Stonewall Jackson

Stonewall Jackson rarely gets his due as one of the hardest honky tonk stars of the 1960s; there were plenty of acts who kicked up more dust, but few were willing to plumb the depths of loneliness, heartbreak, hard living, and alcohol the way Jackson did when he was of a mind, and his dry, flinty voice was the perfect vehicle for the downbeat songs he brought to life, sounding as if he'd lived every sad, bitter tale he sang and remembered them like they happened only yesterday. Omni Recording Corporation's 2011 release The Lonesome in Me is a sibling to their earlier Jackson collection Life of a Poor Boy like that disc, this collects the material from one of Jackson's Columbia albums (in this case, 1970's The Lonesome in Me) and augments it with an abundance of bonus material, adding enough single sides and album tracks to expand the album from 11 to 28 songs.

Stonewall Jackson was one of the most popular country stars of the early '60s, scoring a string of Top Ten country hits and becoming a fixture at the Grand Ole Opry with a pleading voice that seemed to reflect his hard, often abusive upbringing on a south Georgia dirt farm. He was named after the Confederate general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, to whom he was related according to family legend. When he was ten he traded his bike for a guitar and began making up songs. Some of his later hits, such as "Don't Be Angry," were written very early in his creative life. Jackson began singing professionally in the mid-'50s, moving to Nashville in 1956.