26 October 2020 | James Porteous | Clipper Media
Such strange times.
We are stuck in a moment and now we can’t get out of it.
But life goes on. Every now again something comes along to remind us that life is more than what some ‘leaders’ are telling us we have to think about 24/7.
And then you remember: there was time when it was okay to think about something else. Something positive. Even life-affirming.
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When I first heard this album in 1972 I barely knew who Jerry Jeff was and no one had even heard of Guy Clark or the meaning of gonzo and I don’t remember what possessed me to buy the album but I took it home and threw it on and the first song, Hill Country Rain, just blew me away.
It was the epitome of everything a waif-like teenager was looking for. Well, at least this teenager.
That first line. Right?
Sometimes I wake up hummin’.
Right away, you had a feeling. Something that you couldn’t explain.
It was like someone had taken hold of my wee brain and they were going to force me to join a cult. A high hill country rain cult. Except I had no idea what it meant. But I stayed. Waiting to find out. Waiting to find out what I was waiting to find out.
I was hooked. I was afraid to look at the ground for fear I might discover that I was flying in the air.
And feel the music running through me
Makes me want to dance
Clap my hands and dance
Man, the tune rolled out sweetly, like a lazy river on a hot summer day. Cloudless. Cold beer. Hot and humid and a light breeze. A woman beside me in a summer dress, basking in the moment. Well, let’s not get carried away.
The song featured at least two or maybe three acoustic guitars. A wispy fiddle sounding like someone was playing it in the next room. A piano doing this odd barrel-house rhythm that was only occasionally playing the same tempo as everyone else.
Then – mayhem. Real true mayhem.
A chorus of drunken angels started belting out the chorus.
Piano man pounding the ever-living bejesus out of the thing. The acoustic guitars thrashing their way through the chorus. Sometimes even playing the same chords.
Then there was a half-assed bridge that seemed to have been pulled out of nowhere yet still managed to fit into the grand scheme of things. How could this be?
And then that fucking electric guitar solo. It was half over before I even realized what was going on. It ripped through the folksy laid-back high hill country rain like a tornado. It was Garcia-like, coming to what I thought was a climax before starting anew.
The fiddle was trying like mad to figure out where the hell the guitar solo was going but everyone else had given up. They were hanging on for dear life, up to their waists in the mud of the raging river.
‘Whoa!’ Jerry said.
The electric guitar trailed off. The song was over but it was not over because they kept recording even as it trailed off and not only did they keep recording but now it was all right there, right on the damn record.
In the back of my brain I was thinking, well, I should take this record back to the store. They obviously made a mistake. They must have mixed up albums and I ended up with a test pressing or something.
But what if everyone will hear this version?
Jerry Jeff thanks everyone. Laughter and applause fill the ‘recording studio’ (said to be inside an old Austin dry cleaners building) with Texans Gary P. Nunn, Bob Livingston, Craig Hills, Michael McGeary, and Herb Steiner (later known as the Lost Gonzo Band) for what Jerry Jeff would later call “a real hobo cluster-fuck.”
So that was it. It really was just a bunch of guys sitting around, playing songs and recording them live to tape. And the live tapes became… an album. An album released to the public. Not despite warts, but because of them!
No wonder you got a feeling. Something you can’t explain.
It is the same throughout the album. Honest, joyous songs, singing and playing. A host of great self-penned songs and two from Guy Clark (“That Old Time Feeling” and “L.A. Freeway“) that would eventually make him a star in his own right even though he would likely have been the first to admit that no one ever, ever played those songs as well as Jerry Jeff and the hobos did that day.
At the end of the album you had no choice but to move the needle back to the beginning. If only to confirm that you really heard what you really heard.
Nothing can express just how remarkable and joyful and original this tune and album were at that time. It was like opening a magical musical door not only into the unknown, but the world of bizarre possibilities. A ‘folk’ album, mixed with blistering rock guitar in a room filled with laughing compatriots.
This was a new world. One that was barely known to anyone outside the would-be cult. If you dared play this song for anyone else they would glare at you and leave the room wearing a ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’ look.
Well, yeah. What the fuck was wrong with me? I know, but Jesus. You know…
I got a feeling
Something that I can’t explain
It’s like dancing naked
In that high hill country rain
Screw the malcontents and the perfectionists and Billboard. This was life. Live life. Rough and tumble. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
When I read the obits marking his passing they all, rightly so, mention Mr. Bojangles and in the back of my mind I keep thinking they should have said that Mr. Walker was the writer of Mr Bojangles and Hill Country Rain. ha.
Well, they won’t, but still, you know…
I got a feeling
Something that I can’t explain
James Porteous
26 October 2020
Hill Country Rain
Sometimes I just wake up hummin’
Feelin’ like the world is right
Want to jump right up and run outside
And take in the morning light
And feel the music running through me
Makes me want to dance
Clap my hands and dance
Sometimes it just takes my lady
To smile and make my day complete
And when she’s touching me
I feel free and easy to be me
Lucky to be alive
Feelin’ alright
Take a walk outside
People they tell me now,
You’re living too fast
Slow down now Jerry boy
Take it easy let some of life pass
But I don’t lnow no other way
Got to live it day to day
But if I die before my time
When I leave I’m leaving nothing behind
Cause I got a feeling
Something that I can’t explain
It’s like dancing naked
In that high hill country rain
I ain’t worried ’bout tomorrow
I’ll get by best I can
Lovin’ is my will to live
It makes me laugh
Want to sing and dance
Clap my hands, yeah!
X2
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jerry Jeff Walker
Hawkins Bay Dispatch 