34. Ray Price - Night Life (1963)

1. Introduction and Theme/ Night Life*

2. Lonely Street

3. The Wild Side of Life*

4. Sittin' and Thinkin'*

5. The Twenty-Fourth Hour

6. A Girl in the Night

7. Pride

8. There's No Fool Like a Young Fool

9. If She Could See Me Now

10. Bright Lights and Blonde Haired Women

11. Are You Sure

12. Let Me Talk to You

A-

More country music, and this time it's a concept album. The concept is stated pretty clearly in the introduction (which, annoyingly, is merged with the title track so that you can't listen to one without the other). This is an album about late nights, drinking in bars, wasting your youth and losing everything to excess. It's a very dark album, but also quite a beautiful one. Ray Price has an astonishing voice, and he's backed up by some wonderful playing from his band (oddly enough called the Cherokee Cowboys). The sound of this album is cavernous and haunting, and the sense of loneliness and displacement this engenders is only heightened by the liberal use of a mournful steel guitar. There are also string embellishments, a little piano, and some back up vocals - all of which was apparently a subtle step forward for this kind of music (honky tonk) at the time of release.

What really makes this album, though, is the lyrics. In reading about Ray Charles for Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music I discovered that one of the main draws of country, for him, was the lyrical honesty and willingness to deal with the dark side of life head-on. That certainly describes this album. The unified theme of the songs allows Price and company to explore some very dark subject matter. Many of the people in these songs are trapped - some by alcohol, some by love, and most by the terrible feeling that they simply have no place else to go. If you've ever found yourself unlucky in love, stumbling back to the same bar every night in the desperate hope of finding a connection, or of at least drinking away your problems, then this album can be highly affecting.

There are a couple of weak songs - "A Girl in the Night", for example, is a good idea (Price wondering about what brings a girl in the audience to the same bar every night, all alone), but is kind of mawkish in its execution. And of course this is the most countryish of country, which might be a stumbling block for some people. Personally, though, once I got used to the fact that it's a genre I don't usually listen to, I found it wonderful. Truth be told, I had to listen to it two or three times before I reached that point, but it was well worth the effort. 

If anyone is reading this (which my stats section says is definitely not the case), then be excited for the next couple of entries, where I manage to trivialise the contributions of two of the true titans of popular music.