Jack Clement - The Black Haired Man - 1958 Country Bopper - SUN 311

Jack Clement – Vocal & Drums Billy Riley – Guitar & Harmonica Brad Suggs - Guitar Cliff Acred - Bass Unknown Vocal Chorus ''In spite of a lot of good natured kidding from his co0workers, jack has delved seriously into a study of traditional folk ballads as a background for his efforts at creating new stories to be told in updated folk style''. Thus wrote Sun's promotion staffer Barbara Barnes in an attempt to sell Jack Clement as part of the great continuum of folk balladry. He was obviously straddling two stools - country music and the ersatz folk revivalism of the Kinston Trio and their ilk. As a story-song this does not have a great deal of merit and hardly justifies the hours of research that Ms. Barness seemed to think Clement had devoted to it. Quite simply, it sounds as though Clement had concocted the tune for Johnny Cash and then decided to record it himself. He kept the chorus under control and there is an undeniable drive to the song but its prettiness was very markedly different from the country music that Phillips had recorded in the same studio a few years earlier.

Added 31 Jul 2026