A good pumpkin ale and the story of the "Golden Guitar"

10/29/10

beeradvocate.com rating- n/a

St. Ambroise Great Pumpkin Ale- New Beer Distributors, Chrystie Street New York, NY-12 oz. bottle into Pub Glass- 5% ABV. A nice cool, autumn Friday and my third pumpkin brew. It was a bit warm this week but fall weather returned today finally. I feel cheated when fall days are too warm. There was no rating for this beer on beeradvocate.com. Its from a brewery in Montreal, Canada. Nice brown color with hints of red. Nice and fluffy, one and half finger head. Not much retention or lacing going on. This beer has a nice pumpkiny smell and not as cloying as the Southern Tier which bordered on potpourri. Mild pumpkin aroma and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. Medium bodied mouth feel, smooth. Carbonation is pretty light, just a bit of fizz, which is nice because it lets the taste profile come up front. This beer is real good. I have to say its probably my favorite of the pumpkin beers I have tried which is ironic since I have tasted two of the highest rated pumpkin beers out there (Southern Tier and Dogfish). I could actually see myself sitting back and drinking a couple of these fairly easily which I can't say I would like to do with the others! Just enough flavor to remind you this is a pumpkin beer but not so much it makes you feel like you are drinking a "flavored" beer. Cheers to the St. Ambroise Great Pumpkin Ale, well done.

I have been asked by friends what I like about old country music. I often have a hard time telling them exactly what it is that attracted me to this music in the first place. I didn’t grow up in the south; I’ve lived in NY my whole life. I grew up listening to classic rock, alternative, metal and rap. I don’t even know anyone who likes this style of music. And yet I am compelled to seek out this music more so now than ever before. My original introduction to “country music was Johnny Cash particularly A Boy Named Sue and Sunday Morning Coming Down. Following that introduction I read about the guitar player Chet Atkins in a guitar magazine. Thus the two components of country music which most appeal to me, the instrumentation and the storytelling, were discovered and I have been looking for different records and artist ever since. An additional element of country records which appealed to me was that being in NYC most people aren’t looking for them so when I came across them they were fairly if not completely cheap. Fundamentally, like soul/R&B records from the 50’s and 60’s, country records of the 50’s and 60’s were consistent in both production and style. In a sense if you liked one record by one artist you would like another artist who may be unknown to you but was on a particular record label or came from a geographically similar area. Much like hip hop producers who look record labels and at the back of album covers and become familiar with certain session musicians the same can be done with country records from the 50’s and 60’s. This helped me when I started buying country records because, beyond reading magazines or books, I had no one to advise me on which artists to buy and/or what to look for as far as labels are concerned.

This brings us to this week’s record The Greatest Hits of – Bill Anderson aka Whispering Bill Anderson. This LP was released in 1967 and is a compilation of his Decca Recordings dating back to 1962. A very popular singer and songwriter from the 60’s through the 70’s who is known for his intimate, smooth vocal style and his knack for spoken-word, “story” songs. Mr. Anderson was also an excellent songwriter represented on this LP with Bright Lights and Country Music, Three A.M and I Love You Drops. Golden Guitar is a great example of why I have gravitated towards country music. I found this record at the WFMU record fair last weekend. It was a fairly productive fair for me. I went in looking for country records because my regular spots have not had too much lately and I have been buying mostly “rock” records lately. After making a round or to through the fair doing surveillance I was not finding a whole lot that met my buying criteria. Originally I ignored a couple of tables, by the WFMU organizers, of dollar records of which I assumed would be filled with Barbara Streisand and Woody Herman. I decide to take a look and I actually found quite a few pretty good country records. Nothing on my small list of wants but all stuff I didn’t have and actually a few records which are probably worth at least more than the dollar I spent on them.

Finally I chose this record to list to for one reason a song called “Golden Guitar” when I saw this name on the back of the album I figured it would a sappy little number or possibly a little instrumental ditty. I was wrong! I was listening to this record the other night when I finally got some time to review and listen to some of my finds and the last song on Side B of this record was “Golden Guitar” at first I didn’t take too much notice because I was cleaning up the living room while I listening but the line “I could tell you quite a story friend if you'd care to buy me a drink” caught my attention. I sat down and moved the needle back to the beginning of the groove. What followed was a story of a guitar hung above a bar “neck was set with diamonds “and “six keys of solid gold” and the man who asked for the drink told him he would tell him the story of the guitar if he bought him a drink. In short the guitar player returned from the Great War blinded and his friends bought him a guitar. He mastered the guitar and finally was invited to play the Grand Old Opry. The storyteller volunteers to drive him from Shreveport to Nashville but on the way the car gets hit by the train and the guitar man goes to the hospital. The Doctor tells him “you're lucky son it was just your arm it could have been your life” but the storyteller tells us “but he died that night life just demanded more than he could give.” The last verse tells of the guitar man playing in heaven and that the owner of the guitar was in actuality the storyteller’s son!!! I was genuinely surprised by this song and the clever turns the narrative took. Also the delivery in the spoken word style Mr. Anderson was known for was really well suited and heightened the songs dramatic effect which might have been lost if it was sung in a traditional style. “Golden Guitars” is a great example of the creativity often ignored in country music and a story which will inspire me to seek out more songs which are unknown to me but flesh out a new perspective.

*Footnote*- the writer of this “Golden Guitar” was not Bill Anderson. This song according to lpdiscography.com, a great country record discography and resource, the song was penned by Curtis Leach and Betty Gary. I could not find any information on Betty Gary but Curtiss Leach sounded like an interesting character. Please visit http://www.hillbilly-music.com for more information on Mr. Leach who died as a result of a knife wound on December 14, 1965 in Mesquite, Texas.