Johnny Ray Hicks
Jubilee Community Arts announces the release of the CD
Johnny Ray Hicks
Crossville Criminal and other songs and stories of the Cumberland Plateau

In the final years of his life, Johnny Ray Hicks may have been the last robust singer of the old style in Appalachia who had also lived "the old way." To the end of the 1990s, his songs could carry you on broad shoulders, or smack you in the face if you weren't prepared for their brute strength. While he didn't have the infinite repertoire of "a mighty singer" by Hicks family standards, he sustained the lives of many fine songs. He was the last exponent of a manly ballad style, full of frontier bluster as well as credibility. If a song was meant to be comic, he ended with it with a great laugh, or, at least, that enormous and compelling smile. If it was tragic, there was no cooing or closed-eye business. Clear eyes and cutting tones. -- Bobby Fulcher, CD notes


Track Listing
1. Little Rosewood Casket (1:08)
2.Little Wiley (1:49)
3.Barbara Allen (4:50)
4.Crossville Criminal (2:22)
5.Pretty Polly (1:40)
6.Irishman's dog with a courting tale, story (1:32)
7. Long Chain Charlie (0:46)
8. Wayfaring Stranger (3:16)
9. Blind Girl's Plea (2:41)
10. Wild and Reckless Motorman (1:44)
11. Grandpa and Foxhound, story (1:31)
12. Willow Garden (1:52)
13. Dandoo (2:14)
14. My Dad is Sleeping with guitar (2:14)
15. Old Charlie (2:06)
16. Sow Took the Measles and Died in the Spring (0:49)
17. Paul's Vision (2:04)
18. Chihuahua, story (1:31)		 19. Burglar Man (1:09)
20. Pretty Mohee (1:56)
21. Peggy Band (2:47)
22. Short Life in Trouble w guitar (2:31)
23. May I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight Mister (2:24)
24. Bill Staples (2:52)
25. Arkansas Boys (0:41)
26. Wild Bill Jones (2:42)
27. Way Out on the River with guitar (1:28)
28. Knoxville Girl (3:21)
29. Mule and Sweet Taters, story (1:56)
30. Old Bangham (1:51)
31. Hills of Roane County (3:07)
32. Groundhog (0:38)
33. Muddy France (2:50)
34. Golden Willow Tree (3:12)
35. Sunset and Evening Star (2:02)





Johnny Ray Hicks, Crossville Criminal and other songs and stories of the Cumberland Plateau
Jubilee Records JCA-1004, was produced by Brent Cantrell with funding by the Tennessee Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts and the East Tennessee Foundation. Complete notes (1.2 MB pdf)

Copies are available for $15 each plus $2.50 shipping and handling
payable to Jubilee Community Arts, 1538 Laurel Ave., Knoxville, TN, 37916

For more information contact Brent Cantrell at (865) 522-5851 or info @ jubileearts.org and see http://www.jubileearts.org/