Customer Reviews

Sanders' Truckstop

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"Sanders' Truckstop" is a clever junction of the hip and the hick. Missouri-born Ed Sanders, poet/author- probably best know as one of the founding members of the Fugs, offers up a wonderful selection of unconventional country music.

The album is highly satirical and very funny. Probably the funniest tunes are "The Plaster Song," about a traditional country singer's encounter with the legendary Plastercasters and his subsequent troubles with a less than understanding society, and "The Iliad," where Ed combines Homer and "Hee Haw" in a ludicrous observation of hillbilly homophobia.

Sanders shows that he is capable of writing unsatirical pieces which actually work as hauntingly beautiful music ("There Cutting My Coffin at the Sawmill.")

I owned the album on vinyl when it originally came out. I'm thrilled to see that it has been re-released on CD for a new generation of listeners to enjoy.

One day back in 1970 a friend of mine, who belonged to kind of an "Lp-of-of-the-Month" club with Warner Bros Records, received the lp "Sanders' Truckstop".

That afternoon we got high and listened to the creations (?) of this counter-culture guy; ex Fug, Ed Sanders. Sanders, who is from Kansas City, Mo, but who, according to some of his interviews, used to check out Country Western bands around K.C. in the 50's; could very well have spent time in the Ozarks. He must have; 'cause this guy can lay down one dead-on-the money, no-doubt-about-it, real Mccoy, hillbilly accent; yeah buddy.

Out of 11 tracks total, 9 were general parodies in the C&W genre, which I could really take or leave. Two of the cuts, however, "The Iliad", and "Jimmy Joe, the Hippybilly Boy", were kind of like one man skits or monologues; but since God broke the mold when He made this sonofagun they've never come up with a word to describe some of the stuff he's been responsible for!

Anyway, that afternoon "The Iliad" and "Jimmy Joe, the Hippybilly Boy" had us lacerated; almost refusing to believe what we heard coming from the speakers. The smalltown Ozark characters he created with NOTHING BUT HIS OWN VOICE seemed to jump off the record before our eyes.

Sanders starts off "The Iliad" by reciting what sound like a bunch of gobbledygook foreign phrases; and then with his patented Ozark dialect breaks into, "Well, I went into the trance I usually go into when I watch the Budweiser clock spin around for about two hours...." For the next few minutes the listener is treated to a catalogue of all the stereotypes that the narrator; the perfectly named "Johnny Piss-off"; hates with a purple passion- "poets, quahres, peace-creeps, dwarfs, Cajuns, midgets, dipshee-uts, bohunks, hah-slants, eggheads, fudgesicles, and TEENAGE LOOSE WIMMIN!"

Within a week of hearing "The Iliad" I could recite it word for word.

Anyway I'd been taking Latin at the time- senior year in High School- and by accident discovered that the "gobbledygook intro" to "The Iliad" was actually the first few lines of Homer's Iliad; recited in Latin by Sanders- with a hillbilly accent! (This may give you a clue as to what you're up against with this album.)

Well, back to 1970 where soon my friend received another lp- "The Big Ball", a sampler of new acts on Warner Bros. Records, which included "The Iliad". Fast forward 21 years. I notice one day on the dust jacket of an old Grateful Dead album an order form for "The Big Ball" you could cut out and send in with a check for 2.00. Just for jollies I sent it in and about a week later a copy of "The Big Ball" arrived in the mail! In an hour's time I had "The Iliad" memorized once again. Occasionally I would "impress" some girl by telling her I could recite Homer's Iliad in the original Latin. At "oolah-minane-hay-meeriah-kal-oyus-algay-a-thinkin', buddy!", she would either stare in disbelief or just roll her eyes. I still pined for "Jimmy Joe, the Hippybilly Boy", though.

A year ago on eBay I saw the LP but somebody always beat my bid. Recently I spied the CD re-mastering of "Sanders' Truckstop" here on Amazon and my 37 year quest for the Holy Grail had ended!

"....Well it's hard to say what started him down the long, piney trail to Freakhood."

".... Lord, Lord, Lord; they weeped just as loud for a hippybilly boy as they weeped for anybody else."

"....and he had a protest button on that said, 'God is ai-cid.' Boy that pee-ee-issed me ah-oof!"

"....his teachers didn't mahnd so much the love beads, or when he wore body paint to the prom; but buddy--when he came to the county track meet and wore nothin' but a purple petrified tapir snout for an athletic supporter, boy he got SNUUUFED outta SCHOOOUL"

If you and your friends don't care about whether some smartmouth Rolling Stone record reviewer thinks a certain album is up to snuff on some phony high-falutin level and you just want to hear stuff that'll make you happy and make you laugh your butts off- BUY THIS CD!

I was unaware this masterpeice had been released on CD until today. Both this and Ed Sanders' other LP, "Beer Cans" are mainstays of my vinyl collection from back in the old days. I recall first being alerted to Sanders apart from his Fugs material in a sampler LP from Warner Brothers called "The Big Ball." That one contained the track "The Illiad" which opens with Sanders chanting in Greek from the original Illiad. Then of course we were treated to some great hilarity. Some years later I tracked down a copy of "Truck Stop" and it's been in my collection ever since.

Truck Stop is a minor masterpiece, one of many in different genres that Sanders has turned out over the years. Thanks for everything, Ed.

Major kudos to Collector's Choice for reissuing this brilliant album -- the label is consistently making bolder and more interesting choices than Rhino Records in its selections of out-of-print vinyl for CD release. I've been waiting for this one for years, and have even begged Rhino's Handmade label to rerelease it on more than one occasion, with no luck. Thanks, Collector's Choice!!!!

This is a great album! I've been listening to it for 20 yrs- it holds up :-)

Ed Sanders, a founding member of the Fugs, did Truckstop as his first solo project. It has finally become available on cd. It is well worth the purchase price and is an irreverant look at life in the center of our country in the mid-sixties.