Who’s Gonna Tie My Shoes · Harvest Time

Wild Bill Emerson was a country singer, guitarist and songwriter, born in Marion County, Alabama, on 4 May 1938. He used the “Wild Bill” name partly to tell himself apart from the bluegrass banjo player Bill Emerson, who was born the same year. The two have often been confused since. His first records were two singles on the Topic label around 1965: “Judge Her Gently” with “Money Makes a Man Careless,” and “Big Old Town” with “Goin’ Out to Hollywood.”

His main run of singles came on Ace of Hearts, a Nashville country label with offices on 18th Avenue South. Between 1972 and 1974 Earl Richards produced six Ace of Hearts singles by him in Nashville. The first was “Blue’s Grass” with “Scottish Lady” in September 1972, followed by “Harlan County” with “Do My Playing at Home” and “Crawdad” with “Another Man’s Home.” “Muddy Mississippi River Water” with “Widow Julie” came out in February 1973, and “Texas Bull” with “A Walk in Jodie’s Garden,” made with his wife and co-writer Jody Emerson, later that year. The last was “Who’s Gonna Tie My Shoes” with “Harvest Time” in 1974. Emerson wrote or co-wrote nearly all of these sides, several of them with Jody. Gene Watson recorded “Harvest Time” on 30 June 1975 for his album Love in the Hot Afternoon, and Lost & Found and the Lonesome River Band later recorded it too. The Ace of Hearts sides were gathered on two 1976 albums on RPA, Bull Mountain Lad and Got a Hit in My Pocket. The first of these was reissued in 1982 on E&R as Harland County.

In 1975 he moved to Avco for “Have You Seen My Chicken” with “Touch of Wilderness,” issued in July and produced by George Jones and Earl Montgomery. Later Nashville singles appeared on Column One and Goldust, and in 1978 he and Jody made a Christmas album for Goldust, again with Earl Richards producing. He died in 2020.

Session details drawn in part from the Bluegrass Discography.