For the casual country fan who only knows Johnny Paycheck from his late-'70s outlaw period ("Take This Job and Shove It," a hit song so huge that its title was made into a major film), these 24 sides from the mid-'60s will come as a major revelation. Paycheck has always come by his outlaw image honestly and he had been knocking around Nashville since 1958, cutting rockabilly country singles under the name Donny Young when he came to the attention of producer/record executive Aubrey Mayhew in 1962. Forming a partnership, ...
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For the casual country fan who only knows Johnny Paycheck from his late-'70s outlaw period ("Take This Job and Shove It," a hit song so huge that its title was made into a major film), these 24 sides from the mid-'60s will come as a major revelation. Paycheck has always come by his outlaw image honestly and he had been knocking around Nashville since 1958, cutting rockabilly country singles under the name Donny Young when he came to the attention of producer/record executive Aubrey Mayhew in 1962. Forming a partnership, they produced a spate of hard country singles for Hilltop before starting up their own label, Little Darlin'. Figuring the easiest way to get noticed was to be as wild as possible, they uncorked a rash of singles (and a couple of albums) that pushed the darkest side of honky tonk lyrics to their limits while simultaneously widening the limits of 45-rpm reproduction with stinging, high-end mixes perfect for AM country radio stations and truck-stop jukeboxes alike. These weren't merely honky tonk records bucking the tide of the '60s Nashville sound; this was country music with a wild-hair, unrepentant redneck attitude to it. This dissolute persona is reflected in many of the titles alone, from "If I'm Gonna Sink (I Might as Well Go to the Bottom)," to "He's in a Hurry (To Get Home to My Wife)," to the absolutely scary "(Pardon Me) I've Got Someone to Kill," the mood getting blacker and blacker with each keening wail of Lloyd Green's steel guitar. Paycheck may have had bigger (much bigger) hits than the 24 tracks collected here, but he never made any greater music than this. ~ Cub Koda, Rovi
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