47. Buck Owens and His Buckaroos - I've Got a Tiger By the Tail (1965)

1. I've Got a Tiger By the Tail

2. Trouble and Me

3. Let the Sad Times Roll On

4. Wham Bam

5. If You Fall Out of Love With Me

6. Fallin' for You

7. We're Gonna Let the Good Times Roll*

8. The Band Keeps Playin' On*

9. Streets of Laredo*

10. Cryin' Time

11. A Maiden's Prayer

12. Memphis

B+

I'm really starting to warm up to all this country music. I doubt it will ever be my favourite genre, but so far all the country albums on the List have been pretty enjoyable.

This album apparently typifies the "Bakersfield Sound". I can see why it became so popular. Where all the preceding country albums have been slow and (honestly) a bit dreary, Tiger... adds a peppy rock back beat, jangly and jaunty guitars, and a welcome sense of humour. The rock influence is so prevalent that there's even a Chuck Berry cover ("Memphis"). Not to say that this is by any stretch of the imagination a "rock record". It's still pretty damned country, with lots of twangy, nasal vocals, fiddles and pedal steel guitar. But it's a fun listen. 

The title track kind is kind of misleading as to what's to come - it's almost impossibly upbeat in sound, even as it tells the tale of a man who's shacked-up with a wild woman and just can't handle it. The rest of the album is slightly more sedate and steady in sound, although the first half still packs quite a punch. There's a lot of cheeky humour, too. "Wham Bam" is pretty clearly about a guy who's happy to do the deed as long as there are no strings attached. "We're Gonna Let the Good Times Roll" is about a guy who's excited that his girlfriend's coming back to town, for all the obvious reasons. But then you have sadder songs like "Cryin' Time", the lovely "The Band Keeps Playin'On", and the mournful-if-still-slightly-tongue-in-cheek "Streets of Laredo", about a dying cowboy. And through it all the lyrics are pretty clever and insightful, in that rough-and-ready way that country lyricvs so often are. No "Yeah yeah baby I wanna hold your hand ooh yeah shake for me baby" nonsense here, just proper songs with proper lyrics about real life and all its ups and downs.

The thing that really stands out on this album, though, is the guitars. The album has a stripped-back sound, and the guitars chime and wind and twang marvelously in a way they really haven't in any of the albums on the List so far. There's some marvelous interplay on display, as well as a couple of lovely chiming guitar intros that sound incredibly modern.

Apparently the Bakersfield Sound led directly to the development of country rock. Is this a good thing? I mean, that means this album is indirectly responsible for the Eagles. Then again, "Desperado" was a pretty great song. So I guess all is forgiven.

A fun listen and an obviously important collection of music.