Song Of The Day 7/31/2015: Johny Caraway – “Calvin Boles in Nashville”

Dead Horse Radio: Pop Song News Bulletins – I promised you that the nadir of Pop Song News Bulletin week would come on Friday, and here it is. Listen, when I promise you that I’m going to give you the absolute worst I have to give, I damn well try to live up to that promise. But the reason Johny Caraway’s “Calvin Boles in Nashville” fills this bill isn’t strictly its lack of quality – although, obviously, Caraway’s no Dickie Goodman – but, rather, its purpose: To promote a breaking artist. That was, indeed, the titular Calvin Boles of Alamogordo, New Mexico. He wasn’t just Yucca Records’ most promising artist, either – he owned the label.

Boles’ own music was, on average, pretty good country, with some fluctuation across the “pretty good” range. Let’s see, there was “You Giggle Too Much,” “Turn Back the Pages,” “Doc Scurlock,” and an especially kick-ass track called “If You Got a Lot of Dough.” And Yucca itself was a remarkably prolific label, especially for Alamogordo (whose motto is “The Friendliest Place of Earth," apologies to Detroit). It’s near Holloman Air Force Base, about 120 miles southwest of Roswell. One of the greatest music informational sites in the world, Global Dog Productions (what can I say, I love HTML tables), shows 137 singles released by Yucca.

So this is no referendum on Mr. Boles’ outstanding work ethic or perfectly sufficient country music. I’m just sayin’, releasing a break-in comedy record featuring nothing but Boles tunes as the break-ins – well, outside of Alamogordo (which by the way sounds like a chalupa restaurant near San Antonio), it probably wasn’t the most effective strategy. But you be the judge. If you wish.

That brings this first edition of Dead Horse Radio to a close. I’ll be doing some self-cleansing tomorrow, then Sunday we come back with another experiment in communications wrapped up as some kind of extended gag. I lead a full life.