heep ep

Joe Tex : Buying a Book
Bobby Charles : Bobby Charles

Disparaging as it is to flip through used records in New York (not to mention keeping in mind waxy accumulation in the earhole and the hell that is moving boxes of records), it was finally worth my while as two things I had been pining for suddenly appeared in the wood crates. It's no secret that I am taken with Joe Tex (for those who don't know, the phrase "heep see" is from Joe's joint "Heep See Few Know," flipping Scripture in the days before he really got all 5%) but finding his crisp yet wistful classic Buying a Book was just short of impossible this far north of the Mason-Dixon line. His world of sock hops, prom dresses, hand-me-down shoes, dabs of mustard greens, grandma's can of snuff, it sounds impossibly passed, like when a Carl Perkins teen ditty talks about polishing up a horse for Saturday night's picture show. Bus depot hieroglyphics, barber shop-talk, So-n-so's misfortune, everybody'n everybody's bidness...the more things change the more...
Joe Tex - Anything You Wanna Know

Mike McG gave me that slice of Bobby Charles's watermelon first, to slurp and quench to seek out the Band in all its sepia doubt beat, its mudfoot strut, from Jesse Winchester to Jackie Lomax. Now I can hear how it snuggles into crackles like a cardigan in a spring wind. Ever wish Randy Newman just grew up redbone? Sang in swamp shacks instead of at Disneyland? As prime Band-non-Band, this Bearsville record serves as the Chelsea Girl for VU-non-VU. 'Cept Bobby don't have to make explicit that life is a carnival, just squint (maybe it's a wink) about the carnie aspects, you know how people are. Easy Lee as Lee Dorsey, Bobby Charles leans back while dudes like Danko, Dr. John, and Levon Helm loop-de-loop.
Bobby Charles - Small Town Talk