More Conway and Loretta

I received the "Definitive Collection" Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. This is the one I would buy. There are duets on there that I have never heard.

The first suprise was "Don't Tell Me You're Sorry," written by Loretta and is a perfect example of her simple and fun writing. She walks into a bar and catches Conway with a blond on his lap.

"I'm just seeing how much she weighs," says Twitty. "I'm sorry."

"I know how SORRY you are, Conway!"

The song is a blast. But the neat thing about this CD than the other CDs, I bought on Loretta and Conway. I bought them at oldies.com. They will sell you a bunch of CD's of Loretta and Conway, ... but don't buy them. They are only CDs of Loretta singing and Conway singing, ... not duets.

Loretta mentions in the credits that she had gotten many letters of irate Conway fans for breaking his marriage up. The duet started in England where both Loretta and Conway were singing. They decided to do a couple of songs together; the people loved it, and their responses to the songs were great. On this CD is 24 songs, much worthwhile.

On this CD is also, Freddy Heart's, "Easy Loving," "The telephone song, written by Conway (it's awesome), John Denver (Who has Oklahoma Roots.) "Back Home Again." Jim Stafford's "Spiders and Snakes," (One song that got him, 'The Rest Of His Life Gig in Branson,") "Your the Reason Our Kids are Ugly," (a hoot), "I Still Believe in Waltzes," (Incredible) and "Making Believe." (One of the greatest songs ever written by Jimmy Work). I am going to google him.

Have Prof Hill buy downloads of, Spiders and Snakes, "the Ugly Song," and the fabulous, Work song "Making Believe." It is such an incredible song, I am putting his bio below to show how tough the music business is.




Jimmy Work isn't a name that most country music fans are familiar with, even though as a songwriter he was responsible for "Tennessee Border," "Making Believe," and "That's What Makes the Jukebox Play." Like a handful of performers, he worked happily at music for many years but felt privileged simply to have had the opportunity to record and perform, and gladly kept his day job as a millwright.

Jimmy Work was born in Akron, OH, in 1924. Two years later, his parents moved to a farm in Dukedom, TN. He began playing guitar when he was seven years old after he picked up a guitar his father had originally bought for his mother. His two biggest influences at that point in his life, and for many years after, were Gene Autry and Roy Acuff, and one can safely include Jimmie Rodgers on the list as well. He was in a band in high school, and was a good enough fiddle player to win contests on that instrument as well. He began writing songs before he was in his teens, and was encouraged by reactions to his music.

By 1945, he was playing country music in Pontiac, a suburb of Detroit, MI; and while things started slowly for Work, playing country music in a northern industrial area, they got better in the years immediately as Southerners, white as well as black, moved there to take defense plant jobs and stayed on afterward as part of the automobile and related industries. Players like Jimmy Work were a welcome reminder of home for many of these newly transplanted country listeners. By the mid-'40s, Work had a big enough audience from his local radio appearances to justify the publication of a songbook, as he later cut his first two singles for a tiny label called Trophy. Those first two singles, featuring Work on acoustic guitar and a single electric guitar backup, were highly derivative of Jimmie Rodgers, and even featured Work yodeling in the manner of the Singing Brakeman.

His third single, "Tennessee Border," was his first version of the song, cut for the tiny Alben label. His record didn't sell, but a year later, "Tennessee Border" was picked up by five different artists -- Red Foley, Bob Atcher, Jimmie Skinner, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Hank Williams -- and became a hit for four of them, all at once. Foley's led the pack, peaking at number three on the country charts, with Ford's following at number eight, Atcher's at number 12, and Skinner's bringing up the rear at number 15; ironically, it was Hank Williams' version that failed to chart.

The success of those records got Jimmy Work his first major-label contract with Decca Records in 1949, and "Tennessee Border" also got him invited to appear on the Grand Ole Opry; Work also played at the Ernest Tubb Midnight Jamboree. By the time of his second session for Decca in August of 1949, Work was being backed by Red Foley's Pleasant Valley Boys, which included Jerry Bird and Delmore Brothers veteran Zeke Turner on guitars, Ernie Newton on bass, and the legendary Tommy Jackson on fiddle. Unfortunately, despite the quality of the players and the momentum imparted by the success of "Tennessee Border," Work never had any hits from his Decca work, and by 1950 he was released from the label. After a short stay with the tiny Bullet label in 1950, Work jumped to the London label in 1951, which yielded "Pickup Truck," his witty slice-of-Southern-life song, and "Do Your Honky Tonkin' at Home."

During this period, Work's music, mostly by virtue of the bands he was using for backup, was heavily influenced by the honky tonk style of Lefty Frizzell. It may have been the derivative nature of his sound, coupled with the indifferent nature of the material, that left Work out in the cold where sales of his own records were concerned during this period.

Still without a hit of his own to his credit, Jimmy Work signed with Capitol Records in 1952, and although his first four songs yielded no hits, the label stuck with him. It was only after a second round of sessions that he was dropped from the label's roster in 1953. He then moved to the Dot label, and it was there that he cut two of his most popular songs, "Making Believe" and "That's What Makes the Jukebox Play." "Making Believe," issued in 1955, rose to number 11 for Work, but it was Kitty Wells, releasing a rival version, who saw the lion's share of record sales with a number two single.

"That's What Makes the Jukebox Play" became a number six single for Work in the summer of 1955. Work's success boosted his concert activity during the mid-'50s, and he happened to share a number of concerts in 1955 with Elvis Presley, who was still a regional phenomenon. His future with Dot Records was secure for the time being, with two major hits behind him, and Work continued playing dates, recording, and writing songs; occasionally he would experiment with new sounds, as with his rockabilly-style cover of "Rock Island Line," issued in the wake of English skiffle king Lonnie Donegan's hit version (which charted in America).

Work wasn't a rockabilly player or a rock & roller, however, and the rise of the new music took away just enough of the impetus from country music in general that he eventually was forced to give up the music business. He sold real estate and cut some singles (including yet another version of "Tennessee Border") for the All label, based in Whittier, CA. By 1959, it was all over, and Work knew it; the music had passed him by, and the honky tonk style wasn't even in favor among the country audience that did remain. He returned to the job he was trained for and knew best, a millwright, on the farm in Dukedom, TN, near the border with Kentucky.

Jimmy Work kept his hand in songwriting, signed with the Acuff-Rose organization, and some of his past glories were revisited in later years. Emmylou Harris brought "Making Believe" back into the Top Ten with a new version in 1977, and Moe Bandy, that diehard honky tonk enthusiast, brought "That's What Makes the Jukebox Play" to number 11 on the country charts a year later.

A prodigious talent with an ear for songwriting that would be the envy of most country players, and a smooth-yet-jaunty honky tonk style, Jimmy Work was unjustly forgotten and overlooked for many years by too many people. Even on those occasions when the songs were less than first-rate, or the backing band wasn't what it might have been, his delivery saved the record. He was never too bothered by the obscurity into which he fell in the 1960s, satisfied that he'd had the chance to make music, and having settled into a comfortable living. In 1986, Bear Family Records issued the first LP of Jimmy Work's songs, which was followed by a second vinyl disc, and later by a double-CD set from the same label, tying up all the loose ends of Work's career. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Covers
* Making Believe by Kitty Weels (1956)
* Making Believe by The Louvin Brothers (1958)
* Making Believe by Wanda Jackson (1958)
* Making Believe by Faron Young (1959)
* Making Believe by Willie Nelson (March 1966)
* Making Believe by Emmylou Harris (January 1977)
* Making Believe by Merle Haggard and The Strangers
* Making Believe by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn
(September 1977)