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Saturday 9 May 2020

50 Americana Albums You Should Hear Before You Die - Alan Freed's Radio


Lou Ford are filed on the Americana shelves under L as opposed to F. That is because they were  a band from Charlotte, North Carolina as opposed to a person. It seems that they are named after a character in Jim Thompson's 1952 novel A Killer Inside Me

From Discogs The fictional Lou Ford was someone comprised of various layers, where what you saw on the surface wasn't really the whole story. The musical Lou Ford likes to describe itself the same way. At first glance, audiences and critics dubbed them country. Underneath, bandmembers say, they really are is more pop-oriented.

They sound pretty country to me hence the appearance of their 2000 album Alan Freed's Radio (on Cargo in the US/Glitterhouse in Europe) in this series.
They only appear to have released three albums the others being 1998's Sad But Familiar which is also on the shelves and 2007's Poor Man's Soul which isn't

No Depression , the bible of Americana  describes the opener Storz' Bar as a meeting of the Beatles and Big Star .Well one out of two ain't bad.
They also compare the excellent What've I Gotta Do to post Mark Olson Jayhawks.

The album title and the final sing pay homage to Alan Freed the legendary American disc jokey celebrated as one of the pioneers of playing rock'n'roll until he got caught up in a payolla scandal.

Alan and Chad Edwards the two main members of Lou Ford reappeared around 2014 in another Charlotte band The Loudermilks . Given that Loudermilk was the actual surname of Ira and Charlie Louvin  I'm off to do some digging


Lou Ford -Storz' Bar

Lou Ford - What've I Gotta Do

Lou Ford - Alan Freed


5 comments:

  1. I have Lou Ford adjoining Jim Ford on the shelves and on the spreadsheet. Should the album be moved next to Loup Garou on the shelves (and spreadsheet)?

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  2. When you see something you have on this list, it's gratifying... confirmation, baby! It's even better, however, when you discover something completely new. I don't know this album, but I am digging all three songs, especially What've I Gotta Do.

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