If you may recall, when I posted the first album from this festival, I included a quote from funk star Rick James, who played in the festival, and said, "This is one of the weirdest, strangest, fuckin' combinations of groups ever!" The presence of someone like Skeeter Davis has to be part of what he was talking about.
Davis had many country hits. However, she's mainly known for the classic song "The End of the World." It reached Number Two on the U.S. singles chart in 1962. Billboard Magazine ranked it as the second best selling single of that year.
However, her star had faded a lot by the year of this concert. Her last country hit was in 1976. At the time of this concert, she was over 50 years old, making her the oldest star in the festival by a good margin. Her inclusion in the festival was so odd that even she commented on it in her banter between songs. But it seems her music had done surprisingly well in Jamaica, especially "The End of the World," of course.
I give kudos to the festival organizers for their musical diversity - having Davis directly follow Black Uhuru is quite a musical leap! But if you're not into country music you might want to skip this, since it's country all the way. But if you like country, Davis put on a strong performance, with lots of interesting banter between songs.
Here's her Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:
This album is 47 minutes long.
61 Silver Threads and Golden Needles (Skeeter Davis)
62 talk (Skeeter Davis)
63 Am I That Easy to Forget (Skeeter Davis)
64 talk (Skeeter Davis)
65 My Last Date (Skeeter Davis)
66 talk (Skeeter Davis)
67 Blue Kentucky Girl (Skeeter Davis)
68 talk (Skeeter Davis)
69 The Rockabye Boogie (Skeeter Davis)
70 talk (Skeeter Davis)
71 It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels (Skeeter Davis)
72 talk (Skeeter Davis)
73 I'll Fly Away (Skeeter Davis)
74 talk (Skeeter Davis)
75 One Tin Soldier (Skeeter Davis)
76 talk (Skeeter Davis)
77 Everybody Wants a Cowboy (Skeeter Davis)
78 talk (Skeeter Davis)
79 I Gotta Know (Skeeter Davis)
80 talk (Skeeter Davis)
81 Rocky Top (Skeeter Davis)
82 talk (Skeeter Davis)
83 The End of the World (Skeeter Davis)
84 talk (Skeeter Davis)
85 The Rose (Skeeter Davis)
86 talk (Skeeter Davis)
The cover photo comes from this exact concert. However, I cheated a bit, because it's actually a backstage shot of her talking to Rick James, of all people! I cropped it and blacked out everything so it would only show Davis. I also colorized it with the help of the Palette program, since the original was in black in white. I kind of felt obliged to resort to such tactics, because otherwise I couldn't find any photos of her whatsoever from around this time period.
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