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Isn't it funny how some people can be so good at what they do and achieve good to very good success and popularity for what and from what they do, but still remain to a degree fairly unknown.

Johnny Paycheck, without warrant, strangely appears to be one those people.

Paycheck, best known for his cover of David Allan Coe's, boss punchin' workers revolt war cry, 'Take This Job and Shove It' was a talented songwriter, a generous performer and genuine bad ass outlaw.

It's strange when you realise how overlooked Johnny Paycheck was when you consider that two of his closest peers were George Jones and Merle Haggard. It is also credit to Paycheck that he didn't appear to ever try to fly in on the coat tails of either Haggard or Jones in an attempt to grab some glory from these country music hyper stars.

As was Paychecks way, he did his own stuff his own way on his own terms.

Johnny Paycheck was a rough and rowdy bar room honky tonker who might just up and smack you over the head with a pool cue if you looked the wrong way, but he also could sing up a lump in your throat, tear in your beer wobbly chinned tune. Take for instance 'I Did the Right Thing', a song about a dude giving up his girl friend and going back to his wife and son just to save the family unit.

Or, 'The Ballad of Frisco Bay', a tune about a fella so devoted to his wife and family that he cops the heat in place of his wife for the death of some other bloke that was proving to be more trouble than he was worth, just to keep his wife out of prison and his baby with its' mother.

Or the classic emotional timbre of the track 'Wherever You Are'. A beautifully tragic tune about a bloke who is now living a tragically saddened life since the departure of his lover. But includes the glee the fella experiences when he discovers his ex lover is now just as sad as she has been desreted as well.

Or the self penned (and one of my favorite Paycheck tunes), dark and ghoulish 'Pardon Me (I've Got Someone to Kill).

I know you'll excuse me if i say goodnight
I've got a promise to fullfil
Thank you for listening to my troubles
Pardon me, I've got someone to kill

I warned him not to try and take her from me
He laughed and said you know if i can i will
So tonight when they get home I'll be waiting
Pardon me, I've got someone to kill

I know I'll surely die for what I'm about to do
But it don't matter I'm a dead man anyhow...

Great track. Scarey, dark and beautiful.

Classic 1960's Johnny Paycheck. The last 3 of those songs are on a 'must have' CD for any Paycheck fan. Johnny Paycheck. The Real Mr Heartache (The Little Darlin Years) is a compilation CD consisting of (mostly) tracks Johnny Paycheck released on the Little Darlin' label.

The CD also contains 5 tracks, one of which is the Hank Cochran tune, A-11, which Paycheck putout when he was recording with Hilltop.

The tracks on 'Johnny Paycheck. The Real Mr Heartache (The Little Darlin Years)' showcase some inventive creative styles. The tracks consist of a mixture of classic honky tonk intertwined with some dark emotion and some backyard hillbilly attitude. So you end up with tracks that could be called 'underground classic country music'.

As I mentioned aove, if you're a Paycheck fan or just want to get some of the best stuff this Country Music legend ever released, you really must get this CD.

So how popular was Johnny Paycheck?

Well the guy released at least 70 albums over 5 decades. Paychecks most succesful album was 'Take this Job and Shove It' released in 1978. The album reached number 2 in the Billboard Country album charts and number 72 on the Billboard Pop charts.

It is unclear how many singles Johnny Paycheck released, but of course his most popular single was 'Take this Job and Shove It'.

'Shove It' reached number 1 on the Billbpard Country singles chart and made a showing on the Pop charts as well. Due to the incredible popularity of 'Shove It', Johnny Paycheck became known as the 'Shove It' guy.

What is some of Johnny Paychecks best music?

Well here's a brief list of some of my more favorite Johnny Paycheck tunes. Lots of the songs Paycheck did appear on more that one of his albums. I have listed the albums that I believe would be good additions to your collection.

So What's Johnny Paycheck Doing Now?

Sadly Johnny Payceck passed away February 18 2003 after suffering from asthma and emphysema for three years.

Possibly the last music Johnny Paycheck may have recorded is a contribution on the Daryle Singletary CD, That's Why I Sing This Way. Johnny helps out on the track 12, one of Johnny's own tunes, 'Old Violin'.

The following is a contribution from part time Country Music Outlaws contributor, David Dawson on the life and times of Johnny Paycheck.

JOHNNY CASHES IN HIS PAYCHECK
When Johnny Paycheck had a 1977 smash hit with David Allan Coe song, 'Take This Job And Shove It,' he landed a role as a waiter in the movie it spawned.

But the cameo, like the sandwiches JohnnyPaycheck was delivering to the bar, ended up on the cutting room floor of the 1981 movie.

It was art imitating life for Johnny Paycheck who crashed hillbilly heaven in his endless sleep at 64 on February 18.

He suffered asthma and emphysema for three years in a Nashville hospital where he cut a death bed recitation of his 1965 hit, 'Old Violin,' for Georgian singer Daryle Singletary's 2002 album 'That's Why I Sing This Way.'

Johnny Paycheck, one of the last honky tonk heroes, perished a year and five days after fellow outlaw Waylon Jennings met his maker at 64.

He released 70 albums in a stormy career spanning five decades but each time fame and fortune loomed he fell off the cocaine train or wagon.

Ironically, fellow reformed hell raiser-duet partner George Jones paid for the penniless Johnny Paycheck's grave for a funeral attended by Hells Angels and country stars.

Back in 1962 Jones hired Paycheck, buried with his trademark black hat on his chest, as bassist-singer Donny Young for four years for his 'Jones Boys' after stints with Faron Young, Porter Wagoner and Ray Price.

The duo later released a duet disc 'Double Trouble.'

Johnny Paycheck was born Donald Eugene Lytle in Ohio - the same state as Coe who shared his penchant for jail stints and battles with the Music Row moguls.

Both artists were famed for pro-active research of torrid tales they wrote and sang about.

An era when Waylon, Willie, Billy Shaver, Jerry Jeff Walker, Tompall Glaser, Hank Williams Jr, Lee Clayton, Steve Young and Ray Wylie Hubbard rode shotgun on the lost highway.

Also a time when this columnist from the radio land that time forgot indulged in a labour of love to interview some of these soulful spirits.

Most I managed to cut from the herd for insight into their roles in a growth genre when country wasn't cool.

I organised to interview Johnny Paycheck in Austin, Texas, in the summer of 1983 but missed - because of an unscripted stage fall.

The singer forgot the lyrics to 'The Outlaw's Prayer' and took a dive from stage at the 'Double Eagle' on the south side of the Lone Star state capital.

It was a sneak preview of sorts to an interview with Waylon at the 'Crazy Horse' at Santa Ana in southern California in 1988.

Jennings collapsed between shows and later had heart by-pass surgery in a Nashville Baptist Hospital the week after Johnny Cash.

I eventually interviewed Waylon on one of his Australian tours but Johnny Paycheck was not taking calls on the morning after.

Johnny Paycheck, survived by Sharon - his wife of 30 years - was a writer's dream.

The teenage runaway from Greenfield ploughed neon pastures in honky tonks before a navy stint in 1956 when he was court martialed for bashing a superior officer on an air craft carrier.

Johnny Paycheck escaped twice during an 18 year sentence before dishonourable discharge in 1958 and a name change to Donny Young.

Johnny PayCheck cut six singles for two labels before Pickwick Records executive Aubrey Mayhew started Little Darling Records with him in 1962.

He debuted @ No 26 with Grammy nominated Hank Cochran tune 'A-11' and hit Top 10 with Larry Kingston's 'The Lovin' Machine' in 1966 - the same year Tammy Wynette and Ray Price charted with his songs 'Apartment #9' and 'Touch My Heart.'

Johnny Paycheck won infamy for '(Pardon Me) I've Got Someone to Kill,' 'It's a Mighty Thin Line Between Love and Hate,' 'It Won't Be Long (And I'll Be Hating You)' and 'If I'm Gonna Sink (I Might As Well Go to the Bottom)."

The singer took his stage name from a boxer and released '11 Months and 29 Days' in 1976, with cover art featuring a picture of him in a jail cell.

Billy Sherrill, producer for George & Tammy, Coe and others, helped him chart with 'She's All I Got' and hits - 'I'm The Only Hell (My Mama Ever Raised),' 'D.O.A (Drunk On Arrival), 'Stay Away From The Cocaine Train' and 'Take This Job & Shove It.'

But life imitated art in 1985 when Johnny Paycheck shot a man in the head in an Ohio bar and did two of a nine year sentence and fought sexual assault, slander and IRS legal action.

Johnny Paycheck cut a pair of pre-jail albums and others after his sentence was commuted - 1993 'Live in Branson' and not so prophetic 1996 disc 'I'm a Survivor.'

But his best memories are The Real Mr. Heartache: The Little Darlin' Years in 1996 and 'The Soul and the Edge' - 23 of his seventies tunes for Epic/Legacy (2002.)

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