Editorial Reviews

Bear Family continues its exploration of vintage Canadian country music with On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine, an anthology of RCA Victor recordings by French-Canadian singer Betty Cody and her husband, Hal Lone Pine, from Maine. The two artists enjoyed regional success in Maine and Canada and performed for three years on the Wheeling Jamboree in West Virginia, but are mostly remembered today for having parented legendary jazz guitarist Lenny Breau. Cody also made a minor splash with a series of answer songs in the '50s, charting one national Top Ten hit with a follow-up to the Davis Sisters' "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know About Him." Unfortunately, On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine doesn't include any of Cody's popular answer records. The anthology offers a sampling of songs Cody and Lone Pine recorded together and individually between 1950-1954, some of which ("Prince Edward Island Is Heaven to Me," "[When It's Apple Blossom Time] In Annapolis Valley") were aimed at the Canadian audience. "I Heard the Bluebirds Sing," a song by fellow Canadian Hod Pharis, is heard here in a recording that predates the Browns' definitive hit version by several years. There was a great deal of variety among Canadian country artists of the '50s, so it cannot be said that the music of Cody and Lone Pine bears any particular similarity to that of Hank Snow, Wilf Carter, Stu Phillips, and others. Their sound is their own, with a unique blend of Lone Pine's rich northeastern voice and Cody's faint French-Canadian accent, and a repertoire composed, to a large degree, by the duo's guitarist, Ray Couture. The collection exhumes one previously unreleased duet, "Come Back to This Heart of Mine," that is a worthwhile discovery, but the omission of Cody's answer songs is lamentable. Some of Betty Cody's other RCA Victor recordings can be found on a public domain anthology from Germany's Cattle label, The Successful Hillbilly Era of Betty Cody. Greg Adams, All Music Guide

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