Homer & Jethro - The Kings Of Comedy Country: The Collection 1949-62 (CD)

Homer and Jethro were a country duo, real names Henry Haynes and Kenneth Burns, with their musical roots in hillbilly and bluegrass, who worked together on radio in the 1930s and reunited after service in WWII to perform again on radio, developing an act which featured exaggerated hillbilly comedic routines. After signing to RCA in 1949, their producer suggested developing their style by recording parodies of well-known pop and country hits, and they immediately struck a chord with their re-working of composer Frank Loesser's "Baby, It's Cold Outside". Over the next dozen years or so they remained consistently popular on radio and TV with this approach, and focused much of their recorded output in this direction. This great-value 58-track 2-CD set brings together selected A & B sides of their releases on RCA from this era, mostly comprising their trademark parody and comic performances. It features all their country and pop chart entries on RCA from these years, including the Top 10 hits "Baby It's Cold Outside" and "How Much Is That Hound Dog In The Window", and the Top 20 hits "Hernando's Hideaway" and "The Battle Of Kookamunga". They represented a highly individual and idiosyncratic strand of country music, cornering the market as just about the only practitioners of this particular art, and this collection offers a showcase not only for their unusual material but also for their finely-honed skills as instrumentalists and harmony vocalists.

Track List:

Disc: 1

1. :
2. Baby It's Cold Outside
3. Tennessee Border Number Two
4. I've Got Tears in My Ears (From Lyin' on My Back in My Bed While I Cry Over You)
5. She Made Toothpicks Out of the Timber of My Heart
6. I Said My Nightshirt (And Put on My Pray'rs)
7. (Put Another Nickel in) Music! Music! Music!
8. You Tell Her I Stutter
9. Does the Spearmint Lose It's Flavor
10. Disc Jockey's Nightmare
11. I'm Movin' on No. 2
12. Sound Off #2 (The Duckworth Chant)
13. Too Young
14. Too Old to Cut the Mustard
15. Cold Cold Heart #2
16. Slow Poke #2
17. When It's Toothpickin' Time in False Teeth Valley
18. L'il Ole Kiss of Fire
19. Billboard Song
20. Child Psychology
21. You Belong to Me #2
22. Jam-Bowl-Liar (Jambalaya)
23. Settin' the Woods on Fire #2
24. Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyeballs
25. (How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window
26. I'm Walking Behind You-All
27. Your Clobbered Heart
28. I Saw Mommy Smoochin' Santa Claus
29. You-Ewe-U

Disc: 2

1. Oh My Pappy!
2. Swappin' Partners
3. Hernando's Hideaway
4. Hey There
5. Santa Baby
6. Nutty Lady of Shady Lane
7. Mister Sandman
8. Let Me Go Blubber
9. Ballad of Davy Crew-Cut
10. Yaller Rose of Texas, You All
11. Love and Marriage
12. Hart Brake Motel
13. Houn' Dawg
14. I'm My Own Grandpaw
15. Mama from the Train or (Throw Mama Down the Stairs Her Hat of Blue)
16. At the Flop
17. My Special Angel
18. I Guess Things Happen That Way
19. Lullaby of Bird Dog
20. Don't Sing Along (On Top of Old Smokey)
21. Middle Aged Teenager
22. The Battle of Kookamonga
23. Waterloo
24. El Paso (Numero Dos)
25. Sink the Bismarck
26. He'll Have to Go
27. Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
28. Please Help Me, I'm Falling
29. Are You Lonesome Tonight
30. She Thinks I Don't Care