| The Soul and The Edge: The Best of Johnny Paycheck - Johnny Paycheck | |
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Reviewed by Kathy Coleman
Johnny Paycheck. One of the truest voices in country music. Hard, sharp-edged, a little touch of Merle, a dash of Cash, a trace of Jones; a whole lot of Paycheck.
When you say the name, most people think of his biggest and most popular hit, "Take This Job and Shove It," a tune that has been covered by dozens of other artists and used as an anthem for nearly every disgruntled worker in America. But Johnny Paycheck did more in his career than wave the banner for unhappy working people of both blue and white collars; Johnny Paycheck produced 6 gold albums, 1 platinum album, 1 double platinum album, 33 major hits 3 a year for 11 years (1970 to 1981), and a Grammy nomination in 1970. He is most certainly a living legend, a great country singer who continues working today, fighting hard to overcome health problems while staying clean and sober, overcoming a past criminal record that includes serious prison time as well as sentences for minor offenses such as bad check passing and theft.
The Soul and the Edge is a 23-song collection of some of Paycheck's greatest songs from 1971 all the way through 1980. The tightly packed disc highlights his career from that fierce anthem, "Take This Job and Shove It," to the touching Merle Haggard-penned, "Yesterday's News Just Hit Home Today" and "All Night Lady," both from the 1980 release, "Mr. Hag Told My Story."
While there are comparisons, certainly, to be made between Merle Haggard and Johnny Paycheck, there is no doubting Paycheck's sheer originality. Although he didn't write many of his most classic and well-known hits, he still had an absolute way of making them strictly his own. Although others have covered "Take This Job and Shove It," even its author, David Allen Coe, couldn't make it shine as Paycheck did. And while there have been re-workings of "(Don't Take Her) She's All I Got," even many of those who cover it try to achieve the growling, husky pain that Paycheck could fill his voice with.
From the introspective coming-of-age pain of "I'm The Only Hell (Mama Ever Raised)" to the sly sexual overtones of "Slide Off Of Your Satin Sheets," Paycheck has a way of making a song so much his it's hard to imagine someone else singing it. He produces sincere and sometimes overwhelming emotion, pure seeped-in-the-real-world country music, of the sort that's rare and precious these days. Paycheck is as real as it gets, whether you agree with his political stance or not; in the somewhat violent "Colorado Kool-Aid," he makes a grim observation on the hazards of being drunk, stupid, and prejudiced; in "(Stay Away From) The Cocaine Train," he comments on the true dangers of drug abuse, but how very easy it is to get on board; and in "The Outlaw's Prayer," he speaks bitterly of so-called "Christian" charity. But Paycheck shines on his own writings, too, notably the searing self-study, "Old Violin," one of the few original Paycheck compositions highlighted on this collection.
But love him or hate him, there's no doubt that Johnny Paycheck is a country music one-of-a-kind, an original, who existed harmoniously alongside "the Outlaw Movement" without actively seeking to be a part of it; a Haggard-esque style without being a part of the Bakersfield bunch; he was himself nothing more than Johnny Paycheck, and one of the very first of his kind. He stands in a class by himself, holding his own, and these songs prove he's nothing more than pure country.
Song List:
- Take This Job And Shove It
- 11 Months And 29 Days
- I'm The Only Hell (Mama Ever Raised)
- Slide Off Of Your Satin Sheets
- She's All I Got
- Ragged Old Truck
- Colorado Cool-Aid
- Fifteen Beers
- I've Seen Better Days
- Someone To Give My Love To
- My Part Of Forever
- Yesterday's News Just Hit Home Today
- (Stay Away From) The Cocaine Train - (live)
- Me And The I. R. S. - (live)
- The Feminine Touch
- You Better Move On - (with George Jones)
- I Did The Right Thing
- When I Had A Home To Go To
- Barstool Mountain
- I Can See Me Lovin' You Again
- Old Violin
- All Night Lady
- The Outlaw's Prayer
Album cover, used with permission of Legacy Recordings.
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