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August 2017
Features
12 Zephaniah OHora
He might be based in Brooklyn, NY, but Zephaniah OHora’s debut is
rooted in the sounds of Bakersfield. Oh, and it’s stunning, reckons Duncan
Warwick.
22 Garth Fundis
Douglas McPherson meets the man behind Don Williams and now the man
behind the all-star tribute to ‘The Gentle Giant.’
52 Elvis - The Sun Years
Spencer Leigh on the early years of Elvis recordings at Sun Studios when
Elvis Presley was a ‘hillbilly singer.’
58 Libby Koch
The former lawyer is on a legal high with her music career.
18 WHEELS &
A BAKERSFIELD
SOUND
All photos: Meredith Jenks
IF THERE’S ONE RECORD YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS YEAR
IT’S ‘THIS HIGHWAY’ BY NEWCOMER ZEPHANIAH OHORA AND
THE 18 WHEELERS, ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE A PENCHANT
FOR LATE 1960s CLASSIC COUNTRY AND THE BAKERSFIELD
SOUND. DUNCAN WARWICK MEETS THE MAN.
T
here’s a tendency among dedicated music fans to get
over-excited by a new release they like. We might
exaggerate a little, and what we are declaring as one
of the best records we’ve ever heard might in reality
be the best record we’ve heard that week, that month, or just
recently. I’m as guilty as the next man, but in the clear light of
day, with my most objective hat on, and having lived with the
album for several weeks, This Highway by Zephaniah OHora &
The 18 Wheelers is probably one of the best country records
I’ve ever heard!
Just a track or two in on the first play and my initial thought
was that this guy had listened to a lot of Merle Haggard records.
It wasn’t long before I amended that thought. The improbably
named Zephaniah OHora isn’t some kind of Haggard clone, and
it’s far more than just having listened to a lot of Merle, rather, I
thought, he has studied, assimilated, and immersed himself in
not just Haggard, but the whole Bakersfield sound along with
classic honky tonk and spewed forth his own interpretation.
Texas honky tonker Dale Watson has often suggested that if an
artist states that their influences are say, Haggard and Jones,
then one is justified in expecting that there will be traces of
those influences evident in their sound. And Zephaniah is
proudly wearing his influences prominently on both sleeves
while at the same time making brand new music that rightfully
retains its sense of awe with regard to the past.
It doesn’t hurt either that Brooklyn resident OHora has
surrounded himself with some superb musicians, most notably
the formerly San Francisco-based guitar player extraordinaire
Jim Campilongo, whose work on both the Telecaster and
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BUCK
FORD
“Music should be
made or enjoyed
because of what
is in your heart.
Not just because
of age and what
seems to be the
“cool” thing and
what everyone
else likes...”
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GARTH
FUNDIS
Don Williams & Me
DOUGLAS MCPHERSON MEETS GARTH FUNDIS, THE
PRODUCER BEHIND DON WILLIAMS, KEITH WHITLEY AND
TRISHA YEARWOOD, AND NOW AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE TO
DON WILLIAMS.
Regulars
Charts
C
oming from California and being called
Buck might imply some kind of allegiance
to the Bakersfield sound, but for the former
professional motocross racer from the West
coast, Buck Ford, it runs deeper than that, he focuses on
keeping the traditional sound alive. For the 27-year-old
young gun already on his fifth release, that traditional
sound is from the Strait, Haggard, Jones, and Whitley
school of country and one that makes him “a kind of
anomaly” - a kid from today’s generation, singing and
paying respect to the values of the good ole days.
Despite being a “California country boy,” Ford’s
releases enjoy some of the best Nashville has to offer in
terms of session musicians and recording facilities, and
he even lived there for a couple of years in 2013/2014.
“I packed up and moved everything I own to live there.
Great town. I loved it, still love it. I travel to Nash many
times a year now. I do most of my writing with friends in
and around Nashville. I record all of my music there. I
record with Nashville’s A Team. You just can’t beat the
musicians and the sound of the studios that I use and
record with. They are the best Nashville has to offer! I
am in Nashville enough to get what I need done but then
it’s back home to California.
“I think California is great. The state alone has
provided me so many awesome venues to tour and
play shows. Not to mention, my California fan base has
grown tremendously over the years.”
The defining moment that set Buck Ford on the path
to be a country singer he recalls that as a 17-year-old he
“saw George Strait in concert.
“I sold all of my motorcycles and put my riding career
on hold. I put together a band and we were working in
a matter of a couple of months. I have been at it ever
since!”
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30 Album Reviews
51 Vinyl Reviews
4 News
8 Tour Guide
18 Nice to meet y’all - Buck Ford
21 The David Allan Page
27 Nice to meet y’all - Two Ways Home
28 Celebration Of A Song
29 Nashville Skinny
57 Americana Roundup
13
Nice to meet y’all...
62 Who Killed Country Music? You reply. R
Reviews
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Page 12
“I
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t wasn’t like I set out to be a record producer,” Garth Fundis
says modestly, “but all the stuff I learned in college set me
up. I was a music major, a voice major. I was a s inger myself.
It was like I’d learned a language that I didn’t know how I
was going to use it. But I got to be in a recording studio and I
found I could relate to musicians, I could relate to artists... and I knew how
to make them better.”
Fundis is one of Nashville’s top producers. He helmed such Keith
Whitley classics as Don’t Close Your Eyes and When You Say Nothing At All.
He delivered Trisha Yearwood’s She’s In Love With The Boy at the start of a
25-year association with that singer.
Most of all, Fundis has been Don Williams’s right hand man in the studio
since the early 1970s, helping him capture such evergreen tracks as Tulsa
Time, I Believe In You, Good Old Boys Like Me and so many more.
His latest project is Gentle Giants, a tribute to Williams by artists ranging
from Garth Brooks and Lady Antebellum to John Prine, Alison Krauss,
Jason Isbell and Dierks Bentley.
“It’s something I had thought about for many years,” says Fundis. “I
started working with Don in ‘73 or ‘74, so that’s a lot of years, and over
that entire time I’ve had people tell me what Don’s songs and Don’s
delivery meant to them. So I thought it was time someone did something
for him.
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HERE COMES THE SUN
KING
SPENCER LEIGH LOOKS
AT ELVIS PRESLEY AT
SUN RECORDS
T
he opportunity to write a
book about Elvis Presley to
mark the fortieth anniversary
of his death was too good to
miss and Elvis Presley: Caught
In A Trap is being published
by McNidder and Grace on
August 3. I am naturally hoping
that the book will be successful and although it
has taken me a year to write, it is pretty much a
lifetime’s work. Like the Coasters’ song, “I’ve been
this way since 1956”.
In May 1956, I saw the title Heartbreak Hotel
by Elvis Presley in the charts in the New Musical
Express, which also carried an exciting cover
picture of Elvis in full flow. The title, the name
and the look promised so much and I could sense
that this could open the door to a magic kingdom,
but I went for weeks without hearing it. The BBC
included only a little rock’n’roll in its schedules
and hearing such a record depended on luck. You
could go into a shop and ask to hear a record in a
listening booth with a view to purchase, but not if
you were 11 years old.
Then one day I had a cold and was in bed. I
switched on the radio for Housewives’ Choice,
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L
I
B
B
Y
a dreary programme as the good housewives of
the UK shunned rock’n’roll and preferred David
Whitfield and Ronnie Hilton – and it was followed
by a religious pep talk, Five To Ten. This particular
morning, an irate vicar denounced the vilest,
most repulsive, most appalling record he had ever
heard. The singer would rot in hell and his name
was Elvis Presley. I’m exaggerating of course but
that’s what he wanted to say. He played 30 seconds
of Heartbreak Hotel and that was enough to change
my whole life. And that is the important point – we
all knew that this was not a silly craze or teenage
fad. Elvis would remain with us forever. The record
also healed the sick, as I left my bed and went to
a store and bought it (5/7d or 28p, should you be
interested).
In the 1970s, I started writing about popular
music and for 40 years, I have been interviewing
music makers for magazine features, books and
radio programmes. Many of those personalities
have been associated with Elvis Presley or have
been influenced by him, and so when I came to
write the book I had hundreds of original quotes
that I could use. As I started writing, I realised that
this book was not solely about Elvis but about a
whole lot of fascinating characters and how they
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K
O
C
H
LEGAL HIGH
64 Americana & UK Country Charts
65 Billboard Country Charts
TEXAN LIBBY KOCH GETS A BUZZ FROM CONSTANTLY
TOURING. THE FORMER HOUSTON LAWYER VISITS THE
UK THIS MONTH AND TALKS TO DUNCAN WARWICK.
T
he world of US lawyers has been glamourised in fiction and
onscreen since To Kill A Mockingbird and it continues with massive
sellers like John Grisham, but, despite qualifying as a lawyer,
Texas artist Libby Koch (pronounced like the soft drink) has found
the lure of a life on the road and being a bonafide troubadour in the most
traditional sense too much to resist. Her commitment to her musical career
is reinforced in a recent album launch video in which she states that she
was spending so much time on the road and so little time at home that she
put all of her belongings into storage and is now on the road 24/7.
“I was a real estate attorney,” says the feisty Texan songbird. “The
market had taken a big downturn in 2008-9. I was working at a large law
firm, and I had always planned to work there for a few years and then
go in house, but due to the downturn, no one was hiring, and the firms
were beginning to lay off their younger attorneys. I wasn’t happy at all in
my career, but I didn’t really know what to do about it. I had lunch with a
mentor of mine, Marty DeBusk, who is a brilliant attorney in Houston, and I
asked her if she knew of anyone who was hiring or if she had any ideas or
advice. She suggested the last thing I ever expected: ‘why don’t you take
a year off and pursue your music?’ At the time I’d been playing more and
more shows in Houston and had just released my first album, Redemption.
I said, ‘Marty, I could never do that! Wait...could I do that?’ I left that lunch
and it was as though a veil had been lifted. I immediately went home and
readjusted my finances to start saving money and get used to spending
less. Within nine months I was officially pursuing music full-time and have
been going strong for seven years now.
Courtesy of Billboard Inc.
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