Lonely Sentry
1966 · Starday 747 · Madison, Tennessee
- Artist
- Rusty Diamond
- Title
- Lonely Sentry
- Release
- The Lonely Sentry / I Guess I'd Better Get Up and Go Home
- Year
- 1966
- Label
- Starday # 747
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- Madison, Tennessee, USA
- Songwriter
- Fenner, Blanchard
- Genre
- Country · Country
- Primary theme
- Home Front Perspective / Soldier's Perspective
Annotation
Lonely Sentry, The (Diamond, Rusty & Maryanna Mail) Featuring vocalist Maryanne Mail (Misty Morgan), from the country duo Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan. Recorded in Florida, US. Released on Nashville, Tennessee record label. Song also featured on the 1966 various artist compilation Country Music Goes to War which included several Vietnam songs. Composed by Jack Blanchard, who wrote: "In 1965 I wrote a war song, inspired by our entrance in to the Viet Nam conflict. It wasn't intended to be for or against this particular war, but was an attempt to make war in general more personal...not just death counts in the news. We recorded it at Criteria Studios in Miami, with Rusty Diamond singing lead, and Misty Morgan singing harmony under the name Maryanne Mail. The result was a sound and feeling unlike anything we'd ever heard. The lead instrument in this record is an electric pedal banjo, the invention of the great banjo player Henry Cook, who looked like a younger Henry Fonda. Henry had cables going down from his banjo to a row of pedals on the floor, so he could get the slide and sustain of a steel guitar and keep the funkiness of the banjo. Paul McLaughlin (sax and Harmonica) was a…
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
Unknown - a c. February 1966 Nashville session produced by Jack Blanchard yielded "I Guess I'd Better Get Up And Go Home" b/w "The Lonely Sentry", issued as by Rusty Diamond (Starday 747, also Zodiac 3508), the flip credited "Rusty Diamond with Maryanne Mail". The Blanchard production and the "Maryanne Mail" pairing closely parallel the later duo Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan (both born Buffalo, New York; met in Florida 1963, married 1967) - but no source states "Rusty Diamond" is a Blanchard pseudonym, so this is a strong candidate lead, not an identification. [Source: Discogs; Praguefrank's…