Until a couple years ago Fran Pelzman Liscio only knew Johnny Paycheck from his 1977 hit “Take This Job and Shove It.” But in 2002 the New Jersey-based writer and former CBGB scenester (she recently finished a script, with director Mary Harron, for a film adaptation of the punk-rock oral history Please Kill Me) was properly introduced to Paycheck at the Web site of Chicago singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks. Liscio was a regular on the site’s message board, and another visitor, Seattle country DJ Liz Shepherd, turned her on to Paycheck’s back catalog–arguably one of the finest and most overlooked in country music.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Born Donald Eugene Lytle in Greenfield, Ohio, in 1938, Paycheck left home at 15, and his stint in the navy in the 50s ended in the brig after he fractured the skull of his commanding officer. He was resentful of authority and prone to violence for much of his life, but he was also a musical innovator and first-class performer. For most people, though, his reputation still overshadows his virtues. Paycheck’s alcohol and cocaine habits derailed his million-selling career in the early 80s, and in 1989, when he landed in prison for shooting a man in the head in an Ohio bar, he owed a small fortune to the IRS. He was released after two years, straightened out his life, and in the mid-90s returned to performing.
She also began courting Fulks, hoping to persuade him to line up artists and produce the music. Fulks liked the idea, but didn’t think he was the right man. “I had utterly no qualifications to do it,” he says. “I didn’t really have a production resume, and I didn’t know any of Paycheck’s friends or any big-name country stars.” But Liscio’s persistence won him over. In early 2003, after months of phone calls and e-mails, Fulks secured the participation of Paycheck’s friend and onetime bandmate George Jones and Bakersfield honky-tonk kingpin Buck Owens. “Once you’ve got those two guys on board, you’re able to call other people a lot easier,” he says. “It sorta snowballed from there.”
Fulks stuck to his schedule, and in May and June of last year he and the band spent two weekends recording at Nashville’s Groundstar Laboratories. In addition to legends Jones and Owens, the final cast of contributors includes Bobby Bare Sr., young alt-country types like Jeff Tweedy and Neko Case, and Nashville neotraditionalists like Jim Lauderdale and Radney Foster; there are even a few artists from outside country, like Mavis Staples and Marshall Crenshaw. The track list spans almost all of Paycheck’s long career, from 1959 (“Shakin’ the Blues,” written by Jones) to 1986 (“Old Violin”).
