Lost John Casner – Don’t Make Me Laugh (While I’m Drinkin’)
The last recording Lost John Casner released under his own name was the cassette he put out with his Austin Roadhouse Band in 1987. Casner later became a founding member of the Little Whiskey Band, but he has become known just as much for recording and making available a live performance by the late and legendary Blaze Foley.
Casner’s new CD is in the same honky-tonk vein as his previous work, but this time he and his band have support from such stellar musicians as Johnny Gimble, who plays fiddle and mandolin on several tracks, and Boomer Norman, who plays lead guitar on all of them.
The album opens with the title track, a cover of a Deadly Earnest & the Honky Tonk Heroes song from the 1970s, and closes with John Prine’s “Yes I Guess (They Ought To Name A Drink After You)”. Among the ten tracks in between are songs by Leon Payne, George Jones and Mel Tillis.
Casner’s four originals include two songs that appeared on his 1987 cassette: “The New Texas Blues”, his take on a Bob Wills song, and “Jubal’s Song”, a tribute to his old songwriter friend Jubal Clark. Casner also keeps Foley’s memory alive with a cover of his “Faded Loved And Memories”, and with “Remote Amigo”, a song Casner wrote after Foley died.