The Mosby Show

Over at the excellent Setting The Woods On Fire blog, Paul recently drew my attention to a hot honky tonk duo I hadn´t heard of before: Carl and Pearl Butler. They recorded the original of We´ll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning, that great song later made famous by Gram and Emmylou. Paul´s got two tracks up (check them out here) and I´ll add one more: Don´t Let Me Cross Over, their first release as a duo and a big hit in ´62. A real discovery.

But then we move on to the other twosome on the cd I just bought, Best Of Butler & Mosby - A Family Affair, which is Johnny and Jonie Mosby. They´re not as sharp as the Butlers, but it´s clear they weren´t called Mr. and Mrs. Country Music in their heyday for nothing. Jonie met Johnny when she auditioned for his band in Los Angeles back in ´56, and before she knew it she had landed both a job and a husband. 

They enjoyed many a hit - the Harlan Howard-penned Don´t Call Me From A Honky Tonk was the first in ´63 - until they split up in ´73. We can only hope their divorce proceedings went just a little bit smoother than the ones pictured in their wonderful courtroom drama Who´s Been Cheatin´ Who... "The custody of the family will go to me or you, but in the end it´ll all depend, on who´s been cheatin´ who..."

A nice piece of country trivia for last: in ´92, Jonie Mosby became famous once again as the oldest woman in the US known to have given birth to an in vitro-fertilized baby. She was 52 at the time.

 

Carl and Pearl Butler - Don´t Let Me Cross Over MP3

Johnny and Jonie Mosby - Who´s Been Cheatin´ Who MP3

Johnny and Jonie Mosby - Don´t Call Me From A Honky Tonk MP3

Johnny and Jonie Mosby - How The Other Half Lives MP3