And a side order of country, please…

Musicians can be straight-jacketed by success. All too often their adoring public will only continue to adore them as long as they continue to sound pretty much like they always have.

Nat King Cole was a well established and successful jazz musician before he started singing in 1943. His first vocal hit was his own composition, “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” which sold 500,000 copies. He earned more money in one year than he had made in ten years as a jazz pianist. The same can be said for jazz guitarist George Benson. His 1976 vocal album “Breezin’” made him more money than his 13 years as a session player ever had. Success as crooners made it financially impossible for either star to go back to pure jazz. Like it or not, they had become pop stars.

To combat artistic stagnation, many musicians do side projects that allow them to stretch their musical legs. The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia formed Old and in the Way, trading his electric guitar for an acoustic and playing bluegrass, his first love. George Harrison gathered long-time friends Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison for a one-off B-side single that turned out to be so much fun they recorded the wildly successful Traveling Willburys, Vol. 1. 

 

Rodney Crowell and Vince Gill recorded as The Notorious Cherry Bombs to play a different kind of Country than their usual fare.

Norah Jones, the jazz-blues-pop singer whose first album, Come Away With Me, sold 18 million copies and earned her 8 Grammy’s, has created a side project of her own.



The Little Willies, not unlike the Willburys, is a collection of five friends who simply wanted to play music together. Jones, sharing vocals with Richard Julian, leads the Willies not into jazz, not into pop, but deep into Country and Western music.

Their 2006 eponymous first album and the 2012 follow-up, For the Good Times, mine the depths of C & W from Hank Williams to Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson to Townes Van Zandt. Three standouts are upbeat and swinging versions of Bob Wills’ “Roly Poly,” Lefty Frizzel’s “If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time,” and Johnny Cash’s “Wide Open Road.”

The oddest selection is “Foul Owl on the Prowl” from In the Heat of the Night, winner of the Best Picture Oscar in 1967. This appears to be the only time this song has ever been recorded commercially.

Two other songs are from true giants of Country and Western music; the Dolly Parton penned “Jolene,” where one woman pleads to another “Please don’t take my man just because you can,” and Loretta Lynn’s “Fist City,” where one woman warns another “I’m here to tell you gal to lay off my man if you don’t wanna go to Fist City!”

The last song on The Little Willies, “Lou Reed,” is one of the few originals on either album. And original it is. No spoilers here; suffice it to say it’s a nice easy ramble of a tune about a chance encounter with Lou Reed in a West Texas pasture.

Elwood Blues: “Ma’am, uh, what kind of music do you usually have in here?”

Female Barkeeper: “We got both kinds. Country and Western!”

The Blues Brothers

Listen:
The Little Willies – The Little Willies

For the Good times – The Little Willies

Come Away with Me – Nora Jones 
The TravellingWillburys Vol. 1 – The Travelling Willburys