Skeets McDonald - Call Me Skeets!
In this episode, we're featuring some of the best early 60s honky tonk you've never heard: from the chronically underrated Skeets McDonald, our feature album is: "Call Me Skeets!" (1964). Skeets got his first major record deal in LA - he was picked up by Capitol and spent a good stint with them which included his only #1 hit in 1952 with "Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes". He flirted with rockabilly and rock 'n' roll, but it was after his move to Capitol's arch-rivals Columbia in 1959 that we pick up the story - all of our feature album was recorded between '59-'63, and it demonstrates Skeets McDonald's refusal to budge from his hard country sound. We feature some sensational country shuffles, a few featuring a young Johnny Paycheck on harmonies, Jimmy Day on steel and Tommy Jackson on fiddle - and Skeets' nasal hillbilly twang slots in perfectly. As one reviewer in the 60s wrote: "Listening to him [Skeets] sing is like playing a record you liked twenty years ago. It's the plaintive sound from a thousand beer joints along highways from Altoona to Albuquerque.".. Can you believe that was meant to be a negative review??