New Book Captures Rural Country Concerts of 1960s
That’s a young George Jones staring back at you from the cover of Pure Country: The Leon Kagarise Archives: 1961-1971. The singer sure looks friendly in that photo, but according to Kagarise, he had stormed offstage drunk the day before, angry that his pickup band from Baltimore wasn’t living up to his expectations. When he sobered up the next day to perform a second show, Jones agreed to pose for Kagarise, a hi-fi systems installer who photographed and recorded countless festivals in the Baltimore area.
Compared to today’s extravagant concert experiences, it can be jarring to see legends like Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton on a tiny stage, playing out in the woods somewhere. Clearly, Kagarise was smitten with the lifestyle, accruing 600 color slides and 4,000 hours of clear recordings over the years. Browsing through nearly 200 pages, it’s astonishing to see so many future Country Music Hall of Fame members such as Bill Anderson, Mother Maybelle Carter, Lester Flatt, Grandpa Jones, Pee Wee King, the Louvin Brothers, Ray Price, Jim Reeves, Carl Smith, Hank Snow, Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, Ernest Tubb, Porter Wagoner and Kitty Wells, all kindly smiling for a quick photo. Nobody was getting rich at those concerts since admission was often a dollar per carload. Sadly, we’ll never see the likes of that again.
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Kim says:
for a split second that looked like Jim Carrey. cool book. need to go back to that kind of thing. way more fun than TV.
B.W. LaRoy says:
Orthodox will be in again…as soon as what’s cool becomes average and dies. Hang in there you uncool people…real country’s gonna rise again.
RedMaZ says:
Thanks for featuring the Kagarise collection. I’ve been following this since 2003, and it’s an amazing collection.
As far as the “uncool people” reference…by the looks of it, there’s plenty around, and it has nothing to do with real country. Real Country is just as strong as ever. Cool people already know that.
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