Archival project Buried Loot: Demos from the House of Cash and 'Outlaw' Era, '73-'78 (out Dec. 10) compiles previously unheard recordings from 80-plus hours of tape saved through the years by Appalachian music great Loney Hutchins.
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Per a press release, "much of the material is fully produced demos made for Johnny Cash when Hutchins managed the House of Cash publishing catalog, performed by in-demand session players of the time. As well as being a writer for the label, Hutchins fielded other songwriters and served as a pitch man for the catalog to various studios and producers working on Nashville's Music Row."
The track list includes Hutchins' own material as well as such historic nuggets as Helen Carter original "You Gotta Live It Brother (If You Wanna Serve the Lord)" and "Stoney Creek," a song penned by the woman who coined "outlaw" as another word for creative freedom, Hazel Smith.
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Hutchins songs on the album include "Pinball King," an autobiographical ode to arcade machines premiering today on Wide Open Country.
"My oldest brother Kenneth was completely hooked by the first pinball machine that arrived in our small mountain community in the late 1950's," Hutchins said in a press release. "He would get hired out to cut timber, making 50 cents a day, then spending it all at Charlie Dixon's store. Pall Mall's, Wild Root hair, Double Mint gum, Pepsi with peanuts in it. But most of it went to the pinball. I recorded this track with House of Cash house engineer, Charlie Bragg's son, Chuck Bragg. We would go into the studio at night after the day's business had cleared out. The track features famous session players like Bobby Ogden on the clavinet, Weldon Myrick on dobro, Tom Jones (Dolly Parton's live drummer during her "Jolene" era), as well as Pebble Daniel and Carlene Carter lending backup vocals."
Hutchins flaunts his way with words in the refrain by singing, "I told the undertaker, 'When I die, put a couple pinballs in my eyes. Line my coffin with flashing lights and I'll play pinball in paradise.'"
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Hutchins and his songs left enough of an impression on Cash to inspire a character in the Man in Black's Bicentennial tune "Sold Out of Flagpoles."
Per his biography, Hutchins became an independent artist in the '80s after growing disillusioned with the Nashville machine's lack of support for what he considered "authentic country or mountain music."
"He started his own publishing label [Appalachia Music], releasing a handful of 45's and one album [via Appalachia Record Co.], charting independently on Billboard and Cashbox, as well as appearing on the Opry from time to time through the '90s," his bio reads. "He spent most of the following decades doing pioneering work in music therapy for traumatic brain injury survivors. Late in life he was forced to retire from the business he helped found in this field after ongoing legal battles, but took it as an opportunity to return to his music. Now in his 70's, Hutchins continues to write and perform when he's not spending time with his dogs, at the horse barn or in the woods collecting stones and pictures to paint."
Buried Loot: Demos from the House of Cash and 'Outlaw' Era, '73-'78 Tracklist
"Pinball King"
"Who's Gonna Be My Fire?"
"Paradise"
"Fools Gold"
"Stoney Creek"
"One More Habit"
"Wouldn't Say It If It Wasn't So"
"Daughter Of A Railroad Man"
"I Do Declare"
"Nashville Suite"
"Every Day's a Monday"
"We Got It All"
"Four More Reasons"
"Whippoorwill"
"Whisky Lady"
"Taxi Please"
"Five Years In Hell"
"Committed To Parkview"
"You Gotta Live It Brother (If You Wanna Serve the Lord)"
"Hillbilly Ghetto"
"Reedy Creek"
"I'll Always Have The Good Lord Watching Over Me"
"Sheets Of Green Clover
"My Tennessee Hills"
