Guest post by Nathan Arizona
Back when microbrew was a term that meant nothing, unless it was a tiny glass of beer, there were four primary national beers – Budweiser, Miller, Pabst and Schlitz. Budweiser was made by German immigrants in St. Louis. The other three were made by different German immigrants in Milwaukee.
As with breweries, so with baseball. Milwaukee has the edge. St.Louis hasn’t been to a World Series in 13 years. The Brewers of Milwaukee are battling Tampa Bay in the World Series right now. But if you raise a glass to the Brewers, we won’t tell if it’s some tasty IPA.
Miller was “The Champagne of Bottled Beers” (slogan writers have come a long way). Pabst asked, “What’ll You Have?” (Answer: “Pabst Blue Ribbon.”) Schlitz was “The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous.” That one was good enough to inspire a song with the staying power of the old New York Yankees if not the classy aura,
“What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)” has ridden a surefire country-music theme to success: I’m crying in my beer because I left a good woman back home but I’m not sad enough to get up off this barstool and go back to her.
The song gave Jerry Lee Lewis a No. 2 country hit in 1968 and crept into the bottom part of the Billboard Hot 100. It was just what Lewis needed. His rock ’n’ roll career was slumping and songwriter Glenn Sutton had been asked to come up with something country for the Killer. It didn’t come easy. Sutton was drawing a blank when he looked down at a table and saw an ad for Schlitz. The slogan jumped up at him.
“I’d written a lot of drinking songs before then,” he told an interviewer, “but I’d never thought of that.”
Four years later Rod Stewart recorded a version that reached No. 4 on the British singles chart but flopped on both country and pop charts in the U.S. Eccentric roots performer Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (1975) and alt-country guy Charlie Crockett (2016) have tackled it. So have mainstream country singers Hank Thompson, Lynn Anderson and Eric Church. Celtic punk band Flogging Molly put it on an album.
Sutton was hardly a one hit wonder. The in-house writer and producer at Columbia Records co-wrote the country hit “Almost Persuaded” in 1966 and a string of hits for Tammy Wynette in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He produced “(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden” and other hits for his wife Lynn Anderson, who also covered the song about beer.
Sutton had no reason to cry in his Schlitz.
Jerry Lee Lewis was no longer a ball of fire when recorded the song in 1968, but he could still bring it.
Charlie Crockett has been hitting Americana charts and pleasing critics for almost a decade. He’s also called for the deportation of Elon Musk.
Rod Stewart did not have country music hair and did not hit the country music charts. Coincidence?
And now the way Hank done it. Honky tonk/western swing/countrypolitan Hall of Famer Hank Thompson was one of the biggest country stars of the ’50s and ‘60s.
