1962 Frank Ifield: Lovesick Blues

A song made famous by Hank Williams (though he didn't write it), 'Lovesick Blues' is a 1922 showtune custom built for the country makeover and glottal throat tics that Williams gives it. Hank uses his voice to convey an on the verge of a sob vocal, but Ifield fires up his yodel machine to maximum capacity with an overload that threatens to smother the slight song underneath. To compensate, 'Lovesick Blues' comes loaded with a cranked up, big band swing arrangement that's neither lovesick nor blue but instead a hammy slice of sub par cabaret that tries to relocate Vegas at the Grand Ole Opry. That it fails is perhaps unsurprising; Frank's attempt to smear on the sunshine only serves to give the impression that everyone involved was whistling in the dark, and the resulting stew lands firmly on the wrong side of 'bearable'.