Moe Bandy - Motel Matches

In this week's episode we're featuring a mid-80s album on for the always-country Moe Bandy: "Motel Matches" (1984). Bandy made traditional country music and rarely deviated from it. Respected country historian Bill Malone called Moe Bandy's music "a breath of fresh air through the fetid morass of country pop" - and even though it was 1984, "Motel Matches" was more of the same. Throughout his career thus far, Bandy had specialised in hard country songs about drinking and cheating (often depicted in the artwork on some of country's most glorious album covers) and a good chunk of our feature album is firmly in his wheelhouse once more. A relationship with songwriter Whitey Shafer which began with "Bandy The Rodeo Clown" and "I Just Started Hating Cheating Songs Today" in the early 70s continues with "In Mexico" and "Don't Start Me Cheatin' Again". Other highlights include one of two singles in "It Took A Lot Of Drinkin' (To Get That Woman Over Me)" and a comfortable song for Bandy (a 2007 Texas Rodeo Hall Of Fame inductee) in "The Horse That You Can't Ride".