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Black Oak Arkansas Discography | | |
  The Best of Black Oak Arkansas
ATCO SD36150 (1977)
SIDE ONE Jim Dandy () Hot and Nasty () Happy Hooker () Lord Have Mercy on My Soul ()
SIDE TWO Taxman () So You Want to Be a Rock'n'Roll Star () Dixie () Uncle Lijiah () Son of a
Gun
Liner Notes
Behold Black Oak Arkansas -- galloping onstage like escapees from a Dogpatch nuthouse, cavorting with
the physical
abandon of the mountain men in Deliverance, buggering their audience with the raunchiest rock
to be heard on this side of the
moon. And the audiences love it. They love Black Oak's sexual message, rebel high spirits, and honest
exuberant
showmanship.
When the history of outlaw rockers gets written, these Arkansas hillbillies should have a chapter for
every stage of their
career. Probably you already know the story: how they banded together and taught each other the rudiments
of music. How
they needed sound equipment but couldn't afford it; consequently, how they snuck into the local school
and ripped out its public
address system. How they got caught, convicted, and nearly sent off to the meanest prison in the South.
And the rest goes like
a rags-to-riches movie scenario -- their drifting down to New Orleans and leading a life that Jim Dandy
described as that of
people who had been "shoved out of the herd, pushed out into the woods where the wild animals are."
Heading cross-country
to Los Angeles and playing in places like the Whiskey and the Corral, sometimes for no pay. Finally,
the big break: Ahmet
Ertegun coming by, liking what he heard, and signing them up to Atlantic Records.
What they became, in short order, was one of the four biggest road bands in this country. In towns and
cities everywhere, Jim
Dandy's guttural vocals left listeners gasping -- and screaming for more. "A voice unrivalled in
the animal kingdom," one critic
said. "He's the only singer in rock who can sing in all keys at once," opinioned another.
And over the years the Dandy larynx
has been compared to Captain Beefheart, W.C. Fields, Rod Stewart doubled, Francis the Talking Mule,
Hoyt Axton, Moms
Mabley, Barry McGuire, the oldest living sex offender, and a consumptive toad.
Having the staunch support of Atlantic Records during their formative stint on the label from 1971-1975,
and blessed with so
distinctive a lead singer, Black Oak couldn't go anywhere but upwards. Equally important was the group's
familylike
cohesiveness, their freedom from the kind of ego strain that has been known to scatter a rock band to
the four winds. Changes
happened, of course -- drummer Tommy Aldridge replacing Wayne Evans, guitarist Jimmy Henderson replacing
Harvey Jett --
they happened peacefully, within the family, with no public hassling. Because they've held together
so well, Black Oak has
been free to play and play and play, to go on gig-a-night tours that would shred the patience and endurance
of any group not
blessed with their family spirit.
That spirit, and the friendly high-energy vibes they work up with their audiences, insured Black Oak's
great success. So why
was it that, even at the height of its popularity, the band failed to please all listeners? Why have
rock critics so frequently used
Black Oak as a dart board for their blackest invective? The hostility probably goes beyond music and
into image. For no other
band is more lacking in middle-class cachet. Black Oak represents that one thing that is most offensive
-- up-front poverty.
They are poor boys who became rich, and they don't let you forget where they came from. Props for their
stage act are pure
bottom dog Arkansas funk: the washboard Jim Dandy belabours during When Electricity Came to Arkansas,
the tambourine
he flails during Keep the Faith. Can you imagine Jim Dandy and company, like President Carter,
hiring a speech therapist to
deprogram their accents? It'll never happen. Most refugees from underprivileged backgrounds try to live
them down, but Black
Oak plays them up. Instead of going their separate ways into Mediterranean villas, Swiss chalets, and
Coral Gables
condominiums, the group lives communally and simply on a huge spread perched upon the third highest
mountain in Arkansas.
Probably no other band has a stronger sense of identity, or has made a stronger point of maintaining
its roots. In that respect,
refusing to adapt to the glitzy lifestyle of rock'n'roll success, the Black Oak boys are exactly what
they say they are -- the rock
world's truest rebels.
And they are their own best public relations firm, having campaigned to ban off-shore drilling, joined
the movement to legalize
marijuana, played for voter-registration benefits, and entertained in prisons. Still, you can't win
all hearts: in 1975, our good ole
boys locked horns with a group of five Baptist preachers in Harrison, Arkansas. All Black Oak wanted
was to give a benefit
concert for a local hospital. But the preachers weren't going for it. Seeking an injunction to prohibit
the concert, the ministers
informed the press that Black Oak was a "mongrel group of satanic origins that is promoting drugs,
sex, and revolution." When
the Harrison City Council refused to grant an injunction, the ministers countered by scheduling a prayer
meeting for the same
time as the concert, declaring: "We will pray for rain." Unfortunately for their cause, the
day of the concert ushered in
cloudless skies and warm weather; and Black Oak played to a crowd of 6,000, while only sixty people
showed up for the
prayer meeting.
And the tunes that have endeared them throughout the nation's boogie circuit? Here are the best of them.
On side one, we
hear one of Atlantic's best moves: convincing the Black Oak to record the label's venerable La Vern
Baker classic, Jim
Dandy. A righteous shuffle enlivened by Ruby Starr's sassy vocal contribution, Jim Dandy became
the band's most successful
single. Dating all the way back to Black Oak's first Atlantic album, Hot and Nasty soon became
the band's theme song, an
expression of its music and lifestyle, both of them bubbling with Rabelaisian ribaldry. Happy Hooker,
another celebration of
sex, this time in a bluesy vein, comes from a later album, HIGH ON THE HOG, in which the band dropped
the heavier
orientation of its earlier concept albums and aimed for simple fun and games; many Black Oak fans regard
HIGH ON THE
HOG, with its diversity of styles, as the band's belated answer to SERGEANT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB
BAND. Lord Have Mercy on My Soul was written, according to Jim Dandy, "at a beach house
in Santa Monica, shortly
after we'd been run out of Memphis." Against an organ background, Jim Dandy delivers a fundamentalist
sermon that ends
with somebody relieving himself into a bucket; after that comes an instrumental stretch that is Black
Oak at its high-energy
best.
A mountain-rocking version of George Harrison's Taxman opens side two, a reminder of Jim Dandy's
belief that "Taxes is just
a high level of protection money." Probably no other band has a better right to sing the Byrds'
classic So You Want To Be A
Rock'n'Roll Star than Black Oak, it too having risen from rags-to-riches, no other band having more
strongly stood apart from
the plastic artificialities associated with rock biz instant success. In Dixie, the band reaffirms
its southern roots, giving the
traditional tune a treatment -- half unaccompanied harmonized vocals, half instrumental -- that turns
it into something
guaranteed to amaze. Many are the folk tales about men who summon up the devil, but this one about ambling Uncle
Lijiah
could well be the happiest. Replete with a tasty banjo portion, this tune, one of the band's oldest,
shows them already adept at
fusing country and rock. Son of a Gun is Black Oak at its life-affirming best, letting us know
that it's all right to be young,
unready to settle down, and feeling that "the time of my life has just now begun."
Maybe that's the ultimate message of the Prince of the Ozarks Jim Dandy and his band of merry freaks,
and the ultimate
message of every great rock band: Get on your feet. Boogie. Enjoy.
-Jack Hiemenz
(Mr. Hiemenz is a frequent contributor to the Village Voice, New York Times, and Musical
America. As former N.Y. editor
for the rock magazine Zoo World, he spent considerable time covering Black Oak Arkansas on the road.)
(C) 1977 Atlantic Recording Corporation
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