Rock-Titled Songs: Country Boy Rock and Roll

Tweet

Last month was all about Texas singers, and usually when you think of Texas you think of country music. So this month is all about rock and roll!!!!! And what do you know, we start the alphabetical list….with a bluegrass song???!!! Can’t make this stuff up! So for one of two times this month, Linda? NO!!!! and here we go. Country Boy Rock and Roll - Reno and Smiley To show you the impact of these two guys that you’ve most likely never heard of, Don Reno and Red Smiley were the fourth inductees ever into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, behind only Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers. For the life of me I can’t believe they are not in the Musicians Hall of Fame. Don Reno was an absolute beast of a banjo player, and he transferred his banjo playing skills to mandolin. A late, lamented bluegrass DJ friend of mine summed Reno up perfectly: “He could impersonate anyone’s playing, but nobody could impersonate him.” Then there was Arthur “Red” Smiley, who was one of the first “fast run” guitar pickers in bluegrass. Monroe made it appear that only the mandolin’s breaks could move fast. Red Smiley proved that wrong, big time. (Listen to his break in this song, for instance.) Their band was known as the Tennessee Cut-Ups, which is perplexing given that they were from the Carolinas (Reno from South, Smiley from North), they started at the Wheeling Jamboree in West Virginia, and their record company was in Cincinnati. But it was a great bluegrass ensemble, and they made an indelible impact on bluegrass. So here they are, putting a bluegrass kick to the then-novelty music style known as rock and roll. Country Boy Rock and Roll Written by Don Reno Recorded by Reno and Smiley Released as a single, 1956 I have worked in fields of cotton: