Jeannie C. Riley: Mini-skirted minx country singer
As I continually slimmed down my record collection over the years, the works of certain artists who I knew would never, ever come out on CD tended to be the ones that I kept. Translation: I have a weirdly lopsided record collection that veers sharply -- there is no "in between" to speak of, to be clear here -- from several dozen live PiL bootlegs to the collected works of one Jeannie C. Riley.
Doesn't ring a bell? Remember "Harper Valley PTA"?
Of course you do. Jeannie C. Riley was HOT, a late 60s/early 70s mini-skirted corn pone minx of the Nancy Sinatra variety, but Nashville style. Jeannie C. Riley was a staple on shows like Hee Haw and The Porter Wagner Show and things like that when I was a kid. I thought she was mega-sexy and over the years I collected each and every one of her long playing efforts, each record like the ones that came before it, and the ones to come after, each trying desperately hard to come up with another hit song, a second "Harper Valley PTA," if you will. Over and over and over and over and over again. Even if she never really had another hit song, some of the results are pretty great as you can see for yourself. Make sure to download the MP3 of her extremely nutty paen to modern womanhood, The Rib.
The Girl Most Likely
Okie From Muskogee
Good Enough To Be Your Wife
The Cotton Patch
Country Girl
(Richard Metzger is a guestblogger)
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I like the Kinkster's response to Okie from Muskogee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a50gPRSi3Ic
...Is that Corn Pone Or Porn Cone?
this is the worst thing i've ever seen on boingboing. this is NOT bad enough to be camp!
Ah, those were the good old days. My grandfather (Papaw) and I on Saturday night watching Hee Haw, then Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins and the poor guy that had to wrestle pythons and panthers (what was his name?), then I believe either Lawrence Welk or Wonderful World of Disney. One of those aired on Sunday night - not sure which one.
I was too young to enjoy the hotness of Jeannie C. Riley back then, though I do remember some odd feelings (why is my body behaving this way?) about the cute blond on Hee Haw. She was the one that said "That's All!" at the end of the show.
Bless you, Richard Metzger. As a bluegrass music lover, and a "country" music hater, Hee-Haw was a guilty pleasure of mine when I was a kid. Jeannie C. Riley was one performer I loved to hate (or hated to love, I'm not sure). Could they have possibly made mini skirts any shorter? Thanks for the blast from the past - and this is exactly why people with odd, obscure music collections are so great.
Technically, those are all mini-dresses, not mini-skirts. Not, perhaps, that meaningful to most BB readers, but a matter of life and death to any self-respecting drag queen.
I, for one, welcome our mini-dressed, drag queen overlords.
growing up in northern california, i always liked the youngbloods' version:
well I'm proud to be a hippy from Olema
where we're friendly to the squares and all the straights
we still take in strangers if they're ragged
we can't think of anyone to hate
we don't watch commercials in Olema,
we don't buy the plastic crap they sell
we still wear our hair long like folks used to
and we bathe often, therefore we don't smell
well I'm proud to be a hippy from Olema
where we're friendly to the squares
and all the straights
we still take in strangers if they're ragged
we can't think of anyone to hate
we don't throw our beer cans on the highway
we don't slight a man because he's black
we don't spill our oil out in the ocean
'cause we love birds and fish too much for that
and I'm proud to be a hippy from Olema
where we're friendly to the squares and
all the straights
we still take in strangers if they're Haggard
in Olema, California, Planet Earth
(Olema is an awesome little place to visit, btw)
She was a hottie, all right! My ex being related to Loretta Lynn, I had to listen to Riley. (And they made the movie a few miles from me.) If she'd lost the big hair she could've done a crossover to pop.
--Mike
@#4:
I remember saturday night with mutual of omaha and hee haw too! It came right after pink panther and george of the jungle.
purr, jeannie C riley.
Any relation to John C. Reilly?
The girl looks a little lobotomized for my taste, but she does strike a certain picture. Clearly, its not all about the music. Image is often way more important. (Props for the silver knee high boots.)
The last video looks like a clip from the Johnny Cash show. I think you can get the collected episodes from all his shows, and I think I need to see that. I wonder if Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, or Dolly Parton made it on his show. How can you not love country. Come on.
But as deep my love for country music, there is no excuse, and no decent explanation for the artistic nadir of American culture that is, in two words, Hee Haw. What the hell was that?
Play all of the vids simultaneously and they begin to make sense.....
I'm curious about generation gaps. I'm not old enough to remember her (born '77), but too old to be considered generation Y, afaik.
Where do I fall in the cultural divide mere birthdate seems to establish?
If only we had had remote control back when Hee Haw was on - mute the corny jokes, and amp up the Owens and Roy "God of Stringed Instruments" Clark.
When people say they think Sarah Palin is hot, this is who they're actually thinking of.
I'm with you on this one - even if I do enjoy listening to her on .mp3 ;)
Listening to Hank III right now.
"Cotton Patch" is one of the coolest songs of its style.
I swear this is true...
I remember going to the Country Fair in Phoenix Arizona one summer when I was a little kid in the 70s...there were still some kinds of "Freak Shows" at the time and this particular year there was an exhibit with a pair of Siamese Twin boys.
The boys were in a trailer "habitat" that was like a living room with sofas and a big console TV set. The boys were sitting on the floor watching Hee-Haw on the TV; their faces in profile to the public viewing window.
On the TV screen there was a woman singing "Harper Valley PTA" -- I think it was Jennie C. Riley, but it was at least *someone* in a mini-skirt singing Harper Valley PTA because I recognized the song from my Mom's 45.
I could sing the whole song before I even knew what the words meant. I mean, what was wrong with "Running 'round with men and going wild"? Isn't that what people did on that "Football" show my parents always watched?
Anyway, the thing that shocked me, and made this a memory that has maintained a Proustianly persistence over time, is that one of the boys was drinking a Tab and the other was drinking a Mountain Dew. They had one stomach but different taste preferences and that really did not register with me as a child.
When I imagine Hot Sarah Palin, this is not what I imagine. I think we are imagining different things, Mr. Freeman. Mine wears a leopard leotard, if that's not more than you want to know.
hey, if you play all the videos at once you go back in time.
Bobbie Gentry is another great countrified fembot. Her stuff is on CD and there are a couple of choice nuggets on Youtube.
If anyone is looking for other bent country music - make sure to search out out Pete Drake. A pedal-steel player who (invented?/pioneered?) the Talk Box (the Peter Frampton wa-wa-wa-wo-waaaow sound device). Really crazy stuff.
I happen to be an Okie from Muskogee. The City counsel has banners put up all around downtown stating Muskogee's claim to fame in that song. Its embarassing. The song is terrible lol everyone I talk to about it wishes they would take them down.
The funniest part is how in the song she says we dont smoke Marijuanna or take LSD in Muskogee. Anyone who has been west of Main Street in Muskogee in the past 20 years would find the lyrics need to be updated...
Tom Hale @4
It was Lawrence Welk on Saturday nights. I think Wonderful World of Disney was on Sundays. My family was one of the first on our block to get a color TV (my dad won it from work in a sales contest). For several weeks afterward we had a steady stream of neighbors coming over to see what their favorite shows looked like in color. As I recall, the 3 most popular were Disney, Bonanza and Flipper.
Jeannie C. Riley ain't got nuthin' on my girl Tift!!
Jeannie C. Riley is a perfect example of countrypolitan.
I've also got a fairly decent JCRiley LP collection, glad to see her so rightly celebrated!
This is not camp, this is just good!
Haggard gets a bad rap sometimes for "Okie from Muskogee" and some of those other hard-line songs. He wrote that song from the point of view from his father, and expat Okie working in the oil fields of California, where Merle grew up. But Merle himself is an original issue outlaw, a pre-teen runaway who grew up riding the rails and actually turned 21 in San Quentin Prison. While i'm sure there's a measure of personal truth in what he wrote, those songs were stories foremost, as much of country's greatest stuff is.
I've always had a soft spot for Riley. She's classic countrypolitan, for better or worse, which unfortunately is a line of pop-country evolution i don't much get into, but she did have a spark of go-go sass that i always really dug, and an undeniably good voice.
-T
The funny thing about "Okie From Muskogee" is that Merle Haggard's drug consumption would have put the Fab. Furry Freak Brothers to shame.
#12 -- Hee Haw was tremendous for a little kid who loved corny jokes and great bluegrass. I hated when they got modern, but when they would do the old-timey stuff (sadly, making fun of it often), I would be in heaven. I still love that song "Doom, Despair and Agony on me" it coulda gone right on the O'Brother soundtrack and no one would have been the wiser.
Mark, was that a Flying Burrito Brothers reference? I was just looking at some of their songs on youtube today and that poor man was so blitzed. But the suits!
And despite the most unfortunate name in music history, I think it is time undertake a proper study of this man, Merle.
I occasionally go out to hear live music and people are always calling out requests for Merle Haggard songs.
"Okie from Muskogee" must rank alongside "Born in the USA", "Every Breath You Take", and REM's "The One I Love" as one of the most misunderstood songs of all time.
Merle Haggard wrote it as a satire of his Okie father's bewildered point of view on the cultural upheaval of the late '60s. Much like Springsteen in 1984, he was forced to distance himself from the GOP's misappropriation of the song in the 1972 election campaign, including refusing an invitation from Richard Nixon to play at the White House.
(For further research I highly recommend Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera album, an ambitious deconstruction of "Sweet Home Alabama", Th' Skynyrd Band, George Wallace, and the duality of The Southern Thing.)
excellent recommendation, #31. Drive By Truckers are some great southern storytellers. Patterson Hood and his boys have a good thing going on.
#30, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers were a trio of drug-fueled hippies from Gilbert Shelton's underground comics.
The Flying Burrito Bros were Gram Parsons' country rock band. I recommend anything Parsons touched. The guy was fried, but clearly a genius, based on his amazing and powerful output despite overdosing at the age of only 26.
-T
Hmmm, chrome :)
She's sorta like a proto-Shania then?