Leaning Into My Womanhood

Crate Diving in Modern America

Likely you entered this space with great or perhaps lurid expectations. So I don’t know if it will disappoint you or relieve you to see that I’m still me, just like one of the artists below is still himself, too.

My crate diving excursions are heading to Canada next week. I haven’t yet looked up the record stores or thrift shops of Calgary but my friend Andres over at The Vinyl Room is counting on me to find some good ones and then pack them properly so that the dogs of border control don’t gnaw on some fresh hot vintage country vinyl.

As I was digging through the five albums I’m highlighting from my own recent finds—my stash of pre-loved treasures—I discovered that digging further into the packages these LPs come in brings further value and delight. I don’t know and always wonder how/why and with what sorrow the former owners let these gems go. Or, how precious they once were to the original owner and how many hours, or stolen moments, the sounds within gave them pleasure.

So let’s start off in a big way.

I’ve gone crazy for Tammy Wynette, as my recent story on Medium attests.

https://medium.com/the-riff/divorce-is-never-gentle-on-my-mind.

Wynette’s career was not as long as some, and toward the middle part of it, she released Womanhood (Epic 35442). Along with the title cut, she also sings “The One Song I Never Could Write,” “Love Doesn’t Always Come (On the Night It’s Needed),” and what should be a standard, “I’d Like to See Jesus (On the Midnight Special).”

For those who didn’t grow up in that era, “The Midnight Special” was a Saturday night TV series featuring legendary rock/soul acts and hosted by legendary outlaw DJ Wolfman Jack. Tammy’s song, then, is as wishful and wistful, and depending on who you are, as blasphemous as they come. Pretty funny, too.

My copy of this LP, for a mere $10, is not just one of those “For Promotion Only’s” that DJs found in their mailboxes. The promotion also included a glossy photo inside,

as well as a Biography of the singer that includes significant dates, a complete-until-then discography, and quotes from Wynette herself like,

“I would never give up my career for marriage. I’d be miserable. And I won’t quit the road. But I would cut down my traveling to just a few days a month for the right man.”

Second on today’s list is an album alluded to above and semi-pictured in that photo of Wynette above:

Bill Withers’ Still Bill (Sussex /Buddha SXBS 7014, 1972). Containing the two hits, “Use Me” and “Lean On Me,” my copy for $15 has that split-down-the-middle opening of the original so that you see a larger photo of Withers standing against a brick wall with song lyrics printed on the inner gates of the opening (hope I described that well enough). Such a classic record, voice, man, though not above asking the lyrical question, “Who Is He (And What Is He To You?).”

Next, building my Emmylou Harris collection, I found for $6 her 1978 release Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town (WB BSK 3141). Covering Dolly Parton’s “To Daddy,” Delbert McClinton’s “Two More Bottles of Wine,” and Susanna Clark/Carlene Carter’s “Easy From Now On,” among others, Harris and her band, featuring Glen D. Hardin, Albert Lee, Hank DeVito (on pedal steel) and Rodney Crowell spin a genuine bottle of vintage sound—pleasing and fine all the way down.

Somehow, some way, I also found a copy of Loretta Lynn’s Love Is The Foundation (MCA-355 1973) for…$7.00. Life is generous in these moments, as is Loretta singing “What Sundown Does To You,” “Just To Satisfy (The Weakness In A Man),” Kris Kristofferson’s “Why Me,” and Shel Silverstein’s “Hey Loretta.” The record itself is clean and pure, though the cover is a bit worn and discolored.

Finally, let’s reach back to 1958 and an original mono copy of The Fabulous Johnny Cash (Columbia CL-1253), rated by the seller at the Full Moon Studios pop-up flea market as VG+. The beautiful red Columbia label tells me the LP is “unbreakable,” as if I would ever test that theory out. But it plays like a dream, and someone took such care of this one that I’d like to lean into her or him and see what life was like in another time and place where, when Johnny smiled, you felt like you could be the woman or man he wanted.

Thanks for reading and taking the journey with me, whoever I am, and whoever you want me to be.