I am at a loss. So often, when I find songs in my library that I have loved for a long time but know nothing about, I know that a quick introduction to the musician is only a Wikipedia search away. But today, when looking for information on two artists that I wanted to learn about, I found that neither has a Wikipedia page. My world has been turned upside down.
What I have been able to scrape together about one of them, Johnnie Allan, is that he was a Swamp Pop artist, a genre I didn’t even know existed. I am not terribly shook up about being uninformed about Swamp Pop. But I do love this song. Tell me this isn’t made for cruising down a highway in a convertible…
“The Promised Land” by Johnnie Allan
A bigger challenge was Bill Landford, of Bill Landford and the Landfordaires (you, too, can turn your name into a rock group). All of my online reference haunts come up empty on this guy. Nobody’s posted anything to del.icio.us about him, there are no flickr images tagged with his name, there’s no Wikipedia page, nothing on YouTube, and even Google comes up with nothing but loose ends. No Google images of him. The man behind this smooth voice is a ghost to my digital universe eyes. If you have any info, let me know.
You’ll recognize this song, though. It’s amazing. JC tried covering it in American V, but– and this is probably the only time you’ll hear me say this about Johnny– I don’t think he did the older version justice.
“Run For A Long Time” by Bill Landford
I do believe that’s an accordion in the first one.
The second one kicks. ass.
That there is a Cajun influence, uh-huh.
I great resource for music knowledge is http://www.allmusic.com. But that’ll only do you good for future reference, as the good folks at All Music merely offer this:
Bill Landford, see also:
“Bill Landford & The Landfordaires”
Bill Landford & The Landfordaires, see also:
Bill Landford
Gee… thanks guys. Way to go.
I’m also stumped on bill landford!!!!!
what’s the deal!!
That has to be one of the best songs ever writtten…and the only thing people talk about are the ladykillers, the blind boys of alabama, and of course, moby!!!!
not feelin the internet tonight!!!!! if you do find anything else out about this dude…(did he even write and other songs????) please post it and if you extra nice, give a holler….all the best. nice to know i’m not the only one.
Thanks for stopping by, Andy. I dig your music, by the way… just listened a bit on MySpace.
No more info yet on Bill Landford, but we’ve mentioned him enough to get this conversation about Bill Landford listed on the first page of results when you search Google for “bill landford”. So, hopefully (Bill Landford) it will stay there and (Bill Landford) somebody with more info than us about Bill Landford can chip in about Bill Landford. Bill Landford.
Sorry to say that the reason why information regarding Bill Landford is so scarce is because, simply, there is very little known about him. Bill and the Landfordaires recorded 6 sides for Columbia on December 15, 1949. They were paid $300. After that, as far as I can tell, they simply vanished into the mists of history.
Wow. That’s crazy. And too bad. Thanks for the info, John.
I’ve heard the same as John…
So the story goes, on December 15 1949 Bill Landford and his band walked into a recording studio, cut a few tracks (Run On For A Long Time, Touch Me Jesus, You Ain’t Got Faith (Till You Got Religion), Lord I’ve Tried, Troubled Lord I’m Troubled) and walked out again. Nothing was heard from him again.
As romantic as that sounds another, potentially more realistic variation is that Bill Landford was ‘William Langford’ a member of the Golden Gate Quartet. This group was founded as the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet in Virginia 1934, singing arrangements associated with barbershop quartets and rhythms borrowed from the blues and jazz. William Langford joined the group in 1935. He often sang lead, using his ability to range from baritone to falsetto. He left the group in 1938 and was a member of ‘The Southern Sons’. He went on to form ‘The Bill Landford Spiritual Singers (also known as the Landfordaires) and recorded the six tracks mentioned in New York in 1949.
William Langford died in 1970.
I don’t know which is the accurate version (perhaps a combination of both?).
As for variations of the song, the Golden Gate Quartet did a version, as did Landford (obviously) and ‘Odetta’ did a version on her 1956 Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, and Elvis recorded it as “Run On” for his 1967 How Great Thou Art and more recently The Blind Boys of Alabama offered “Run On For A Long Time” on its 2001 album Spirit of the Century. Of course there is also the Johnny Cash version!
The song is fantastic – so much better on it’s own then with Moby’s techno doodlings over the top – but well done Moby for bringing it to my ears!
If you’re looking for these 6 songs of Bill Langford and can’t find them, they’re collected on a 1998 compilation album called “There Will Be No Sweeter Sound: Columbia-Okeh Post-War Gospel Story ‘47-’62″.
Now, I’m not a particular fan of gospel, but if you like “Run On For A Long Time”, this is absolutely worth checking out. Some copies still available from Amazon, I believe…
Very cool. Thanks for the info, Tim.
A friend just gave me Run On For a Long Time. I’m amazed. It is hard for me, a folk and jazz fiddler for almost fifty years, to realize that I’ve gone all this time without any knowledge of this great gospel group. I’m one of the meanest, most critical music critics alive, hating rock and roll and much of country and jazz music. Hearing this song the first time, I was so intrigued I sat in my car and listened to it over and over again. What a classic. It is still unbelievable to me that something this good was not played more widely these past sixty yearts. I hope that situation has now changed for good.