Would Conway Twitter?

It's just a smartass title to grab attention.......

I was lucky enough to see the late and great Conway Twitty at the Siskiyou State Fair [Yreka, California] in I believe 1992. In the eclecticism that I want to inform this music blog, Conway's work sits supremely with the rock and the folk and the classical and the jazz. I love good Country and Western and I love Conway's authentic rendition of this music at its best, musically and lyrically.

'It's Only Make Believe' was released in 1958 so I was only 4 years old then but at some stage in my incipient musical absorption that rock 'n' roll song with its ascending melodramatic song-structure and Conway's delivery blew me away.

I have two Conway Twitty 'country' favourites: 'I See The Want To In Your Eyes' [with a video clip below, a live version rather than the lip-synced one also available] and 'There's A Honky Tonk Angel'. These and Conway's singing epitomise all that's brilliant in this genre - the pain, suffering and longing of love and the heartfelt with-any-twang-going vocal presentation. 'I could light that fire again' Conway threatens then asks 'how strong is a band of gold'. A simple and familiar enough lyrical soap-opera, but he then adds 'How many women just like you have silent schemes; how many men like me do they sleep with in their dreams?'. I don't know if Conway wrote those raunchy rhetorical lines - probably not [*] - but like any great performer he gives them their credible drama.

Well, that hair style was appealing at one stage, and no, mine isn't like that; not entirely.

[* written by Mischa Scorer and Wayne Carson]