Hank C. Burnette - "The Promised Land"

First off...let me start by giving my buddy, Erik Adelfred, full credit for the magnificent job he's done on this video! When he gets down to it he's a master at making great videos and I'm blessed that he's made no less than 8 videos for me when he was running his previous Duke 618/Adelfred account!
Now, this track is a tricky one, at least as far as the title is concerned! Erik had uploaded this video under the name of "The Promised Land" (aka the Chuck Berry rocker) before his old account was shut down and I didn't even think about it, until someone pointed out that the 'correct' title should be "The Wabash Cannonball", aka the old Roy Acuff classic from 1936 (The Carter Family did a version of it already in 1929, by the way!)! When I originally recorded it I had my mind 100% set on Chuck's "Promised Land" and was going to do a vocal version of it! But we all know that a Chuck Berry song ain't exactly written like the usual '50s type 'gimme 5 minutes and I'll come up with something', but are more along the lines of exquisite short STORIES! So I got tired of fixing the lyrics for a vocal job and just 'winged' it into a totally improvised instru instead, with no intention whatsoever to eventually get it released! Anyway, when this guy here on YT pointed out that the title to it obviously was wrong and should be corrected into "Wabash Cannonball" I suddenly realised that the similarities was indeed extremely close. In fact, in retrospect it somehow sounds more like "Wabash.." than it does "Promised..", but you can still easily use Chuck's lyrics to it! Am I making any sense here or am I going totally ballony? Oh well, to clear my mind I just had to point this out cause I obviously will get a few whippings again for not getting the proper title right (it suddenly struck me that I wonder what Chuck would have to say about the striking similarities in melody to these two songs...hm!). Just for the record...the fictional "Wabash Cannonball" was written by one J.A. Roff way back in 1882!! 'Nuff said...
"Promised Land" was a request from the Sonet people in England, together with a bunch of other songs that they wanted me to record for the purpose of future releases, but I usually don't function on command so it's never been released...on any label! I'm not 100% sure what guitar I used on this one, but I think it's the old Hagström 'plank' judging from the rather trebly sound. Must've been shortly before I got the Gretsch then! Anyway, to cut a long story short (it's already too long!), taken the background to this track's birth into account I guess it turned out pretty OK after all. And if you don't like it, just follow my example and 'wing it', ha, ha!! Hank C...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• hotrock 109
• hank c. burnette
• rock'n roll
• rockabilly
• guitar instru's
• sweden
• roots music
• up-tempo

[Digthatcat1960]

EXCELLENT !!!!! ... and again I've enjoyed the great work of Erik how he put the video together !!!! For some reason I missed out this instru and just listened to it. I liked it a lot Hank !!!!!!

[lightweed]

wow! and triple wow! it sure filled me right up, without a doubt, and i'm virtually a musical 'anorexic (highly demanding, critical person) '! Thanks Hank, for the strongest, satisfying music (and the explanatory notes to boot)

[coolerator48]

Nice rendition of this song and superb cover. Thanks for posting.

[diane189444]

Hit love it :)

[loitalove2009]

another HIT SONG 5*****

[ghostgal30e]

Great job. 5*****

[56blondie56]

Great !

[mitcheureka78]

Un rythme tres soutenu , j'aime bien.

[stuoremaa]

Det var som... !

Man har hört låtarna i över 20 år och aldrig

tänkt på hur lika de är ,

[MrVintage78]

This is a very nice one. Great instro! Chuck or Roy? Sounds mainly like Hank, I'd say.