THE TOBACCO ROAD GUY

John D. Loudermilk died last Wednesday. Some of you may know his catalog, but I do not. I know one song of his, "Tobacco Road", but I couldn't recall what his original sounded like. He's kind of in that Mose Allison club for me, where I was familiar with covers of the song well before hearing the original, which ended up sounding tame in comparison. With Allison, it was "Parchman Farm" (John Mayall's version, Cactus's, and Johnny Winters), and "Young Man Blues" (The Who). With Loudermilk's "Tobacco Road" it was the Edgar Winter's White Trash version, and the Nashville Teens'.

The Edgar Winter "Tobacco Road" is live, and I think I remember it taking the full side of an LP. It was long. With some scat type vocals, and some long ass high pitched screams. It's almost too much of a vocal showcase, like "if you didn't notice I can sing, check out all this weird stuff". But as a showcase it does the job. The video version below is earlier, about 1969, when he was a part of his brother's band. Being that it is a mere nine minutes long, it might be more tolerable.

Definitely check the video of Loudermilk doing the song solo. The pace lets the pauses speak. Very effective.

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Listen:
John D. Loudermmilk - Tobacco Road (streaming) at YouTube
Nashville Teens - Tobacco Road mp3 at U Music Pub (?)
Southern Culture on the Skids - Tobacco Road mp3 at Billy Chic
Edgar Winter's White Trash - Tobacco Road (Pt 1) (streaming) at YouTube
Edgar Winter's White Trash - Tobacco Road (Pt 2) (streaming) at YouTube
Video:
John D. Loudermmilk - Tobacco Road (BBC 1984) at YouTube
Eric Burdon and War - Tobacco Road (1970) at YouTube
Visit:
John D Loudermilk fan page Extensive lists of songs and covers. Tobacco Road is about two thirds down page one of the listings