WORK, MONEY AND STATUS IN COUNTRY MUSIC (1950-1970) - 18 timeless tales of clanging hammers and pounding shovels. From wry, dry working-stiff diatribes to bare-chested exclamations, 'Birth Work Death' maps the human work experience from anger to joy, poverty to riches. From the muck-crusted mines to late-night jukeboxes, backwoods outsiders and Nashville icons alike waxed odes to the entwined necessities of Work and Money, Status and Competition, Survival and Servitude. Harrowing laments of dank deaths underground, fevered hymns to Mammon, snide ripostes to debt-bondage and exuberant celebrations of family and sustenance. Most originally waxed on private press labels and distributed in tiny amounts, these town criers and tavern-bound troubadours sing of golden highways, slothful byways, factory-floor drudgery and fallow, heartbreaking fields.
Strictly Limited Edition of 500 copies. Black vinyl.
Limited Edition Deluxe Gatefold LP with exclusive scholarly liner notes by Alvin Lucia!
 
Side One:
BILL CARTER: By The Sweat Of My Brow
BOBBY BARNETT: Workin' Man
TEX RITTER: A Working Man's Prayer
MR. CONNIE DYCUS: Dark As A Dungeon
DAVE DUDLEY: Workin' Hands
EDDIE NOACK: Cotton Mill
THE WESTPORT KIDS:
You Kaint Take It With You
ARLIE DUFF: Money Hungry
TEX WILLIAMS: Money

Side Two:
TENNESSEE ERNIE FORD:
Sixteen Tons '65
CHARLIE GORE: Black Diamond
HOWARD VOKES: The Miner
THE WRAY FAMILY: Down In The Mine
GEORGE DAVIS: Little Lump Of Coal
DOC WILLIAMS: Don't Want To Work
DAVID HISER: On Strike
BUDDY DURHAM: Sixteen Tons
SUNSHINE BOYS QUARTET:
Checking Up On My Payments