Johnny Horton: "North to Alaska"

November 14, 1960 (2 weeks)

So far four acts have managed to tally at least three number ones on the CHUM chart: The Everly Brothers, David Seville and, now, Johnny Horton all racked up a trio of chart toppers while Elvis Presley has no less than eleven — with, needless to say, plenty more to come. Even considering the grip The King had on popular music, this is still an astonishing number. Plus, it's worth remembering that the establishment of a national Canadian chart didn't begin until the middle of 1957: had it come along a year or so earlier, his total likely would be even higher.

The other three are more of a mixed bag. Obviously, The Everly Brothers were great and belong here even if they got jobbed out of a fourth number one when their masterpiece, "Cathy's Clown", lost out to some piece of crap. And then there's David Seville and Johnny Horton: proof, if any was needed, that success doesn't always come out of quality work. But at least the former has one contribution that I would almost consider listening to for pleasure, 1958's "Witch Doctor". Which leaves Horton, a man who never met a song he couldn't completely mess up.

Well, it's important to point out that he didn't seem to choose very good material to begin with. So, either he had a knack for ballsing up mediocre songs or he treated the crappy songs he recorded with all the respect they deserved. (I could go either way on this one) But it doesn't say much for Horton that at best he selected shit songs that weren't improved by his presence. (That said, he was the co-writer of his two most recent number ones so it's also his responsibility that the compositions weren't up to snuff as well)

To give him his due, "Sink the Bismark" had been a modest improvement on the abominable "The Battle of New Orleans" but "North to Alaska" is a return to wretched form. It's as though he found himself a cozy spot doing novelty country anthems for Hollywood motion pictures and he was happy to ride that wave. If this made him a living and bought him a nice house to raise his family then bless him but I'll pass on having to listen to the crummy fruits of his labours.

Okay, one more listen. I guess if I'm going to be as generous as possible, I'll acknowledge that it's not quite as irritating as "The Battle of New Orleans". But that's probably the best I can do. Frankly, I'm glad I don't have to blog about any more of his hits even though I wish it had been due to his career stalling rather than the tragic circumstances that befell just as this his most recent single was climbing the charts.

Sadly, Horton would not live long enough to enjoy the success of "North to Alaska". He was killed in a car accident while en route from Texas to Louisiana between gigs. (Bandmate Tillman Franks, who also co-wrote Horton's final hit, was also in the same the automobile but he managed to survive). I don't care for his records but there's no question he deserved a much longer time on Earth than his thirty-five years. And who knows? He might have even found the inspiration to write and record a passable or even brilliant hit but we'll never know.

Score: 3

Johnny Horton: "Sink the Bismark"

April 11, 1960 (1 week)

(Rolls eyes) Okay, let's get this over with. What? It's not that bad you say? Not great but definitely better than the giant pile of suck Johnny Horton did ten months earlier? All right, my hopes aren't high but at least I managed to fish them out of the sewer. They've brown gunk and an old condom hanging off of them but they remain hopes and it's not like I can be even more disappointed this time. Let's give it a listen.

(first listen)

Well, I didn't have the overwhelming urge to turn it the hell off or throw my iPad out the window after just a few seconds so that's something. I even managed to get through it and my nerves weren't shot. It's rather sad that's the best I can say for it but okay fine, "The Battle of New Orleans" didn't even have that going for it. I think I might even give it another spin!

(second listen)

Well, we're only two plays in and it hasn't quite grown on me but I'm not fed up with it either. I can almost imagine boys called Brian, Dennis, Gerrit and Sheldon all over North America liking "Sink the Bismark" so much that that they'd be happily marching around the family rumpus room in formation. It's impossible to picture "The Battle of New Orleans" triggering the imaginations of a generation of Baby Boom boys but I can see it here. Hopefully, it didn't lead any of them spiraling towards careers in the military that then led to them becoming creepy survivalists hording weapons in the Rocky Mountains. Those pro-war anthems do funny things to gentlemen of a certain age. Or so I hear.

(third listen)

So, I when I was in junior high school in Canada, my favourite teacher was Mr Harker. His Language Arts classes were great because of the freedom he gave us. His lectures weren't long (and were usually interesting, even if I never understood why he made such a fuss over Shelley's "Ozymandias"), he let us read whatever we wanted and we had seemingly full creative control over what we could hand in for writing assignments. At one point I began submitting the lyrics to songs which typically impressed him — until the day I handed in some verse about Canadians and Australians fighting in the war which he had no use for. He had nothing good to say about it which was jarring until it hit me later that day that fourteen year old boys have no business writing ballads about soldiers set to a military march. I had far more productive things to be getting on with like dealing with all my angst and fantasizing about Winnie Cooper.

(one more listen)

I still don't hate it but I'm done at this point. I will say that I appreciate Horton ditching the pro-American jingoism of "The Battle of New Orleans" and following it up with a much more Allies-friendly tune which tells you just how important those foreign markets were already becoming. They had the UK, Australia and New Zealand (and possibly Canada, though I very much doubt it) had to get an altered, less anti-British version of "...New Orleans" but there was no need to do something similar here. Johnny Horton is going to be coming up at least one more time in this space and in just a few weeks. If history is anything to go by, it'll embrace the NATO members in general, with an olive branch offered to the likes of France, West Germany, Italy and even Japan. Assuming Horton has years of country-flavoured military hits ahead of him, he'll be uniting with the entire world around a message of love and peace. He has seven years to become a full-fledged hippie and I think he can do it!

Score: 4

Johnny Horton: "The Battle of New Orleans"

June 1, 1959 (7 weeks)

The Clash's "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." deals with some serious issues surrounding some of the rotten aspects of the American way of life. From the country's piss-poor treatment of soldiers back from Vietnam to propping up dictatorial regimes around the world, the Mick Jones-Joe Strummer composition makes it clear that the American Dream is a giant lie. Yet, I heard it first in the early nineties as a sullen Canadian teenager and none of those topics clicked in my mind. For all it mattered to me, it was an anthem about being sick to death of American TV, music, movies, news and trash culture. 

With the rise of Jerry Springer and tabloid news coverage, this would only get worse as the decade progressed. Lorena Bobbitt slicing off her husband's dick, Tonya Harding's goons taking a lead pipe to Nancy Carrigan's legs, that stain on Monica Lewinsky's dress, the O.J. Simpson arrest and trial, any time some total nutjob picked up a gun and fired: my brain is stuffed with freak show media circus nonsense that seemed to dominate the news in that era. Even genuine tragedies — the Waco siege, Columbine, 9/11, O.J.'s victims — ended up becoming trivialized by my own sense of fatigue

It was only in the post-9/11 period that conservatives in Canada began to express concern over anti-Americanism, as if it was something that had only just begun following George Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq or something. But in my family at least a part of being Canadian meant making everyone know how much we weren't like the U.S.A, even if at the same time we couldn't do without it.

Somehow or other Canadians back in the fifties didn't get the memo. With Hollywood's continued domination, TV shows coming from American networks ABC, CBS and NBC and virtually every musical genre coming out of the States, it's perhaps understandable why there wasn't yet a backlash. Still, didn't Canadians ever just get tired of hearing about these people all the time? It's one thing for a third-rate country singer like Johnny Horton to tap into jingoism and have it catch on in a big way in the States but elsewhere? What the hell was wrong with Canadians back then? (And we weren't the only ones: the Australians also took this ghastly record to number one; at least the British were far less convinced, taking it to only sixteen)

Given that Paul Anka wasn't all that good while the likes of Elvis, The Everlys, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra were, I can certainly see why the majority of my countrymen opted for American music back in the day. But did they really have to go for this crap to the tune of seven agonizing weeks at number one? A march about a battle with the British in which the good guys were armed with just nail clippers and old peach pits against the might of the Red Coats and their muskets?

Interestingly, "The Battle of New Orleans" ended up being altered for Great Britain and members of the Commonwealth, presumably so listeners wouldn't be turned off by tales of their ancestors getting their arses so thoroughly handed to them. Naturally, this would have included Canada, though I'm skeptical that this took place. For the love of god, we're the only nation in the world that shares a country code so of course we were just going to get the same version of a song that Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark and the like had been hyping.

In the end, anti-Americanism is something Canadians bring upon themselves. Find other TV shows to watch if you're sick of the crap from the U.S. Listen to artists from your own country or elsewhere if the music from down south is a load of shite. In fact, this seemed to occur seven years later when Sgt. Barry Sadler's giant U.S. number one "The Ballad of the Green Berets" (incidentally, a much worse song than "The Battle of New Orleans") only ended up being a modest Top 30 hit in Canada. The public would have been exposed to this pile of crap on TV and radio and most of them wisely decided to take a pass. The best way to be anti-American is to embrace Stevie Wonder and Magic Johnson and Seinfeld and the first two Godfather films while discarding all of its junk. Start with with Trump and celeb culture but don't forget to rid yourself of useless singles like "The Battle of New Orleans" while you're at it.

Score: 3

~~~~~

Can Con

He wouldn't be a permanent resident for a few more years but I think we can include Ronnie Hawkins at this early stage since he was already making mint from tours in Toronto and around Ontario. Plus, why not include an American who came to embrace everything about his adopted homeland, especially in a review dealing with being sick to death of our neighbours to the south? "Forty Days" is an enjoyable enough little rockabilly bopper, one that I was pleasantly surprised to see got all the way up to number four. If only it had been able to push Johnny bloody Horton out of the top spot. Rompin' Ronnie would, sadly, only ever have a number one as part of a charity single but I'll still try to celebrate him as much as possible until we get to 1985. Hopefully there will be many more opportunities. Until then, bask in the effortless vocals and just try to imagine how kick ass it must have been at one of Mr. Dynamo's show with a group of young Canadians and a drummer from Arkansas who were then known as The Hawks. Oh to have seen them tear up the bars of Sarnia and Sault Ste Marie back in the day.