Tommy Scott & Scotty Lee – "The Exorcism" (1975)

Without a doubt, one of the weirdest country records ever released is Tommy Scott and Scotty Lee's "The Exorcism" from 1975. 

This retelling of the 1973 film The Exorcist includes not only a Latin incantation from a Catholic exorcism ritual but also a bizarre recitation that seems to have wandered in from a totally unrelated fundamentalist Christian country-gospel record.

Even though the song on the whole is pretty ridiculous, the piercing steel guitar, demonic laughter, and creepy woman's voice create a spooky effect at times.

"The Exorcism" provides a pretty accurate plot summary of the film The Exorcist but gets a couple details wrong: The words that appear on the stomach of the possessed child (Regan, played by Linda Blair) are "help me," not "exorcise me," and the letters are merely raised in the skin, not bleeding or red.

The inclusion of the Latin wording from the exorcism ritual suggests that the composers did some research, because those Latin phrases do not appear in the film. (Merriam-Webster has an article about the Latin and French words that do appear in the film.) 

If you're unfamiliar with the primary artist, Tommy Scott, then he might be the most prolific country artist you've never heard of. Also known as Ramblin' Tommy Scott of "America's last real old-time medicine show," he was born in 1917 and had a recording career that spanned the 1930s to the late 1980s. He played with Bill Monroe's brother Charlie, appeared on the Grand Ole Opry, recorded some rockabilly sides that are sometimes included on anthologies, and wrote an autobiography. Katona Records, the label that released "The Exorcism," was Scott's label on which he had been releasing his own records since the 1950s.

Tommy Scott's collaborator on "The Exorcism," Scotty Lee, recorded an album with Scott circa 1975 called Great Scotts Good Country. Lee also appeared on Scott's 1980 album Girls We Met at the Medicine Show.

Lee's real name was Scotty Blevins, and he was the son of Gaines "Old Bleb" Blevins, a country humorist who also played in Scott's band and was a fellow veteran of the medicine show circuit.


Lee and Scott wrote "The Exorcism" together and copyrighted it in 1974 under the title "Ballad of Exorcism."

I could find no contemporary reviews or mentions of "The Exorcism" in trade magazines, and it doesn't seem to have charted anywhere, so I'm guessing that it was simply too weird to gain any traction.

"The Exorcism" vs. The Exorcist

A blow-by-blow comparison of the lyrics of "The Exorcism" and the plot of the film The Exorcist.

“The Exorcism” lyrics	The Exorcist plot
Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde In nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis	This Latin excerpt from a Catholic exorcism ritual does not appear in The Exorcist.
The girl was playing with a ouija board And got herself in a little too deep An evil power who was the Devil himself Took possession one night in her sleep	The girl, Regan (played by Linda Blair), plays with a Ouija board and gradually exhibits increasingly evident signs of possession over a period of days or weeks. The entity that possesses her identifies itself as the Devil, not a demon.
Nobody knew what was wrong with her The specialist thought it was nerves But when she became fully possessed She had no reserves	The doctors diagnose Regan as having a nervous condition, possibly caused by a lesion or a temporal lobe disorder. After an army of doctors are unable to help her, one suggests an exorcism.
Her skin had changed to a ghostly white And her eyes had an evil green glow Her strength was that of an immortal power And her voice was harsh and low	Regan’s appearance becomes cadaveric, her eyes turn green, she gains super strength, and she talks in a raspy demonic voice.
But inside of this devil was the soul of a child And on her stomach was written a plea In blood-red letters from the inside out Were the bleeding words "Exorcise me"	As previously mentioned, the letters on her stomach are merely raised skin and not bleeding or red, and they spell out “Help me,” not “Exorcise me.”
Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde In nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis
Lord God almighty help the exorcist To exercise an exorcism	This line is not taken from the film.
Could the death of Luther King and JFK Be a part of a Devil's show? Could it be that God's on vacation And the whole world is on death row?  Could it be that mighty Lucifer Who was cast from an angel band Be a-takin' over God's kingdom And a-makin' it a Devil's land? Could God be a-workin' on another world And is that where all the dinosaurs have gone?  Suppose the Pope or Billy Graham Were seduced to Satan's throne? Would you puke at the smell of burning human flesh As blood is sucked from man? Could you endure the fury of Hell With Satan in command? [Evil laughter]	None of this has anything to do with The Exorcist.
Lord God almighty help the exorcist To exercise an exorcism
Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde In nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis
It's over now and the house showed the signs Of this power that can't be explained The ceiling and the walls were gone [?] From the spirit that could not be contained	In a climactic moment during the exorcism, large cracks appear in the ceiling and door of the house.
[Woman's voice] Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take	This common children's bedtime prayer overlaps the previous lines and is not heard in the film.
They exorcised a spirit from her But the Devil got the soul of the priest And rather than be a child of Satan He is deceased, deceased, deceased	The priest exorcises the spirit from Regan by inviting it into his own body and then jumps out of a window to his death, either intentionally (as the song suggests) or because the Devil compelled him to.
The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want He maketh me to lie down in green pastures Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death	This excerpt from Psalm 23 is not in the film.
…deceased	Although the song ends with the death of the priest, the film goes on to show Regan and her mother moving out of their house, with Regan having fully recovered from the possession.

Here's the audio of "The Exorcism":

And here's some vintage video footage of Scott and Lee: 

Sex, drugs, and Satan: Don J. Black's 1980s Mormon talk tapes

The "Satanic panic" of the 1980s produced a number of Christian spoken-word recordings, usually distributed on cassette tape, that warned about the dangers of Satanic rock music and Satanic infiltration in our daily lives, but Christian evangelicals weren't the only ones who produced these kinds of cassettes. Mormon educator, inspirational speaker, and psychotherapist Don J. Black released similar youth-oriented tapes in the mid '80s to alert Mormon kids to the dangers of Satan, drugs, alcohol, and sex.

Don J. Black

Black's tapes were released by Covenant Recordings, an imprint that offered cassettes, LPs, and CDs to the Mormon audience from the 1970s-2000s. The label was acquired by the Mormon bookstore chain Seagull Book in the 1980s and appears to have ceased operations when a competing chain, Deseret Books, acquired Seagull.

If you're not a Mormon, you might not be aware that an entirely separate Mormon entertainment industry exists. To non-Mormons, the bookstores of Salt Lake City, Utah, can seem like a parallel universe of completely unfamiliar English-language books, music, and movies.

That said, these Don J. Black recordings are atypical fare even within that sphere and seem pretty edgy in comparison to the feel-good family orientation of most Mormon media. Most of Covenant's releases were inspirational and/or historical and did not aggressively do "battle with Satan" headfirst the way that Black did on these cassettes. It would be easy to mistake these for evangelical Christian titles if you ran across them in a thrift shop.

Hand to Hand Combat with Satan (1984)

This cassette focuses on drug use, appearing a couple of years after the "Just Say No" campaign was introduced as part of the Reagan-era war on drugs. Despite the metaphor of hand-to-hand combat in the title, the cover art depicts battle with melee weapons. For some reason, Satan wields a trident like Neptune instead of a pitchfork.

The text below, which appears on the back of the cassette, erroneously claims that the word sorcery originally meant "one who uses drugs."

Don starts with Satan's beginnings and explains that Satan works on the weaknesses he discovers in each of us.

Don shows how badly Satan and his angels want physical bodies, how far they will go to get them, and how anxious Satan is to stop the growth of the gospel.

Satan uses alcohol, mind-expanding drugs, and sorcery to get to the kids today. The original meaning of the word "sorcery" is "one who uses drugs." Don shows how "drugs control the mind; the mind controls the body; the body houses the spirit; and thus Satan has just captured one child of God intact." He warns: "It isn't bad kids who are falling. It is the good kids ... who then become bad."

Don relates the experience of speaking at a fireside for youth who were in the drug culture; his own battle as a young man with Satan after the loss of a girl he wanted to marry; and how he won his battle through personal revelation. 

The Battle with Satan to Stay Morally Clean (1986)

Black tackles teen sex and moral cleanliness in this 1986 recording. (The Music Weird previously looked at the secular books of moral instruction that were written by pop music stars in the 1950s.) 

Satan is represented on the cover by a red arm that is doing battle via the sport of arm wrestling. Note: If you're concerned about cleanliness, you probably shouldn't hold hands with the Devil.

The text on the back says:

An inspiring speaker, Don Black directs his message to the youth of today. This is an excellent lecture in which he sensitively discusses the issue of chastity.

He states that the husband and wife have the only legal use of intimate relations. God has never changed that—never will. The love-making expression has never been approved as a form of recreation out of wedlock.

Brother Black tastefully defines and explains kissing, necking, light petting and heavy petting. He provides cautions and guidelines that can be followed by those that wish to avoid the pitfalls of early intimacy, but does not leave those who have fallen without hope.

This outstanding lecture can be shared with mixed groups of youth without any embarrassment. It can be an excellent teaching tool for both parents and youth leaders.

These cassettes were atypical even for Black. He authored numerous other cassettes, books, and audiobooks in the 1970s-1990s with titles like A Pocketful of Miracles: A Collection of Heart-Warming True Stories and Seven Keys to Happiness. Brigham Young University has a short biography of Black on its Mormon Literature & Creative Arts website.

Robbie Dee Smith Jr.: Whale rider, country songwriter

Robbie Smith riding Newtka the Killer Whale
through a ring of fire

It's safe to assume that very few whale riders became country music songwriters. One who did was Robbie Dee Smith Jr. 

Smith's yearbook photo

In the early 1970s, Smith rode Newtka the Killer Whale and was part of a high-diving act at Seven Seas Amusement Park in Arlington, Texas, as seen in the photo above. He was also a singer and songwriter who wrote a tune called "Freedom Lives in a Country Song" that attracted quite a bit of attention in the mid '70s, although it ultimately did not become a hit.

His story shows how tantalizingly close to success an artist can get in the music business without quite making it.

Seven Seas Amusement Park

Smith was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, but grew up in Waco, Texas. He was highly athletic from an early age, winning state championships in swimming and diving and playing high school football. He was also musical from an early age and credited his vocal ability to singing along with Chipmunks records as a kid. He started playing in bands at the age of 12 and sang at his high school's homecoming assembly.

His diving skills led to a job at Seven Seas, where he worked until 1975. He was working there when he wrote "Freedom Lives in a Country Song."

Somehow, Smith got this song published and heard by a number of Nashville elites. Maybe his exotic persona as a killer-whale-riding high diver helped him gain an audience with the down-home Music Row crowd in Nashville.

However it happened, Country Music Hall of Famer Grandpa Jones recorded Smith's song in 1974, and at least three other artists recorded it in the years that immediately followed.

Grandpa Jones cut the song for Warner Bros. Records after leaving Monument Records, where he had been a fixture for over a decade. Produced by Chips Moman at Moman's famous American Studio, where Elvis Presley had revitalized his career by recording "Suspicious Minds" a few years earlier, "Freedom Lives in a Country Song" was Grandpa Jones' only release for Warner Bros. When the single flopped, the label dropped Jones, effectively ending his recording career. (Despite Jones' television success on Hee Haw, he hadn't had a chart hit since the early '60s.)


Smith's song wasn't finished, though. Gary S. Paxton of "Alley Oop" fame recorded it for RCA in 1975 with Chet Atkins producing. "Freedom Lives in a Country Song" was the B-side, but Paxton must have liked the song, because in 1976 he produced a recording of it with R.W. Blackwood & the Blackwood Singers for Capitol Records.


In addition to being released as a single A side, Blackwood's version of "Freedom Lives in a Country Song" was also included on his 1976 album We Can Feel Love, which contained the minor country hit "Memory Go Round" and the Top 40 country hit "Sunday Afternoon Boatride in the Park on the Lake," a Cowsills sound-alike that is probably best described as bubblegum country. The inclusion of "Freedom Lives in a Country Song" on this album was probably the peak of the song's commercial success.

The only other recording of "Freedom Lives in a Country Song" that I know of is the most obscure one and, ironically, the one with the most audio floating around online. It's by Lloyd Watts, who included the song on his album Leaving Caroline, recorded for the independent Adonda label in the mid-to-late 1970s. The album's title track was also released as a single. This entire album is available digitally from Amazon and iTunes.

If the Lloyd Watts who recorded for Adonda is the same Lloyd Milton Watts who cut the single "You'll Never Lose Someone" b/w "Feeling So Blue" for the Lubbock, Texas, label Uptown Downtown Country, then he was a Plainview, Texas, artist who started out as a rock 'n' roller before moving into country music. This article gives some background on Watts and the Plainview music scene of the '60s and '70s.

Unfortunately for Smith, Watts' album gave songwriting credit for "Freedom Lives in a Country Song" to Gary Paxton, which suggests that Watts learned the song from Paxton's record rather than from Grandpa Jones' or R.W. Blackwood's.

After three singles releases and two album appearances, the song had run its course.

"Freedom Lives in a Country Song" was Smith's most successful song, but it wasn't his only song. As Waco Smith, he copyrighted a song called "Country Soul" in 1973. In the following years he copyrighted several others: "Cowboy Love," "Glory's on Her Way," "Sunday Drivin' Chevy," and the intriguingly titled "UFOs Don't Rock." In collaboration with Hall of Fame lyricist John Bettis and country star RC Bannon (a frequent duet partner of Louise Mandrell), he wrote "Love Love Love," which Bannon does not appear to have recorded. 

Somehow in all this, Smith doesn't seem to have ever released a commercial recording of his own, but friends say that he recorded an unreleased album as well as a presumably self-released CD, the latter under his old nom de plume Waco Smith. He also composed a number of gospel songs that were never published.

With Nashville behind him, Smith became a diver in the Navy from 1981-1984. He returned to Waco and, in 1996, was struck and killed by a car while walking to the 7-Eleven. His high school class has a loving tribute page to him here that has many more photos and other details about Smith's life.

The 1950s record hop for crippled kids

Billboard called it "one of the most moving and unusual record hops in the field today—an annual 'dance' for a crippled children's hospital." 

Did you notice the ironic quotation marks around the word "dance"?

The contemporaneous coverage of this annual dance shows how far we've come in talking sensitively about people with disabilities, because some of the reporting about this event seems pretty cringeworthy today, even though the event itself was laudable.

Norman Wain

The disk jockey behind the dance was Norman Wain of WDOK in Cleveland. He was mentioned last week on Music Weird in this post about the time in 1958 that he joined with fellow Cleveland jock Phil McLean of WERE to create a novel stereo program by using the two stations' AM and FM transmitters simultaneously.

Wain's record hop for kids with disabilities must have started in 1953, because Billboard reported in 1956 that it had been an annual event for three years.

The record hop was staged at Camp Cheerful, a summer camp of the Society for Crippled Children in Strongsville, Ohio. The society was founded in 1907 and kept the antiquated name Society for Crippled Children until 1988, when it became known as the Achievement Center for Children.

Wain said in 1956, "I was aghast at the thought of a dance for crippled kids at first, but after my first dance I realized that the deepest desire of these poor kids is to be as close as possible to other normal youngsters in everything they do."

Wain described the dance thusly:

I conduct the dance just like any other hop. I put on a good rock and roller [record], and they wheel each other out on the floor and make believe they're dancing by pushing their wheel chairs around, while those who can walk at all make an attempt at dancing with one another or with a buddy in a chair.

Wain hosted a number of uncommon musical events during his time with WDOK, including a studio party for the editors of local high school newspapers, but he might have found this annual record hop the most rewarding of them all. He said, "These kids have so much enthusiasm and heart that it makes you ashamed that you ever complain about anything."

Wain might even have encouraged some of these kids to pursue music careers themselves. A number of musical figures throughout the years came from the ranks of "crippled children." Richard Berry, the composer of "Louie Louie," attended a summer camp for crippled children after a hip injury forced him to walk with crutches. Singer and songwriter Melvin Endsley spent two years in the Memphis Crippled Children's Hospital after contracting polio. Country and bluegrass artist Mac Wiseman also had polio as a child and was able to study music theory, piano, and radio broadcasting thanks to a scholarship from the National Foundation for Polio. And those are just a few that immediately sprang to my mind.