VA-Original Golden Town and Country Hits-Vol 1

DSCN2294This was a dollar.  It had an okay selection of songs, but I got it for one song in particular that caught my eye,  Rex Allen’s “Don’t Go Near the Indians”.  I thought it would be a quasi-racist song that would offend.  SPOILER ALERT:  If you want to listen to the song without being aware of the subject matter, jump down to the MP3 now or after the next paragraph.rex

Rex Allen, the Arizona Cowboy, was born close to Wilcox, AZ in 1920.  Starting out in vaudeville, he rose to fame with the popularity of the singing cowboy as such stars as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.  He stared in movies and on television as well as recording various albums.  He would die in 1999 just before his 79th birthday after both suffering a massive coronary and getting ran over in his driveway by his caretaker.  This song, “Don’t Go Near the Indians”  was his biggest hit, reaching #5 on the country chart.

So going back to the song, when I bought this, I thought this song would be about casual racism.  It is not.  It is about casual incest which is worse.  Yes, the singer of this song falls in love with an Indian girl only to find out that he was abducted from his tribe as a pup and he is really the brother of the girl he loves.  I thought this was awful and am kind of surprised this content would be allowed at the time.

As far as the album goes, it has good enough songs on it.  Faron Young and Patsy Cline were the big names I recognize.  Versions of “Wildwood Flower” and “From a Jack to a King” were good as was Leroy Van Dyke’s “Walk on By” (not the same as Burt Bacarach’s).  But overall, this album is really lacking the big star power (other than Patsy) that other compilations have.

 

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Here is “Don’t Go Near the Indians”, submitted for your approval.

Meh.  I have about 15 other country compilations that way exceed this one.

 

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