Rockin' Song of the Week No.79 - Jerry Irby

Jerry Irby – Clickety Clack
Daffan 108

I like Jerry Irby a lot. All I’ve got is the Collector CD and a few other songs on the odd compilation, but that’s probably all I’ll need. Although his history is steeped in the Western Swing field, having worked with most of the biggest swingers in the game and having cut that style throughout his career, it’s the more basic hillbilly numbers that get to me.

Jerry Irby had a couple of big hits on MGM in the late '40s, but he recorded for hundreds of labels, big and small. Come the rock ‘n’ roll age and Irby was happy to have a crack. Probably in October ’56 he was in the ACA Studio in Houston, Texas cutting the great mover, Clickety Clack. The backing is very much on the country side of rockabilly, but it’s a peach. It was released on his western swing buddies Ted Daffan’s self named label but made more noise in 1976 than 1956.

Recommended listening: Who doesn’t love Hillbilly Boogie? I’m also partial to a couple of country classics, My Gal From Tennessee and One Cup Of Coffee And A Cigerette (not to be confused with the Glen Glenn rocker). Then there’s the two versions of 49 Women, the rockabilly take and the earlier country version which is on the Collector CD. I got 49 women and I only need one more – can you imagine all the nagging – the guy must be more thick skinned than a rhino. I love the line, “49 women are better than 3 or 4, if you five you still got 44”. Looking at the photo on the cover, he looks too much of a gentlemen to look at women, never mind actually having ’em. He looks like guy in Oh Brother Where Art Thou – the one who is hooked up with George Clooney’s misses, the one the little girls say is “bona fide”, “he’s a suiter”.