Singles Collection: Regal Zonophone and Beyond - Chad Morgan

"The Sheik of Scrubby Creek" is an Australian country music classic, a charming novelty that introduced Chad Morgan and his country comedy persona in 1952. The combination of Morgan's appearance (those buck teeth are real!), his hound dog yelps, and his improbable claims of romantic conquest add up to a truly unique piece of music. The Singles Collection: Regal Zonophone and Beyond is a three-disc set that begins with "The Sheik of Scrubby Creek" and follows Morgan's career up to 1984, encompassing 65 songs of Aussie humor. Morgan punctuates his songs with all manner of trills, clucks, and other vocal effects, not to mention some of the most diseased yodeling ever committed to tape. Most of his songs are humorous complaints about women ("Sheilas") and romantic boasts, but he also covers country music novelties from America like "Ode to the Little Brown Shack Out Back," "I'm My Own Grandpa," and "The Moon Is High and So Am I." His choice of covers is telling, since he's a little like an Australian cross between Grandpa Jones and Roger Miller. There are a few spots in which his humor turns mean or racist, but in view of his good-natured persona one wonders whether that was his intention. Morgan is the preeminent country music humorist in Australia, but his only claim to fame in the United States is that Eugene Chadbourne has recorded his song "In a Cemetery." ~ Greg Adams, All Music Guide