A country way of life, Episode 20 (Karen Kosowski, Mac Wiseman, Harlan Howard)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Producer: Karen Kosowski
Inevitably, I have to apologise for taking 20 goes to include a female producer among these backroom figures, but really the music industry at large needs to say sorry for the paucity of women behind the boards.
Karen Kosowski is, like Tenille Townes and Shania Twain, a Canadian who made the move to Nashville, in her case from Winnipeg via Toronto. She is best known as the lady who has crafted the pop-country sound of Mickey Guyton, particularly her album Remember Her Name. Kosowski is often spotted accompanying Guyton on her TV performances.
She is also behind songs by her fellow Canucks Brett Kissel and Tim Hicks, co-writing their respective songs Anthem and She Drives Me Crazy.
Player: Mac Wiseman
Mac Wiseman was born on this date in 1925 in Virginia. Brought up on bluegrass, he was the vocalist in Bill Monroe’s band before striking out on his own backed by two fiddle players. Alongside a role as a producer and A&R man at Dot Records, he had hits including a version of The Ballad of Davy Crockett.
By the time he joined Lester Flatt’s band in the early 1970s, Wiseman was hosting a bluegrass festival in Kentucky. He went on to work with both Bootsy Collins and John Prine, showing that music has no boundaries whatsoever. Wiseman helped found both the Country Music and International Bluegrass Music Associations. In 2014, a year short of his 90th birthday, Wiseman was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Writing his obituary of Wiseman, Alan Cackett called him ‘that genial favourite uncle that we all adore…a master showman, skilled musician and a singer that imparted great emotion, but more than anything a loveable human being.’
Songwriter: Harlan Howard
How on earth am I going to sum up the contribution to country music of Harlan Howard? You will know him as the man who described his work, and by extension all country songs, as ‘three chords and the truth’.
Howard’s composition Heartaches by the Number, a country hit for Ray Price and a Hot 100 number one for Guy Mitchell, gives its title to a book of the 500 greatest country songs, many of which had also been composed by Howard: He Called Me Baby and I Fall to Pieces for Patsy Cline, Above and Beyond and I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail were smashes for Buck Owens.
But wait, there’s more: Streets of Baltimore was a hit for Bobby Bare and Somebody Should Leave for Reba McEntire. Patty Loveless can thank Howard for the long, accusatory chorus of her smash Blame It On Your Heart. The UK number one No Charge, intoned cheesily by JJ Barrie, was a country chart-topper for Melba Montgomery.
Ray Charles, meanwhile, turned Busted into a huge pop smash, while The Chokin’ Kind has become a standard having been interpreted by Waylon Jennings, Joe Simon, Ella Fitzgerald, Allen Toussaint, ZZ Top, Charlie Rich, Mavis Staples and Willie Nelson. Nelson interpreted the Harlan Howard songbook on his 2023 album I Don’t Know A Thing About Love; the album kicked off with a version of Tiger By The Tail, which came out in 1964 on Owens’ own album of Howard copyrights.
Howard was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1997, five years before he passed away.
All Episodes can be found here
For more country music evangelism, go to countrywol.com where you can read Monday essays, Friday reviews and Sunday Hymn Sheets. Follow Jonny’s Country Music Calendar at the Country Way of Life Facebook page (facebook.com/acountrywayoflife).