventually a legend.

THE RANKING

1. Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash
2. Love's Gonna Live Here - Buck Owens
3. Act Naturally - Buck Owens
4. Don't Let Me Cross Over - Carl & Pearl Butler
5. Lonesome 7-7203 - Hawkshaw Hawkins
6. Abilene - George Hamilton IV
7. Talk Back Trembling Lips - Ernie Ashworth
8. The Ballad of Jed Clampett - Flatt & Scruggs
9. Ruby Ann - Marty Robbins
10. Still - Bill Anderson

DOWN THE LINE ...

Social Distortion is pretty much the soul of rock & roll in my book ... ferociously loud, deceptively smart, and refreshingly relatable. Punk integrity meets bar-band charm. They might actually be best-known in some circles for this breakneck Johnny Cash cover that cranks the volume and preserves the spirit.

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