Various Artists – Hillbilly Halloween
Document Records
18 tracks – 49 minutes
Halloween garners its name from a corruption of “All Hallows Eve”, the evening of the day before All Hallows Day, now known as All Saints Day, a feast day to honor all the Christian saints and formerly one of the three grand days in the Christian calendar, together with Candlemass and Ascension day. All Hallows Eve was later shortened to Hallowe’en, and then again to Halloween. As with many important Christian dates, All Saints Day was chosen specifically to supersede and supplant a celebratory day of an earlier religion or tradition, in this case, the Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest year and was also a commemoration of the dead.
Hillbilly Halloween is a part of Document Records’ “Blues, Blues Halloween: Document’s Deadly Music Series”, which includes Blues, Blues Halloween Vol 2. Document has branded this release as a collection of pre-1960s country, hillbilly and honky-tonk recordings, but there are more than enough blues and early rock’n’roll moments for any blues lover to enjoy. In addition, because it’s Document Records, the mastering is top quality and the gatefold sleeve on the CD contains discographical details (where known) together with illuminating album notes and historical commentary by Gillian Atkinson.
The 18 tracks span the years 1935 to 1959 and the sound quality is really vastly better than one has a right to expect. Joedy Lea’s “The Devil Paid Me (With A Mother In Law)” fair leaps out of the speakers while Ronnie Dawson’s “Rockin’ Bones” remains as wild and exciting today as when it was recorded in 1959. Indeed, whilst one might expect songs on a Hillbilly Halloween album to perhaps be on the slower side, instead a good number of tracks herein gallop along, marking this out of a prime Halloween party album.
Duane Turley And The Tads’ “Devil’s Den” sounds like a grand ancestor to “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”, propelled by a foot-tapping rhythm and regular key changes (although if fiddle playing is your thing, you will certainly want to check out the 3-D Valley Boys’ instrumental gem,”Hashing Up The Devil”). Jay Brinkley’s “Forces Of Evil” is a rollicking doo-wop shuffle. “Ghost Town Boogie” by Orville Newby and The Saddle Serenaders contains some superb guitar by an unidentified guitar player.
Lyrically, nearly all the songs have their tongues planted firmly in their metaphorical cheeks and one or two are clearly of their time (Buddy and Marion Durham’s “Witch Doctor” sounds like they hired Daffy Duck’s children to sing the chorus). There are also some classics included, such as Stan Jones and His Death Valley Rangers’ “Riders In The Sky”.
One of the many highlights of Hillbilly Halloween is Dave Edwards & His Alabama Boys’ “Done Sold My Soul To The Devil”. As Atkinson wry observes in her album notes: “Dave Edwards and His Alabama Boys weren’t from Alabama and Dave Edwards wasn’t in the band, but he was their manager. Sounding much like an outtake from a Milton Brown & His Musical Brownies session….”
Hillbilly Halloween is another cracking release from Document Records and is well worth checking out.
