HIGH MOUNTAIN HOEDOWN - "NELLIE"

Nellie (Jerry Williams)  rating: **** stars


Having stumbled across an interesting Jerry Lynn Williams solo album, I poked around and discovered his High Mountain Hoedown catalog.  Wish I knew more about the outfit.  What little biographical information I can find comes from a December 2006 article Nick Joe Paloski wrote for The Texas Monthly.

[Williams] tenure with Little Richard lasted nine months, and shortly after, he returned to Fort Worth, where he made it through a semester at Arlington Heights High School before snagging regular gigs at the Bayou Club and the Silver Helmet Club in Dallas, which was owned by several Dallas Cowboys players. “I was doing Otis Redding stuff three nights a week,” he remembered, “and within two weeks I had so many people in there that the fire marshal started showing up.” Then, in the late sixties, Williams discovered orange sunshine, tie-dye shirts, and the hippie lifestyle, so he formed a three-piece psychedelic blues outfit called High Mountain and went to L.A. to score a record deal with the ATCO label. It became another learning experience. The resulting album, High Mountain Hoedown, went nowhere, and the musicians got to split a paltry $10,000."

You can read the full article at:  http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/he-writes-the-songs/ 

Produced by Charles Greene (best known for his work with The Buffalo Springfield), 1970's "High Mountain Hoedown" was one of those albums that deserved a fate better than the total obscurity it has fallen into.  While there's little biographical information on the the band, the line-up apparently featured Williams with support from drummer Rex Ludwick (who went on to support Willie Nelson) and bassist Jerry McDonald.  Williams was credited with most of the seven original tunes.  McDonald wrote the county-ish 'I'll finish My Song'.  Musically the set was quite varied, which might be one of the reasons the album didn't do very well.  The collection found the trio taking stabs at country ('I'll Finish My Song'), Poco-styled country rock ('Nellie'), and conventional hard rock ('Voodoo Woman'), Round it out with a pair of Chuck Berry tunes ('Nadine' and 'Brown Eyed Handsome Man').  Mind you, it wasn't a lost classic, but it's still a fun set to spin.  Shame Williams didn't turn in a couple of additional rock-oriented performances.  

As good as the first two tunes on 1970's "High Mountain Hoedown" were, 'Nellie' was even better.  To my ears, this was the kind of country-rock tune that nobody seems to write anymore.  The track had everything you'd expect from a major radio hit - killer melody; sweet vocals; tight drumming; and a refrain that simply wouldn't leave your head.   This one would have sounded dandy on a Poco albumm.