Where Was FourWallsdo?: Abilene

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Time to get away from Colorado in song and move onwards toward home. Seriously, I’m going back there for some more exploration. Meanwhile, today’s song looks at a place that I’m 0-for-2 in. Good thing it’s on the was back to Colorado, because eventually I’ll get to see what I want to see! Abilene - George Hamilton IV Linda? I don’t know about this one. It was a “hootenanny”/“folk” song in the 60s, but it was also a #1 country hit. Proceed with caution. Bob Gibson — the songwriter and folk singer, not the St. Louis Cardinals pitcher — wrote the song after seeing a Randolph Scott (standing in respect with hat over the heart like they did in Blazing Saddles ) film called Abilene Town, about the Kansas town that was the northern terminus of the Chisholm Trail. (Don’t you just love that word, “terminus”? As if you didn’t already know I’m weird. ) John D. Loudermilk arranged it for George Hamilton IV (and I say this every time I bring one of his songs up: he was NO relation to the over-tanned actor George Hamilton!). As Hamilton and Loudermilk had a good thing going (Loudermilk wrote Hamilton’s first hit, “A Rose and a Baby Ruth,” as well as a later hit, “Break My Mind”), it was released as a single. In those days, right before the Beatles, music was in a weird place. There were a lot of people mislabeled as “folk,” probably because of the “folk revival” that was going on. That included country acts like Johnny Cash and rock acts like the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Mamas and the Papas (see their song “Creeque Alley” about those days). So, this song was considered a “folk hit.” As for why I’m 0-for-2 with trips to Abilene, the first time I was there was in 2020, coming home from Oklahoma City. While the Oklahoma City Memorial and Museum was open in the aftermath of covid, the Dwight Eisenhower Museum and Presidential Library in Abilene was closed. This time around, I was just passing through on the way home to go to a funeral. Hope my travels will carry me back to Abilene soon! Abilene Written by Bob Gibson, Lester Brown, and John D. Loudermilk Recorded by George Hamilton IV From Abilene, 1963 Women there don’t treat you mean: