With his unmistakable blonde pompadour and flashy Nudie suits, Porter Wagoner (1927-2007) cut one of the most distinctive figures in country music.  The three-time Grammy-winning Missouri-born singer known as “Mr. Grand Ole Opry” charted over 80 records in his lengthy career, but his solo releases have often been overlooked due to his prosperous association with the young Dolly Parton.  Legacy Recordings has taken one step to rectify that with the first-time digital release of six albums recorded by Wagoner for RCA Victor between 1966 and 1970:

1. Confessions of a Broken Man (1966)
2. Soul of a Convict (1966)
3. The Cold Hard Facts of Life (1967)
4. The Bottom of the Bottle (1968)
5. The Carroll County Accident (1969)
6. Down In The Alley (1970)

As the album titles indicate, Wagoner’s simple, direct storytelling style (in stark contrast to his often-flamboyant appearance) was particularly well-suited to dark-hued traditional country tales of hardscrabble existence.  Wagoner had been a fixture on the RCA Victor roster since the early 1950s; he would remain with the label until the dawn of the 1980s.  These six albums hail from one of the periods in which Wagoner’s star burned brightest; in September 1967, he would introduce Dolly Parton on his long-running television show and launch her to superstardom as they racked up hit singles and albums together.  (The complete Porter and Dolly oeuvre has recently been issued as one spectacular box set from the Bear Family label.)

Confessions of a Broken Man features Wagoner’s renditions of songs by his early inspiration Hank Williams (“Men with Broken Hearts,” “I’ve Been Down That Road Before,” “May You Never Be Alone”) as well as the venerable Ernest Tubb (“Take Me Back and Try Me Once Again”) and Freddie Hart (“My Tears Are Overdue,” “Skid Row Joe” – the latter providing the name of a Wagoner alter ego seen on the album cover).  Soul of a Convict (subtitled And Other Great Prison Songs) has the artist tackling such prison songs as Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” (as “Folsom Prison”) and the oft-recorded “Green, Green Grass of Home,” which Wagoner took to the Top 5 of the Country chart in 1965.  Bill Anderson wrote the indelible revenge ballad that served as the title track of 1967’s The Cold Hard Facts of Life – those facts including divorce, drunkenness, lying, cheating, and naturally, murder.

1968’s concept album The Bottom of the Bottle was another journey into the depths of despair with such alcohol-related songs as “She Burnt the Little Roadside Tavern Down,” “Bottle, Bottle,” and “One Dime for Wine.”  Parton and Wagoner penned the opening track “Wino,” and Wagoner sang three songs by Merle Haggard: “Swinging Doors,” “The Bottle Let Me Down” and “I Threw Away the Rose.”  Bob Ferguson’s story-song “The Carroll County Accident” provided the No. 2 Country hit title track of Wagoner’s 1969 LP; the ballad of tragedy and infidelity even cracked the Pop Hot 100, and Dolly Parton quickly covered it on her own 1969 album (In the Good Old Days) When Times Were Bad.

The final of the six titles being reissued by Legacy, Down in the Alley, was credited to Skid Row Joe.  With Wagoner again pictured in downtrodden character on its cover, it included appropriate songs from Parton (“The Alley,” “One More Dime,” “When I Drink My Wine”) as well as Buck Owens (“Here’s a Toast to Mama”), folk singer-songwriter Tom Paxton (“Bottle of Wine”) and Wagoner himself (“The Silent Kind”).

These six albums of edgy, classic country-and-western from the legendary Porter Wagoner are available now from all digital service providers.  You can peruse the track listings and download at Amazon below!

Porter Wagoner, Confessions of a Broken Man (RCA Victor LSP-3593, 1966) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. Men with Broken Hearts
2. I Just Came to Smell the Flowers
3. May You Never Be Alone
4. Skid Row Joe
5. Take Me Back and Try Me Once Again
6. How Far Down Can I Go
7. I’m a Long Way from Home
8. Confessions of a Broken Man
9. My Tears Are Overdue
10. I’ve Been Down That Road Before
11. Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine
12. My Last Two Tens

Porter Wagoner, Soul of a Convict (RCA Victor LSP-3683, 1966) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. Boston Jail
2. The Convict and the Rose
3. I Relived My Life Today
4. I’m Just Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail
5. Let Me In
6. The Big River Train
7. The Snakes Crawl at Night
8. They’re All Going Home But One
9. Folsom Prison
10. Soul of a Convict
11. Green, Green Grass of Home
12. (I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle

Porter Wagoner, The Cold Hard Facts of Life (RCA Victor LSP-3797, 1967) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. The First Mrs. Jones
2. Words and Music
3. The Cold Hard Facts of Life
4. Sleep
5. Hundred Dollar Funeral
6. If I Could Only Start Over
7. Tragic Romance
8. Try Being Lonely
9. I’ll Get Ahead Some Day
10. I Just Can’t Let You Say Goodbye
11. Shopworn
12. Julie

Porter Wagoner, The Bottom of the Bottle (RCA Victor LSP-3968, 1968) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. Wino
2. Daddy and the Wine
3. Swinging Doors
4. The Bottom of the Bottle
5. In the Shadows of the Wine
6. She Burnt the Little Roadside Tavern Down
7. The Bottle Let Me Down
8. One Dime for Wine
9. Wine
10. Turn the Jukebox Up Louder
11. I Threw Away the Rose
12. Bottle, Bottle

Porter Wagoner, The Carroll County Accident (RCA Victor LSP-4116, 1969) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. The World Needs A-Washin’
2. Banks of the Ohio
3. Sing Me Back Home
4. Barefoot Nellie
5. Sorrow Overtakes the Wine
6. Black Jack’s Bar
7. The Carroll County Accident
8. Rocky Top
9. Your Mother’s Eyes
10. King of the Cannon County Hills
11. I Lived So Fast and Hard
12. Fallen Leaves

Porter Wagoner, Down in the Alley (RCA Victor LSP-4386, 1970) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. Here’s a Toast to Mama
2. Sidewalks of Chicago
3. The Silent Kind
4. The Alley
5. The Town Drunk
6. Mama
7. Bottle of Wine
8. One More Dime
9. I Judged a Man
10. When I Drink My Wine