JIMMY WALKER sinks into SWAMP COUNTRY

     Hurricane season in America means that many parts of the hot, humid South, including Florida, Georgia and up through South Carolina, are...SWAMP COUNTRY. More than usual. Floods, which actually floated alligators into neighbrhoods to add some extra danger, left many injured, some dead, and thousands without the air conditioning that almost makes living in the South bearable. Hell, if you didn't have some meth, and you couldn't fuck your sister or spray paint a Swastika, what COULD you do for fun with the electricity off?

    If you still had a charge on your iPod, cell phone or laptop, you could play some SWAMP MUSIC. Your addition below is “Swamp Country,” an obscurity on the SWAMPER record label. Certainly the first and foremost song in the genre remains “Swamp Girl,” the insane ballad that Frankie Laine made his own. It's chronicled elsewhere on the blog. Frankie was an Italian guy, and he didn’t actually spend his life riding a mule train, being a gunfighter, herding cattle, or living in a swamp.

    Jimmy Walker was an authentic swamp guy! Not the “Swamp Fox,” who only hid in the marshes to evade the British during the Revolutionary War, Walker was an actual swamp manager! There are forest rangers, and there are zoo keepers and, yes, there are guys who have the job of taking care of mucky bogs. For many years, the Okefenokee Swamp near Waycross, Georgia was supervised by Jimmy. "Swamp Park" when Jimmy was caring for it, was six hundred square miles of dark waters. He made sure tourists got to see all the wonders of Cow Island, and the sawgrass and Spanish moss and the wildlife. He jump-started the career of Okefenokee Joe, who originally worked as an animal handler in the swamp for $60 a week. When he had some spare time, Walker picked up his guitar and sang in the local dives.

    Most fans of SWAMP MUSIC are also fans of cheap swamp paperbacks (like “Swamp Hoyden” which had two different printings). 

    Swamp fans also like swamp films. “Swamp Country” was the theme song for a movie of the same name, which features a very early appearance by Carol Burnett’s announcer Lyle Waggoner. (A few years later,  1971, "Swamp Girl" was filmed on location with Jimmy helping guide the camera crew along). Jimmy Walker was in "Swamp Country," along with his Swampers, and decided to cover the song on his own label, for what can't really be called a "one hit wonder." It was never really a hit. The full "Swamp Country" album he made is quite a rarity. Hunting for it is complicated by several other singers and musicians named Jimmy Walker who recorded albums (and the comedian Jimmie Walker, and the original cast album for the Frank Gorshin musical about Mayor Jimmy Walker).

    His indie interpretation has some nice effects to it, beyond his reasonable vocal skills. Listen for the gooey addition of "Duane Eddy with Indigestion" guitar. OK, it doesn’t have Loulie Jean Norman offering ghostly vocalise, and there’s nobody shouting ‘Chloe,” but the music cementing this bit of C&W goop does give you a taste of the foul and dismal swamp lands where most anything bad can happen. Ah, swamp tunes...musical muck and mire you can admire.

So, SWAMP MUSIC fans, please enjoy Jimmy Walker, and this nice companion to Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou.” And gee, if you REALLY like it, ask somebody to bayou a copy, at one of the last surviving record stores. Drain the swamp? Trump actually LOVES Florida and has a big luxury home there. He's not gonna drain any swamp or hurt any alligators. Professional courtesy. 



JIMMY WALKER
Swamp Country    Instant download or listen on line. You don’t need to type in somebody’s sad password catch-phrase or stupid name to get this to open. No malware or spyware anywhere.