Boston country stalwart keeps classic sound in his 'Memories'

Take a bow, Jimmy Allen. What else can you say about someone who has kept country music alive in Boston for the past 48 years? After all this time, he recently issued a standout album that is the first of his career and was made with an A-team of Nashville studio pickers who usually record with the Dixie Chicks, Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney, and Tim McGraw.

''I'm not trying to make it in the business anymore," says Allen, now 62. ''I'm doing this for my legacy."

The Melrose native's release, ''Hang On to the Memories," was delayed for some years because the money allotted for it was needed to repair his roof in Wilmington, where he now lives.

''I've never grown rich at this, but I still love the music," says Allen, a diehard traditionalist who dislikes contemporary country music (''It just sounds like rock with a twang"). He prefers the classic sounds of Merle Haggard, George Jones, Lefty Frizzell, and others from a generation no longer appreciated in the corporate boardrooms on Music Row.

Allen's new CD was made in just one day in Nashville. He cobbled together the money and the songs (only one is original; the rest are mostly by heroes from Haggard to Jimmie Davis) and enlisted producer Tom Hambridge, a former Bostonian who has worked with Susan Tedeschi and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Hambridge was indebted to Allen, who would use Hambridge as his drummer during gigs each Wednesday at the now-defunct Blue Star in Saugus.

''We had to do the album quickly," recalls the busy Hambridge, who lives in Nashville and is well-connected in its studio scene. ''I told Jimmy, 'Just rely on me. I'm going to get guys who can do everything in one take.' " Hambridge brought in electric guitarist JT Corenflos (Chesney, McGraw), pianist Tony Harrell (Dixie Chicks, Rodney Crowell), fiddler Tammy Rogers King (Reba McEntire), and acoustic guitarist Steven Sheehan (Jackson, Haggard).

The result is an album that could proudly sit next to something made, well, 40 years ago. As Allen's Boston bass player Larry Flynt (also a cohost of WHRB's ''Hillbilly at Harvard") says with a laugh, ''Jimmy doesn't do much of anything that was written past 1973."

''It was a dream come true for me," Allen says of the album, which is now available only through the websites CDbaby.com and Towerrecords .com. He sang the tunes in his inimitable baritone and added backup harmonies from North Shore singer Dottie Mae on Melba Montgomery's ''We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds" and former Boston honky-tonker Dave Foley on the title track.

It is the climax of an extraordinary regional career that has already seen Allen voted into the Massachusetts Country Music Association Hall of Fame. He started at age 15 at the Time Out Lounge in Lynn and has since worked in such rooms as the Hillbilly Ranch in Boston, the OK Corral in Peabody, the Stephen James Steakhouse in Cambridge, and Indian Ranch in Webster, where he opened for the Statler Brothers, Kitty Wells, and Porter Waggoner. Many local clubs specializing in country are now gone -- victims of changing trends brought on, Allen says, by drunk driving laws, an aging population, a switch to cheaper club DJs or karaoke, and consumers staying at home to watch country videos and DVDs.

''Jimmy is definitely one of the survivors," says John Penny, who has his own John Penny Band and has been a New England booking agent for many years. ''I don't think anybody tries any harder to promote country music than he does. . . . And though traditional music is not on the radio or on television much anymore, there's still a nucleus of people who like the older country, and that's what Jimmy does."

That nucleus is evident at Allen's gigs each Sunday at the Boston Street Cafe in Lynn. Recently, he was backed at this restaurant/lounge by bassist Flynt, guitarist Chuck Parrish, and drummer Bruno Bianco for snappy nostalgia trips into everything from Haggard's ''Sing Me Back Home" (about a death-row inmate who wants to hear one last song before he goes) to Bill Monroe's ''Blue Moon of Kentucky" and the Carter Family's ''Wildwood Flower."

''Where else can you hear 'Wildwood Flower' these days?" asks Lorraine Simon, at the Boston Street Cafe with her husband, Lenny. ''We come up from Randolph, and it's always worth the drive." She maneuvers her husband out to the dance floor, and time stands still.

Meanwhile, Allen's wife, Shirley (38 years together), sits nearby with his brother, Ronnie, and his wife, Judy. They've seen Allen countless times but are still impressed by the drive and enthusiasm that he brings to each show. He also graciously shares the stage with various guests, from Donny D (a fine honky-tonk singer) to guitarist Buddy Lynch.

''He loves the people and he loves the music," says Ronnie, who remembers how his brother used to tune in the Grand Ole Opry every Saturday in Melrose, where their father would also lead musical jams on the front porch.

''When I was younger, I played some rock 'n' roll, but I always had country in my heart," says Allen. ''And I'm going to keep going for as long as I can."