Tunes of Cheatin' and Drinkin': 3 Locals' Honky-Tonk Essentials

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Sunday, September 9, 2007; Page N03

"Honky-tonk" is not just the name of a place. It's also a type of music played by D.C. musicians (and Washington Area Music Award winners) J.P. McDermott of J.P. McDermott and Western Bop, Ruthie Logsdon of Ruthie and the Wranglers and Diana Quinn of Honky Tonk Confidential. We asked them to articulate what makes a honky-tonk song:

They agreed it must be danceable and its lyrics should tell a story about drinking, cheating, loving, losing love and/or living the hard life.

We also asked the musicians to come up with a list of honky-tonk essentials. Five songs appeared on more than one of the lists: Webb Pierce's There Stands the Glass , a lyrically austere tribute to the palliative abilities of alcohol; Ernest Tubb's Walking the Floor Over You , considered the first mainstream honky-tonk hit; Lefty Frizzell's If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time , whose singer wants a date who has cash to burn; Kitty Wells's It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels , a woman's musical response to Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life," a lament of female infidelity; and Ray Price's Crazy Arms , a song about loving someone who's about to marry someone else.

Here are the rest:

Logsdon's List

Mama Tried , Merle Haggard. "If you haven't heard Haggard, you haven't heard country music."

She Thinks I Still Care , George Jones. "George is one of the most well-known country performers of our time."

Stand by Your Man , Tammy Wynette. "A classic song almost every budding female country singer strives to perform."

Don't Come Home a Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind) , Loretta Lynn. "The first female country singer to tell it like it is."

Guitars, Cadillacs , Dwight Yoakam. "Through his own amazing style, he adopted the Bakersfield sound originally started by Buck Owens and His Buckaroos."

Hello Walls , Faron Young. "Another of the great honky-tonk singers."

After the Fire Is Gone , Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. "Duets were popular in the '50s and '60s and helped many artists make their way to stardom, including Conway and Loretta, Tammy Wynette and George Jones, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagner."

I'm Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home , David Frizzell. "It tells the story of a woman who threatens to decorate her house like a honky-tonk so her husband will stay home more."