Track Listing

1. Wagonmaster (part 1)
2. Be A Little Quieter
3. Who Knows Right From Wrong
4. Albert Erving
5. A Place To Hang My Hat
6. Eleven Cent Cotton
7. My Many Hurried Southern Trips
8. Committed To Parkview
9. The Agony Of Waiting
10. Buck and The Boys
11. A Fool Like Me
12. The Late Love of Mine
13. Hot Wired
14. Brother Harold Dee
15. Satan's River
16. Wagonmaster Reprise
17. Porter and Marty (Men WithBroken Hearts/I Heard ThatLonesome Whistle Blow)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9055 in Music
• Released on: 2007-06-05
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
In a world where the term is overused, Porter Wagoner is a true legend. He kicked out hard-hitting honky-tonk anthems in the 50s; pioneered music television with the amazingly long-running "Porter Wagoner Show" 1960-1980, where he discovered Dolly Parton; started the Nudie suit craze; influenced everyone from Johnny Cash and Dwight Yoakam to the Byrds & Gram Parsons; and recorded seminal concept albums in the early 70s, populated with the lonely, addicted, and mentally ill, capturing the imagination of nascent punks like Alex Chilton with songs like "The Rubber Room." Last year, Marty Stuart, longtime Johnny Cash sideman and torchbearer of traditional country music, approached his longtime hero with a song Johnny Cash had written for Porter, called "Committed to Parkview." In the tradition of Porter's haunted ballads, "Committed to Parkview" is the first-person account of a tenant of Nashville's legendary sanitorium, listening in on the tormented cries of his fellow inmates. Porter and Marty decided to build an album, Wagonmaster, around the song, revisiting the classic feel of his chilling concept albums, interwoven with stomping barroom honkytonk that rides with the best of Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb. The results are magnificent, a record of raw beauty capturing a proud, ragged man looking back unflinchingly at his life. At 79, and celebrating his 50th anniversary at the Grand Ole Opry, Porter has never been more vibrant and relevant.

Amazon.com
One of the major problems with modern country revolves around the fact that--save George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Loretta Lynn--almost all the characters who poured the foundation for post-World War II hillbilly culture are dead or no longer recording. Which brings us to the miracle of Porter Wagoner's new album, Wagonmaster, produced by Marty Stuart. Wagoner, who kept his corn-yellow pompadour piled high, wide, and handsome, was as wild as Johnny Cash in his prime, but hid most of his sins behind his smooth, pitch-man persona. You can hear it in the music all along the way, though, particularly in the weird "Rubber Room" era of the '60s and '70s. Now nearly 80, Wagoner--the man who brought James Brown to the Grand Ole Opry--is still as theatrical and out-there as ever, even if his once-strong and well-modulated baritone has crumbled to a husk. Stuart, who loved Porter's old syndicated TV show, frames the album with an opening and close that recalls those halcyon days, a Mac Magaha-style fiddle dancing behind it all. In between, the thin man from West Plains, Missouri, moves through a riveting collection of Southern Gothic numbers, starting with "Be a Little Quieter," in which a man is so haunted by memories of his lover that he imagines her walking the halls, taking a bath, ratting the pots and pans. But that's kids' stuff compared to "Committed to Parkview," which Cash sent to Wagoner nearly 25 years ago on learning they'd both spent time in the Nashville mental hospital/drug treatment center. Wagoner opens his spoken-word introduction as if he's playing for laughs, but quickly turns poignant, and the bloodletting hardly lets up: Running through the album are a couple of Bible beaters ("Brother Harold Dee," "Satan's River"), a reprise of "My Many Hurried Southern Trips" (a song about a bus driver's slice-of-life that Wagoner wrote with former singing partner Dolly Parton), and an affecting word portrait of a man from Wagoner's childhood ("Albert Erving") who was so isolated and loveless that he conjured an imaginary companion. Wagoner takes time for a quickie instrumental tribute to his old banjo sidekick Buck Trent, but he's too mired in pathos to highlight the humor in Shawn Camp's "Hotwired." Yet who's to quibble? Much of this is wonderfully creepy ("The Late Love of Mine") and underscored with the kind of weepy pedal steel that fell out of favor when Nashville set its sights on crossover gold. Stuart, his own generation's premier hillbilly throwback, deserves kudos for getting this to the marketplace. And Wagoner, virtually forgotten after Dolly moved on, is to be revered for hanging in there when so many rhinestoned rednecks who put the "path" in Music City's patented brand of pathology chose to check out. --Alanna Nash

Customer Reviews

All right, buddy!
This was the last album recorded by country music legend Porter Wagoner. Porter's admirer Marty Stuart produced it. Most of the songs tell a story of some kind, which is the kind of song Porter put over very well. I found several of the songs to be quite moving. Some of my favorites include Johnny Cash's "Committed to Parkview" and Porter's own "Albert Eving" and "Brother Harold Dee". The album ends with an unlisted track where Porter and Marty reminisce about Hank Williams and Porter does two of Hank's songs ("Men With Broken Hearts" and "Lonesome Whistle"). This is a very fine album that is the perfect capper to a legandary career.

Last Trail Ride of the Wagonmaster
You could listen to Wagonmaster simply as a pleasant, nostalgic "old crooner reprises past hits" album -- but you would making a gigantic oversight. Because you could also listen to Wagonmaster just as a fiddle tour de force by Stuart Duncan. Or -- count three -- you could regard it primarily as a fiery pedal steel recital by Fred Newell.

In fact, Wagonmaster features virtuosos of their craft, weaving the human voice and instrumental voices (especially fiddle and pedal steel) in an elaborate, thrilling tapestry of call-and-response. Do not attempt this at home! Beneath the deceptively simple structures of seemingly easygoing songs, the careful listener will discern smoke pouring out of the seams. Take the fourth cut, "Albert Erving," for example. During Porter's two-minute recitative introduction, anchoring the story in his past, Stuart Duncan's brooding, portentous fiddling on the bass strings warns that all hell is gonna break loose. As Porter winds up his story, Harry Stinson comes in with a rat-a-tat-tat percussion attack, too late to stop a song launch so violent that it may leave you with whiplash. Anyone naively expecting a sedate walk in the park with the 79-year-old Porter Wagoner will find that they were gravely mistaken.

Fiddle and steel, of course, hark back to Hank Williams, more than to arrangements typical of the Sixties and Seventies when Porter Wagoner was in the prime time of his career. The song Johnny Cash wrote for Porter Wagoner, "Committed to Parkview," contains a passing reference to a patient who "thinks he's Hank Williams." But in the "Porter and Marty" conversation which ends the album, it's all about Hank Williams, whose presence seems to hover over this album.

Throughout "Wagonmaster," fiddle and steel are both played and mixed more aggressively than in Hank's recordings, creating (along with the guitars and occasionally piano and electric banjo) a "wall of sound" effect which would have been shocking to Forties ears. Yet Marty Stuart's arrangements impart a beautiful, powerful neotraditional purity which gives us a fresh take on these familiar songs -- in some cases (e.g. "Albert Erving"), an utterly definitive one. Special mention should be made of the killer banjo breakdown by Porter's long-time bandmate, Buck Trent, in "Buck and the Boys."

The uncompromising, hardball country sound is so clean and strong that it sounds radically alternative, or "beautifully archaic," in Marty Stuart's words about Porter. What also shines through this album is the love and respect that producer Marty Stuart had for his friend and mentor, Porter Wagoner. Porter thanks Marty in a liner note for his brilliant talent, superb musicians, and the easiest recording session of his long career. This was not intended to be a valedictory album, but it ended up being a majestic 53-minute farewell, wrapping up a lifetime of Porter Wagoner's musical achievements. In honoring Porter Wagoner, Marty Stuart helped create a surpassing masterpiece. Wagonmaster is very, very great; probably the finest work that either ever did, not to mention a landmark of country music.

Porter's Last may be His Best
Excellent CD. The best, or one of the best Porter ever did. A fitting tribute as has last CD. If you like country music, I would recomend it highly!