This 'ol earthquake's gonna leave me in the poorhouse

Porter Wagoner and Gram Parsons introduced me to the Nudie suit. Gram Parsons also introduced me to country-rock, first as a member of the Byrds and later the leader of the Flying Burrito Brothers.

As I rediscover my vinyl, I can't believe I neglected this record for so long. Parsons was someone who made it cool to like country, even if his country was just a bit different than the Ernest Tubb and The Statler Brothers that my dad was listening to at the time.

When I finally saw the Burritos, it was a few years later at Penn State. They were a shadow of themselves. Parsons was dead, and Chris Hillman had moved on to The Souther Hillman Furay Band. John Sebastian opened, debuting a new song that he had just written for a sitcom called "Welcome Back Kotter."

I think I was 16 when I bought "The Gilded Palace of Sin." I stared at that album cover for hours, wondering which one of those women was the "Devil in Disguise, " or if I would ever meet a woman like the song described.

I would, several times over.

I guess it goes without saying that I didn't really understand this music then. I get it now.

Hard to be a saint in the city

There are great album covers, and then there are GREAT album covers. Porter Wagoner's classic "The Cold Hard Facts of Life" definitely falls into the latter category.

And I would argue that it may be the greatest of them all. (The song of the same name is also one of the greatest cheating songs as well.)

As for the album cover, it's a shot of the exact moment when the protagonist (Wagoner) walks in the front door with a gym bag (!) after a business trip to find his floozy wife fooling around with some smooth character. Ironically, the shot was actually taken in Wagoner's own two-bit apartment. In the song, mayhem ensues, and Wagoner wonders from prison, "who taught who the cold hard facts of life?"

This resonates with me not just because of the song is spot on or because of the razor-fine details and common-folk brilliance of the album cover photo, but because I have first-hand experience with a similar situation. Yes, once upon a time it was my floozy with another joker. True story, with the crucial difference that they were actually in bed together.

Oh, and it didn't end with knifes, murder, violence or a great country song.

I'm long over it all now, but it's still a moment that is burned in my memory, and hearing the "Cold Hard Facts of Life" and seeing this album cover brings it all back home again.

Strictly 100 – Number 3: “The Cold Hard Facts of Life" - Porter Wagoner (album cover)