Honky Tonk Moon

Yesterday's lunar eclipse triggered the title "Honky Tonk Moon" back into my memories.

And was I glad to find a live recording of this song, as far as I know, there was never a video released with it.
It was Randy Travis' seventh number #1 Hit in the "Billboard Hot Country Songs" chart and was on top of the charts on October 8, 1988. The song itself, written by Dennis O'Rourke (more about the writer after the video), was the opener from Randy's 3rd WB album "Old 8x10."

 

I actually saw and interviewed Travis two years earlier in Nuernberg, Germany, in December of 1986 while he was on a USO tour of American bases in Europe. There was finally a voice that brought the traditional country sound back.

As to the writer, Dennis O'Rourke; after sailing on freighters and tankers in the Far East as a Merchant Marine, living and performing in Ireland and getting a dual-citizenship, he moved back to the USA and started to perform full-time and recorded a first album. A DJ advised him to move to Nashville and after several years of pitching songs, Randy Travis decided to record "Honky Tonk Moon." Music copyright company BMI awarded him with two awards. Here is O'Rourke doing his own take on "Honky Tonk Moon" - recorded in October of 1993.



A second album followed in the mid-nineties, with fellow Irish entertainers, he wrote and edited "Clean Cabbage In The Bucket - And Other Tales From The Irish Music Trenches."
He still writes music and short-fiction, and had a song placed in the award-nominated documentary "Megamall" for which he wrote the opening song "Anywhere USA." According to his website, a new album is in the works.

I also found a Czech version of  "Honky Tonk Moon" by country-singer Radek Tomáše with his own lyrical adaption as "Kymácivý měsíc."