Talkin' Tillis

I became aware of Mel Tillis while watching EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE. "Who is that froggy-timbred man?" I wondered. Tillis may have the chintziest, sleaziest, most unctuous set of pipes in history; it is the vocal equivalent of wagon-wheel lamp fixtures, flammable motel bedspreads and swinging saloon doors leading to the toilet. It's the sound of a love story between a nightclub chanteuse and truck driver whose best friend is a beer-drinking orangutan.

Mel Tillis sounds like a drunk amphibian who fell down a well and made the best of it. Down in well now, no hope of hopping out, but check it out--the acoustics are great!

"Coca Cola Cowboy," on the EWWBL soundtrack, is an apt-self description. He likens himself to Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford. He is easy in his arrogance, slick in his sleaze. His skin is like a tangelo. He looks like a wax figure of himself.

Unlike other masters of the drinking song (George Jones, Merle Haggard, Gary Stewart) Tillis is not a fallen man, a happy sinner; he is a true decadent. A dandy. There's no trace of remorse, guilt, or shame in his soupy ballads of sexual escapade, like "Send Me Down to Tucson." He preaches of the exquisite, rarified joys to be found on the naugahyde side of life. Tillis makes no apologies for the lowly hussies he fancies. He taught those neon roses everything they know.

Compare the imagery in Gary Stewart's "Cactus and a Rose" to Tillis' "Neon Rose."

Everybody knows love won't grow / between a cactus and a rose

She's my sunshine lady / maybe just a little bit shady.

Stewart is a true and bitter tragedy. Tillis is a rubber plant. Or Mephistopheles? A nihilist for sure. Syrupy-glad and lit up like a Christmas tree, tawdry tinsel with a turned-up collar. Put on a Mel Tillis record and your house suddenly smells like cologne. Feast your ears, then take a shower:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbsLQBj_cYk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cynE7VmacyA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYgmboayNqM

"Bad music"? Think again.

We need Mel Tillis more than Mel Tillis needs us.