Claude King "Meet Claude King" (Columbia Records, 1962) (LP)
Though he broke through as a songwriter, Claude King's debut LP included surprisingly little of his own work. Of course there's his big hit, "Wolverton Mountain," which he co-wrote with Merle Kilgore, as well as lesser-known songs such as "I Can't Get Over The Way You Got Over Me" and one called "Little Bitty Heart," which flopped as a single The rest of the set is packed with classic country covers (stuff from the Carter Family, The Louvin Brothers, and others) as well as three songs credited to his longtime pal Tillman Franks. A couple fo the songs on here, "Big River, Big Man" and "The Comancheros," were Top Ten hits, but "Wolverton Mountain" was the real earth-shaker, a million-selling single that was one of the iconic hits of the early-1960s story-song fad.

Claude King "Tiger Woman" (Columbia Records, 1965) (LP)
(Produced by Frank Jones & Don Law)
This may have been Claude King's most significant album in terms of artistic ambition and original material: over half the album is made up of his own originals and other new songs, including one from ex-rockabilly rebel Dorsey Burnette. In a career that ultimately was swamped by a lack of inspiration or purpose, this set does stand out. The Claude King originals are "Come On Home," "Little Buddy," "It's Good To Have My Baby Home," "That's The Way The Wind Blows," "There Ain't Gonna Be No More" and the title track, "Tiger Woman," which was King's second highest-charting single, peaking at #6. Perhaps, if anyone wanted to skip past all the Johnny Horton covers and whatnot and give Claude King his due, a more fitting best-of collection might include these tracks as well as the handful of his own compositions found on his debut LP and various singles.

Claude King "I Remember Johnny Horton" (Columbia Records, 1969) (LP)
(Produced by George Richey)
A nice, but somewhat oddly timed tribute to King's old pal, country star Johnny Horton, who had died in a car crash nine years earlier, in 1960. The title track is a Claude King original, a goofy, old-fashioned recitation song lauding Horton as an all-around great guy who never done nothing wrong, who never smoked or drank or said a mean word about anybody else. The other songs are all covers of Horton oldies, including a few cowritten with King... The new arrangements take some of the punch and bounce out of the songs, but overall this ain't a bad album.

Claude King "Friend, Lover, Woman, Wife" (Columbia Records, 1970) (LP)
(Produced by Charley Bradley, Charlie Bragg, Bob Johnson, Frank Jones, Don Law & George Richey)
This record contains King's last Top Ten entry, a version of yet another Johnny Horton oldie, "All For The Love Of A Girl" which peaked at #9 on the Billboard country charts, and which had also been included on his previous LP, the Johnny Horton tribute set above. The title track was also a cover song, with King taking a crack at O. C. Smith's 1969 pop single, "Friend, Lover, Woman, Wife," though this new version barely cracked into the country Top Twenty. Indeed, this album is packed with uninspired cover tunes and leftover material, with unnecessary renditions of "House Of The Rising Sun," "Almost Persuaded," "Green, Green Grass Of Home" and Mel Tillis's "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town." What little original music King was provided included "Beertops And Teardrops," a newly-minted song by producer-arranger George Richey, and one of Claude King's own compositions, the ickily-titled "Little Things That Every Girl Should Know," which actually he'd originally released as a single B-side four years earlier, way back in 1966. Possibly not the most inspired Nashville album ever.

Claude King "Chip 'N' Dale's Place" (Columbia Records, 1971) (LP)
(Produced by Lou Bradley, Charlie Bragg, Bob Johnson, Frank Jones, Don Law & Norro Wilson)
As with his previous album, the presence of a full half-dozen of Nashville's top producer/engineers may tell us a little bit of what was happening with Claude King's career during the early countrypolitan era. It's never a good sign when you need that many separate recording sessions to complete your album. In some ways, though, I suppose we can credit King with being a good sport and making a go of it -- he tackled some contemporary hits such as Bob Dylan's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" and Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through The Night," though they also had him fall back on older material such as a cover of "Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got)" and, most embarrassingly, a more-than-unnecessary rendition of "Wolverton Mountain." This album yielded King's last Top Forty chart entries: the song "Mary's Vineyard" peaked at #17 in Billboard, while the title track failed to crack into the Top 20.

Claude King "The Best Of Claude King" (True Records, 1977) (LP)
(Produced by Howard A. Knight, Jr.)
Though billed as a best-of retrospective, this was actually Claude King's last album of the 1970s, a set of freshly re-recorded songs cherry-picked from his back catalog. The album includes version of "Wolverton Mountain," "Tiger Woman," "Big River, Big Man," "The Comancheros," "Chip 'N' Dale's Place" and five other, lesser-known numbers.

Claude King "The Best Of Claude King" (True Records, 1977) (LP)
(Produced by Howard A. Knight, Jr.)
Though billed as a best-of retrospective, this was actually Claude King's last full album, a set of freshly re-recorded songs cherry-picked from his back catalog. The album includes version of "Wolverton Mountain," "Tiger Woman," "Big River, Big Man," "The Comancheros," "Chip 'N' Dale's Place" and five other, lesser-known numbers.

Claude King "Cowboy In The White House" (Sun Records, 2003)
(Produced by Tillman Franks & Claude King)
Another nostalgic set of re-recorded oldies, including several predictable oldies from King's career, as well as some of Johnny Horton's best-known hits, like "North To Alaska" and "Sink The Bismarck." The title track, "Cowboy In The White House," was a tribute to newly-elected US President George Dubya Bush, though calling Bush a "cowboy" seems like a bit of a stretch...

Claude King "Live!" (Goliath Records, 2007)

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Claude King "More Than Climbing That Mountain, Wolverton Mountain, That Is" (Bear Family Records, 1994)
This is another one of those gargantuan Bear Family box sets that makes you think, "wow... is someone really gonna want to buy this??" This copy sort of fell in my lap, and I have to admit, it's pretty interesting. Claude King is best (and pretty much only) known for his 1962 hit, "Wolverton Mountain," a goofy banjo-based story-song that was a huge hit at the same time that Johnny Horton had his "history" hits such as "Battle Of New Orleans" and "North To Alaska." Although he was part of the same Louisiana Hayride scene that brought the world Horton, Webb Pierce, Faron Young, Kitty Wells and Elvis Presley, King made his mark in a poppier vein than those honky-tonk legends. This 5-CD set starts of with King's handful of scrappy postwar and early '50s recordings, which were all small-label honkytonk affairs, but it was in '61 when he signed with Columbia, and rode in on the wake of Johnny Horton's fame, replicating the same sort of goofy, half-recited story-songs that Horton had perfected. That Kennedy-era stuff is pretty formulaic and repetitive; it's his post-fame material that's most appealing to me -- the strivings of an old-timer in the countrypolitan era. With the steep entry price, I wouldn't exactly urge anybody go rush out and buy this one, but it certainly has its interesting aspects.

Claude King "Wolverton Mountain - 16 Original Classics" (Collectables Records, 1994)
Here's a more modest, single CD set that gathers King's biggest hits and a few nuggets as well. There are a lot of gems that didn't make it on here, but all things considered, this is a pretty good introduction to his work.

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Links

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• Discogs: Claude King

• Wikipedia: Claude King

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Hick Music Index

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