PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (19)
By:
September 3, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Country Music of the Fifties (1954–1963)! Series edited by Josh Glenn. Qobuz playlist here.
JOHNNY CASH | BIG RIVER | 1957
On Sheridan Street, in Ely, way up north in Minnesota, you’ll find Catz, an abandoned billiards hall and bar. When I lived there it was the fourth-best bar in town — of four. But one memorable Sunday night, it was the place to be. That’s because the Widji Band – all of us were seasonal workers at the YMCA’s Camp Widjiwagan — had a slot to play there.
Not that Mondays through Saturdays at Catz’s were booked solid. We were convinced that the owner, Nick, an oiled-up body builder with a drinking problem, used the stage on the other nights of the week to record a boogie-rock cover album. A project which seemed to have stalled at George Thorogood and the Destroyers’ “Band to the Bone.” We arrived at this hypothesis after discovering, on the stage at Catz’s, multiple copies of a hand-written lyric sheet: nothing but “b-b-b-b-bad to the bone” from top to bottom.
The shoulder season between Widji’s winter and summer workers had started, so the bar was filled with the band’s friends and coworkers. And in addition to the usual drifters one finds in Ely, on this evening we were joined by a methed-out man and his dog.
We struck up our first song, “Proud Mary” — which is about leaving behind a demanding, dead-end job to hitch a ride on a riverboat traveling the Mississippi. Whose headwaters are in northern Minnesota, and which widens and deepens into a massive commercial river just above St. Paul. The place came alive. The methed-out man jumped onstage and provided back-up vocals. He also ranted until Nick kicked him off the stage. A fight broke out, and the two rolled down the stairs and out into the street. The band stopped playing until Nick returned, knuckles bloodied. He reached behind the bar, took a shot of whiskey, and said: “Don’t tell my Mom.”
With a guitar riff and the opening line “Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry,” we launched next into Johnny Cash’s “Big River.”
Co-written with Willie Nelson, “Big River” is the greatest Middle American country song. Love, longing, and geography flow through the track’s rumbling trio of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and bass. Cash searches for his love from St. Paul to St. Louis, Memphis, and Baton Rouge, before realizing in the Gulf of Mexico that he can’t compete with the allure of life on the Mississippi.
I am lucky enough to cross the Mississippi twice a day, to walk its banks, to see it freeze and thaw. There have been massive infrastructure changes to ensure that the Mississippi runs cleaner — and it’s working. Phosphorus levels, E. coli, and heavy metal levels have declined significantly to the point that you can swim (with a shower after) just north of the Twin Cities. I’m reminded, whenever I listen to “Big River,” of the Mississippi’s importance to America… and that we need to care for it.
PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn. Nadine Hubbs on Marty Robbins’ EL PASO | Elizabeth Nelson on Dave Dudley’s SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD | Lynn Peril on Jean Chapel’s WELCOME TO THE CLUB | David Cantwell on Porter Wagoner’s MY BONFIRE | Will Hermes on Johnny Cash’s RING OF FIRE | Mimi Lipson on Loretta Lynn’s I’M A HONKY TONK GIRL | Charles Hughes on Roger Miller’s YOU DON’T WANT MY LOVE | Eric Weisbard on Lefty Frizzell’s THE LONG BLACK VEIL | Steacy Easton on Jean Shepard’s A SATISFIED MIND | Josh Glenn on Johnny Cash’s THE REBEL — JOHNNY YUMA | Carlo Rotella on Buck Owens’ CLOSE UP THE HONKY TONKS | Annie Nocenti on Patsy Cline’s THREE CIGARETTES IN AN ASHTRAY | Douglas Wolk on Lucky Starr’s I’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE | Will Groff on Ray Price’s NIGHT LIFE | Jonny Auping on Willie Nelson’s CRAZY | Brian Berger on Ernest Tubb’s THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS | Jason Grote on Bill Browning and His Echo Valley Boys’ DARK HOLLOW | Peter Doyle on Willie Nelson’s FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY | Sam Glenn on Johnny Cash’s BIG RIVER | Mark Richardson on Elvis Presley’s BLUE MOON | Adam McGovern on Elvis Presley’s BLACK STAR / FLAMING STAR | Chris Spurgeon on Ricky Nelson’s BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY | Stephen Thomas Erlewine on George Jones’ WHITE LIGHTNING | Devin McKinney on George Hamilton IV’s ABILENE | Annie Zaleski on Patsy Cline’s WALKIN’ AFTER MIDNIGHT.
ALSO SEE: DOLLY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (25 of our favorite Country records from 1964–1973) | & more Country at HILOBROW, including short appreciations of Gene Pitney, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Buck Owens, George Jones, June Carter Cash, Charley Pride, and many others.
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