{"id":2443371,"date":"2019-04-24T11:25:20","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T17:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=825850"},"modified":"2019-04-24T11:25:20","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T17:25:20","slug":"cult-rb-singer-swamp-dogg-talks-new-country-album-featuring-john-prine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/cult-rb-singer-swamp-dogg-talks-new-country-album-featuring-john-prine\/","title":{"rendered":"Cult R&B Singer Swamp Dogg Talks New Country Album Featuring John Prine"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Swamp Dogg<\/a> has been trying to make a country album for a long time. \u201cAll my life,\u201d he says. Although the 76-year-old singer-songwriter is best known for his oddball R&B, country music has been an integral part of his musical foundation ever since he stayed up late at night as a kid growing up in Portsmouth, Virginia listening to the country radio station. Early in his career, his originals became hits for country singers like Johnny Paycheck, and he regularly recorded songs written by country-leaning singer-songwriters like Mickey Newbury and John Prine<\/a>. In the 1980s, he recorded a score of country originals with titles like \u201cWifebeater\u201d<\/a> and \u201cHe Don\u2019t Like Country Music (And He Hates Little Kids),\u201d<\/a> but the songs were relegated to an obscure compilation and never heard by most.<\/span><\/p>\n

So after the comparative success of last year\u2019s electronic soul offering<\/span> Love, Loss and Auto-Tune<\/span><\/em>, Swamp Dogg realized it was time to do what he had never done before: release an entire album of country songs. \u201cI look at time, and I look at my age and all that bullshit, and I thought, \u2018Man, I better do that before time closes in on my ass,\u2019\u201d he tells<\/span> Rolling Stone<\/span><\/em>. \u201cThere\u2019s still so many things that I want to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past year, Swamp Dogg (birth name Jerry Williams) has been at work on his latest album at a series of studios in Los Angeles and Nashville with a slew of collaborators, including longtime friend John Prine. \u201cJohn\u2019s a funny motherfucker,\u201d says the singer. \u201cAnd where I tend to not be as country as I want to be, John Prine brings it home.\u201d The duo spent a day recording in Nashville over the past year, cutting several songs, including a duet on Prine\u2019s \u201cSam Stone\u201d (which Swamp Dogg famously covered<\/a> in 1972) and a new Swamp Dogg original called \u201cMemories Don\u2019t Leave Like People Do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n