Honky Tonks and Slow Sad Music

"There's a strain of soul music collectors refer to as 'deep soul,' a particularly pathos-laden genre that seems to explore the utmost limits of heartache, despair, and personal adversity. The songs Johnny Paycheck recorded for the independent Nashville label Little Darlin' between 1966 and 1970 are pretty much the country-music equivalent; it simply doesn't get any deeper than this." (Michael Klausman, Other Music)

“'Deep Soul occupies precisely the same role as Greek tragedy did in those far off days,' [Dave Godin] wrote in a sleeve-note to the first volume. 'It is cathartic; a form of therapy through art.' Godin also compared Deep Soul to grand opera, the only other form of Western Music he thought capable of generating the same emotional intensity."

[Aubrey] Mayhew had attended a Johnny Paycheck gig in Secacaus, N.J., and recalls: “Two girls were at a table and I went over and started talking to them,” Mayhew said. “During his break, Paycheck came over. We all ended up going out after the show. Paycheck was driving. We had no idea where we were. We went down this long road and came to a pier on the seashore. It was 5 in the morning. There was a sign that said ‘Point of No Return.’ “I looked at Paycheck, he looked at me. He was drunk. I wasn’t. I said, ‘Paycheck, you’ve just reached the pint of no return.’ We took the girls home, went to the hotel and wrote the song. It had to be pretty important to turn down two pretty-looking women.”