WHISKEY COUNTRY
A musical mash-up with a history
When Chris Stapleton hits the Northlands Coliseum stage Saturday night, we can be sure of at least one thing.
The Grammy and Country Music Award winning singersongwriter (for 2015’s Traveller) will croon a tune, possibly two or three, about American whiskey. This doesn’t make Stapleton more special than any other country singer out there; consumption of it has been a hot topic in the genre for decades now, though only alluded to in the early days when Nashville stars were expected to at least show an appearance of sobriety.
Stapleton, like the outlaw country singers he so clearly reveres, has no problem with bluntly naming the demon drink, having penned Whiskey and You, Drinkin’ Dark Whiskey (for his former band, bluegrass outfit The Steeldrivers), and sending his version of the David Allen Coe number Tennessee Whiskey to the top of the charts after George Jones hit No. 2 with it back in 1983. He’s even served up the after-effects, having penned Hangover Tonight with Gary Allen.
He’s not alone in this regard. If Stapleton looks around the coliseum carefully, it’s possible he may find some empty bottles of Jack Daniels tucked in a corner by Eric Church back from when he performed there March 10. Gossip has it that Church enjoys a shot of JD with the band before heading out on stage, a rumour that doesn’t seem so far-fetched considering Church named a song off his Chief album from 2011 after the brand. The iconic whiskey makers were so pleased they decided to give Church a customized bar and whiskey barrel from the company back in January as a thank-you for this unasked for marketing.
As an aside, we could devote this entire article to instances of Jack Daniels being mentioned in country songs, but that’s too narrow a focus, especially when we could talk about Merle Haggard’s love of George Dickel. Haggard, who was actually better known for tackling a different beverage with the Top 5 hit Misery and Gin, was so enamoured of the drink he did print ads for Dickel in the mid-’80s, one of the few instances of a whiskey company actually using a country singer to sell their product.
Despite his professed love for Dickel’s, legend has it that Haggard set a world record in 1983 by buying 5,095 shots of Canadian Club at Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth for the entire bar. It was apparently his way of publicizing the song C.C. Waterback, which he sang with George Jones. A C.C. Waterback involves a shot of Canadian Club and a glass of water on the side. The club’s website claims that the round totalled 40 gallons of whiskey, and cost US$12,737.50.
Country music and whiskey (specifically bourbon) may be inseparable, but companies really don’t need a celebrity name attached to sell their wares. If they did, they could have their pick, whether Toby Keith (Whiskey Girl), Brooks & Dunn (Whiskey Under the Bridge), Luke Bryan (You Don’t Know Jack), Hank III (Five Shots of Whiskey) or the Zac Brown Band (Whiskey’s Gone), just to name a few. Go back a few decades and you can choose from Willie Nelson (Whiskey River), Kris Kristofferson (Whiskey, Whiskey), Jerry Lee Lewis (It Was the Whiskey Talkin’), and this writer’s personal favourite, Gary Stewart’s Whiskey Trip.
Possibly the goofiest song about drinking whiskey is The King is Gone (So Are You), which George Jones somehow got into the Top 25 back in 1989. It starts off with “Last night I broke the seal on a Jim Beam decanter/ That looks like Elvis/I soaked the label off/A Flintstone jelly bean jar” and gets weirder from there; a perfectly odd paean to getting wrecked by the Possum, a man who knew something about the topic.
Had enough? No? Well, here are a few more lists to keep you amused while you settle down with your whiskey brand of choice. For those who quibble over the spelling, we’ve gone with American (or Irish) whiskey over Canadian (or Scottish) whisky, simply for the sake of convenience.
Five more songs about whiskey:
Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss: ■
Whiskey Lullaby
Drive By Truckers: Women
■
Without Whiskey
Gillian Welch: Whiskey Girl
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Hank Williams Jr.: Whiskey
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Bent and Hellbound
Corb Lund: Rye Whiskey/Time ■ to Switch to Whiskey
Five country songs about other forms of alcohol:
Mel Tillis: Stomp Them Grapes ■
Toby Keith: Rum is the Reason ■
George Jones: Beer Run
■
Tom T. Hall: I Like Beer
■
Kenny Chesney & Grace Potter: ■
You and Tequila
Three Alberta country musicians talk about whiskey:
LINDSEY BUECKERT
(Bassist, Give ’em Hell Boys and Misery Mountain Boys)
Favourite whiskey: Usually some sort of bourbon, like Bulleit or Maker’s Mark, but I get in different moods all the time. Redbreast is a great Irish whiskey I find every now and again, and if I’m out and feeling rich I often get an Oban 14. Quinn from The Give ‘em Hell Boys also introduced me to a tasty rye recently, Rittenhouse 100 Proof. Favourite songs about whiskey: The Whiskey Ain’t Workin by Travis Tritt & Marty Stuart, and Tennessee Whiskey by David Allan Coe are the first two that pop into my mind. Tennessee Whiskey was also recorded by George Jones and most recently by Chris Stapleton, which is a great version. The Hell Boys also have a song about whiskey, called Me and the Whiskey, and The Misery Mountain Boys have a country song called Canadian Whiskey as well, both fun songs to play.
CORB LUND
(Singer-Songwriter with Corb Lund & the Hurtin’ Albertans)
Favourite whiskey: I like Pendleton a lot. For something not quite so sweet, if I want to drink all night and howl at the moon, I love me some Gibsons. What I don’t like is new boutique whiskey. You can’t just brew that stuff on a whim. There’s some ancient knowledge there that can’t be easily replicated. I want the stuff that’s being bottled by a guy whose grandfather put it in the cask.
Favourite songs about whiskey: The Pogues’ Body of an American is a pretty good whiskey-referencing song. The Clancy Brothers play some pretty outstanding ones: Whiskey, You’re The Devil and Jug of This come to mind. And Willie Nelson’s Whiskey River is pretty enduring, from the pill-slow version on the Shotgun Willie album to the cokedout super-speedy one on Willie and Family Live.
BRETT KISSEL
(Singer-Songwriter)
Favourite whiskey: Growing up in the country, I was surrounded by whiskey drinkers. I come from a long line of whiskey “enjoyers,” so naturally, without hesitation, my first drink was whiskey. My dad, Gordon, loved drinking JP Wisers. That was his go-to, which made it easy for me to follow his tastebuds. As I started to travel more, and taste some of the finest whiskeys from across Canada, I fell in love with one of JP Wisers premium bottles, JP Wisers 18 Year. This rich, smooth, and classy drink has been my favourite for almost a decade (since I turned 18), and I’ve been lucky enough to taste it, from the barrel, and just off the line at the Wisers Distillery in Windsor, Ont. — Canada’s oldest distillery and Canada’s oldest whiskey (1857).
Favourite songs about whiskey: When it comes to songwriting, Corb is one of the finest. I’ve always loved this song and what it says, and Corb’s clever verses make me smile every time. Plus, I love what this song does live. If, or when, my band and I cover this song, it can take our set list and our show to new heights, especially in Alberta, which is prime whiskey-drinking territory.