By Christopher R. Weingarten | July 2, 2014 | Rolling Stone

On July 15th, esteemed record excavators Light in the Attic release Country Funk II: 1967-1974, the second compilation of a genre that's unlikely, completely fictional and utterly fantastic. It's the brainchild of Los Angeles digger Zach Cowie, 33, a man who makes his living through curation, film supervision and DJ gigs — basically a professional record geek.

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Bringing together country songs with sick breakbeats, twangy-groovin' rock covers and all sorts of genre-crossovers, Country Funk II unearths the most head-knocking moments from Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Kenny Rogers and a whole mess of far less famous people. In turn, it may be the year's most masterful compilation — working as a stellar DJ set, a collection of underappreciated gems, and the blueprint for the careers of contemporary artists like Big Smo and Florida Georgia Line. Rolling Stone Country talks to Cowie about his admittedly "made up" sub-genre.

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Is there a song that sort of kick-started the idea of "country funk" for you?
All this stuff came from my days of being a tour manager. I toured with bands like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom and Vetiver and Bonnie "Prince" Billy. We would just buy records everywhere. And there was a real moment when you realize that when you think you're hot shit, you sort of don't know anything. That happened with those Link Wray records.

All of my prior information about this person would suggest that he never made music that sounded like that. I really liked the "Rumble"-era stuff, but it actually blew my mind when I listened to the record, which I played on a whim because the cover was rad. I was like, "Oh, I didn't even realize this dude made records in the Seventies." And I heard a sound that was just everything I wanted. So I think we used "Fire and Brimstone" on the first volume — that song is what made me want to find more stuff like that. And the whole "country funk," me and my friends just made it up, which I think is so funny because I've done some interviews where people have almost put more thought into it than I have.
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When you were first looking for these records, were you coming from a country-nerd angle or a breakbeat digger angle?
It's funny, man. I have a Waylon Jennings tattoo on one wrist and a J Dilla one on the other, and that's just me. I think the older and deeper I got into record collecting, the more I tried to just get rid of the genres. I just want stuff that's good, and that leads me to dig through an entire record store when I'm there. A lot of the records that made it onto these compilations really just came from needle droppings on 45s. Like, anything I wasn't totally familiar with, I'd just sit there and play it on a portable turntable, and it just amassed over ten years of doing that. And then my friends have been like, endless resources for this, too. When we started to kind of joke about it kind of being like a "little sound," all my friends were finding other stuff, too. The thank-yous on these compilations are really important to me because all these dudes gave me really important music.
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After the first one, were people coming to you, giving you suggestions all the time?
I tried to keep the suggestions to that little group of friends because I still wanted it to seem that I was DJ'ing in your backyard. Maybe some stubbornness, but I try to keep it to my ears and my trusted associates. The Light in the Attic guys are totally invaluable in this — mainly because they do all the licensing. [Laughs]. But Matt [Sullivan] and Patrick [McCarthy] at the label have thrown tracks at me that have made it on both the records.
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So these two call up Willie Nelson or Dolly Parton's people. Are they like, "You want to use this song for what?"
Oh, totally, man. And that's what was so great about the reception of the first one: It made the second one a lot easier to sell to these folks because we can just use the press from the first one to tell them what we're trying to do. Because like I said — it's totally made up. I think the phone calls Light in the Attic had to make for Volume 2 were a little mellower than the first one.
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What's the most surprising reception that you got from the original?
I was so excited about how it did overseas — in the UK and Europe. I think that always existed, the fantasy that goes along with this sound. It makes so much sense that people in areas, geographically, they can't feel this stuff, why they would fixate on it? And I guess that's where this whole pub-rock scene and sound came about — these British dudes were obsessed with the Eagles. There's a fantasy in it.
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Is there anything you couldn't get the rights to?
Yeah and it's not because we got denied on it. This is shocking to me, that besides this one track I'm about to mention, we got everything we wanted, which was amazing. But there's one track called "Black Grass" [by Bad Bascomb]. I wanted that track so bad. We tried to get it on the first one, then we tried to get it on the second one, but no one knows who owns it, so we couldn't use it. Which is weird because it's been sampled for some pretty big tracks. I don't know who's getting the checks for that. [Laughs]
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The Billy Swan cover of "Don't Be Cruel" has a really incredible break on it, and it maybe it's been on a breakbeat comp at one point.
Oh, yeah — some of this stuff is just Ultimate Breakbeats 101.
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But it's ultimately gone un-sampled, from what we can find.
That's funny to me because it seems to me that somebody should have grabbed it. You know, hip-hop's funny like that: You have some dudes who are the most gifted producers ever, that have been stuck in the same crate for a really long time. For that one, I'd be willing to bet that they couldn't license it for a sample because that record shows up for sale all the time. It's not going to take you a month to find a copy.
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Your comps always end around 1975, is there a historical sense about why?
This is crazy person stuff, I recognize that, but I have a lot of records, and around '76/'77, I started a new section in my organizing because I think studio technology changed so much. Stuff just started to sound different. Punk, the whole U.K., DIY thing — it just opened doors and possibilities that had been shut for a long time. You can, put a lot of stuff next to each other from like '66 to '74, just because the drums sound the same. But when everything kind of opened up with the Pistols record, everything started to sound different. Which isn't to say you can't combine it, but when I DJ, I really try to focus on aesthetics. I don't want something dirty next to something super-clean because that's like a Serato decision; that's not what I do.

In 2012, Country Funk 1969-1975 (Volume I) gathered together songs from a genre with no name. It’s a genre created not from geography or shared ideology but a term applied retrospectively based solely on the feel of the songs: hip-swinging rhythms with bourbon on the breath. These were songs to make your cowboy boots itchy, written and performed by the likes of Bobbie Gentry, Johnny Jenkins and Link Wray. Songs that encompass the elation of gospel with the sexual thrust of the blues; country hoedown harmonies cut with inner city grit. Compiled from tracks dating from the late ‘60s to the mid ’70s, Country Funk is the sound of country music blending with sounds and scenes from coast to coast, white America’s heartland music blending with the melting pot as the nation assessed its identity in advance of its bicentennial year.

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The good news for the people who fell in love with the first volume of Country Funk is this: there’s plenty more where that came from. Light In The Attic has followed up that first 16-track disc with a second volume, Country Funk Volume II 1967 – 1974, and a new set of loose-talking, lap steel-twanging tracks. On the single CD / 2xLP volume you’ll find household names like Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Kenny Rogers, Jackie DeShannon, JJ Cale, Bobby Darin and Dolly Parton. You’ll also find obscure artists like Bill Wilson, whose lost Ever Changing Minstrel album was produced by the feted Dylan producer Bob Johnston, and Thomas Jefferson Kaye, noted producer of Gene Clark’s opus No Other. Gene Clark’s here too, as half of Dillard & Clark, wringing raw emotion from The Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down”.

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All of the individuals featured have a story to tell, whether it’s that of the sidelined session musician, the fading star or the country upstart. There’s Donnie Fritts (“Sumpin’ Funky Goin’ On”), whose roots stretch back to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and who has played keyboard for Kris Kristofferson for decades. There’s Canadian group Great Speckled Bird, who joined Janis Joplin and more on 1970’s Festival Express tour. There’s Hoyt Axton, who along with singing the harmonica-sucking ode to “California Women”, also took a role in Gremlins. There’s Jim Ford, who Sly Stone once described as “the baddest white man on the planet”. And there’s Billy Swan, who kicks proceedings off with a soul-stirring organ, a lazy kickdrum and his rockabilly vocals echoing like a croon into the grand canyon.

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Compiled and presented once again by the team behind Volume I (DJ and music supervisor Zach Cowie plus Light In The Attic’s Matt Sullivan and Patrick McCarthy), the release also includes a reunion of writer Jessica Hundley and Jess Rotter (original album/label artwork and new illustrations by) in the form of a comic book called “The Hot Dawgs".

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It may be the genre that had no name, but there’s plenty of gas in the country funk trunk yet.

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1. Billy Swan - Don't Be Cruel
2. Bob Darin - Me and Mr. Hohner
3. Hoyt Axton - California Women
4. Townes Van Zandt - Hunger Child Blues
5. Thomas Jefferson Kaye - Collection Box
6. Willie Nelson - Shotgun Willie
7. Jackie DeShannon - The Weight
8. Gene Clark & Doug Dillard - Don't Let Me Down
9. Bill Wilson - Pay Day Give Away
10. Dolly Parton - Getting Happy
11. Larry Williams & Johnny Watson with The Kaleidoscope - Nobody
12. Jim Ford - Rising Sign
13. JJ Cale - Cajun Moon
14. Donnie Fritts - Sumpin Funky Going On
15. Kenny Rogers & The First Edition - Tulsa Turnaround
16. Great Speckled Bird - Long Long Time To Get Old
17. Willis Alan Ramsey - Northeast Texas Women

I love compilations like this. This is totally out of the beat digger tradition. Of course there are country songs with big beats on them. Nashville had top-of-the-line recording studios for years

Posting in this bread because do want

Cinny said:

I love compilations like this. This is totally out of the beat digger tradition. Of course there are country songs with big beats on them. Nashville had top-of-the-line recording studios for years

Decades ago some of the same session musicians played on country, R&B/soul, and gospel records. In some cases they used the same producers and songwriters.

MickyDolenz said:

Cinny said:

I love compilations like this. This is totally out of the beat digger tradition. Of course there are country songs with big beats on them. Nashville had top-of-the-line recording studios for years

Decades ago some of the same session musicians played on country, R&B/soul, and gospel records. In some cases they used the same producers and songwriters.

Totally. Hey, thanks for posting this.

Billy Swan ~ Don't Be Cruel