goin over the hill

hasil adkins died on monday at 67. he was a usually drunk one-man rockabilly band, which i didn't know when i first got ahold of a bunch of his songs back in the sunshine of the late 90s. i thought it was really weird that the whole band seemed to be missing beats together and messing up at the same time. when i finally saw a picture of him, sitting at a drumset with his guitar and a microphone, i figured it out. he also used one of those dylanesque harmonica racks and created other contraptions to allow him to play a variety of instruments at once.

he said he had written more than 7,000 songs and he recorded a lot of them on various labels. the cramps gave him a popularity surge in the early 80s with a cover of she said, originally recorded in 1964. i need your head was probably recorded around the same time; both are available on the chicken walk collection. one of his later releases was what the hell was i thinking on fat possum; full of pretty songs like talkin to my lord and beautiful hills.

you can read fun interviews with the haze here and here.