Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Jimmie Rodgers performing "Waiting For A Train".
DVD Review
Times Ain’t What They Used To Be: Early American Rural&Popular Music From Rare Original Film Masters (1928-1935), various artists, Shanachie Entertainment, 2000.
Okay, I will admit that I have gone off the deep-end, at least a little, in my seemingly endless search for the roots of the American musical songbook. I have gone down the musical road to Cajun country, I have gone to the hills of Appalachia and the Piedmont of North Carolina, and I have catalogued cowboy songs, railroad songs, every kind of blues, and even the some selections from Tin Pan Alley. But reviewing the present DVD seems on the outer edge even to me.
The producers of this series of film vignettes from the 1920s and 1930s have apparently gone deep into the vaults to get down, way down, into the depths of musical Americana. Tops here are a couple of yodeling Jimmie Rodgers tunes, Jules Allen doing up “Home On The Range”, The Duke Davis Band playing (accompanied by a huge banjo) “Ida” and the Fiddler’s Convention playing “Turkey In The Straw”. Did I say Americana? Yes, indeed. Also included are anonymous clips of square dancers, singing cowboys (real and fake), banjo strumming black men and a number of other things that practically defy categorization.
"T Is For Texas"
T for texas, T for Tennessee
T for texas, T for Tennessee
T for Thelma, the gal made a wreck out of me
If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall
If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall
I can get more women, than a passenger train can haul
I'm gonna buy me a pistol, just as long as I'm tall
I'm gonna buy me a pistol, just as long as I'm tall
I'm gonna shoot poor Thelma, just to see her jump and fall
And if that's your mama, you'd better tie her to your side
If that's your mama, better tie her to your side
Cause if she flags my train, I'm sure gonna let her ride
I'm gonna buy me a shotgun, with a great long shiny barrel
I'm gonna buy me a shotgun, with a great long shiny barrel
I'm gonna shoot that rounder, that stole away my gal
I'd rather drink muddy water, and sleep in a hollow log
I'd rather drink muddy water, and sleep in a hollow log
Than to be in atlanta treated like a dirty hog
Well it's T for texas, T for Tennessee
T for texas, T for Tennessee
T for Thelma, the gal who made a wreck out of me
Showing posts with label bob wills and the texas playboys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bob wills and the texas playboys. Show all posts
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Sunday, October 12, 2008
*That Other Musician From The Hills Of Oklahoma-The Music Of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys- “Western Swing's Greatest Hits"
Click on title to link to YouTube'sfil clip of Bob Wills And his Texas Playboys performing "Faded Love".
CD Review
The King Of Western Swing:Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Bob Wills and various artists who made up his Texas Playboys bands, ASV, 1998
Every once in a while I like a little change of pace from my main folk/rock/mountain music interest. Usually, that entails getting out the old jazz classics like Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman. However, every so often it also includes getting up a little dust with old Bob Wills. His countrified swing from the heyday of that genre is a pleasant surprise taken in small doses. Remember not everyone who needed to swing in order to drive away those Great Depression and World War II blues was in the city. Wills played around with and adapted the swing idea to that rural Saturday night barn dance milieu. From ballads like "Right or Wrong" to stompers like "Sugar Blues" to the haunting "Lone Star Rag" you get a good beginner mix with this album. That is as far as I am willing to take you. If you need more then you are on your own.
Faded Love
As I look at the letters that you wrote to me
It’s you that I’m thinking of
As I read the lines that to me were so sweet
I remember our Faded Love.
I miss you darling more and more every day
As heaven would miss the stars above.
With every heartbeat I still think of you
And remember our Faded Love.
As I think of the past and all the pleasures we had
As I watch the mating of the dove
It was in the springtime that you said goodbye
I remember our Faded Love
I miss you darling more and more everyday
As heaven would miss the stars above
With every heartbeat I still think of you
And remember our Faded Love
You're From Texas
Pardon me, stranger I hope there's no danger
You'll think I'm getting' off my range
But I calculate that you're from my state
And thought you may think it strange.
Chorus
I 'low as how you're from Texas
You talk a lingo I understand
I'll bet my kale that you hail from Texas
'Cause there's no mistakin' the brand
You've got a smile like an acre of sunflow'rs
And your eyes are a blue bonnet blue.
Shake hands, it's grand your from Texas
'Cause I'm from Texas too.
CD Review
The King Of Western Swing:Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Bob Wills and various artists who made up his Texas Playboys bands, ASV, 1998
Every once in a while I like a little change of pace from my main folk/rock/mountain music interest. Usually, that entails getting out the old jazz classics like Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman. However, every so often it also includes getting up a little dust with old Bob Wills. His countrified swing from the heyday of that genre is a pleasant surprise taken in small doses. Remember not everyone who needed to swing in order to drive away those Great Depression and World War II blues was in the city. Wills played around with and adapted the swing idea to that rural Saturday night barn dance milieu. From ballads like "Right or Wrong" to stompers like "Sugar Blues" to the haunting "Lone Star Rag" you get a good beginner mix with this album. That is as far as I am willing to take you. If you need more then you are on your own.
Faded Love
As I look at the letters that you wrote to me
It’s you that I’m thinking of
As I read the lines that to me were so sweet
I remember our Faded Love.
I miss you darling more and more every day
As heaven would miss the stars above.
With every heartbeat I still think of you
And remember our Faded Love.
As I think of the past and all the pleasures we had
As I watch the mating of the dove
It was in the springtime that you said goodbye
I remember our Faded Love
I miss you darling more and more everyday
As heaven would miss the stars above
With every heartbeat I still think of you
And remember our Faded Love
You're From Texas
Pardon me, stranger I hope there's no danger
You'll think I'm getting' off my range
But I calculate that you're from my state
And thought you may think it strange.
Chorus
I 'low as how you're from Texas
You talk a lingo I understand
I'll bet my kale that you hail from Texas
'Cause there's no mistakin' the brand
You've got a smile like an acre of sunflow'rs
And your eyes are a blue bonnet blue.
Shake hands, it's grand your from Texas
'Cause I'm from Texas too.
*That Other Musician From The Hills Of Oklahoma-The Music Of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys- “Fiddlin’ Man”
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys performing "Sitting On Top Of The World"
DVD Review
Fiddlin’ Man: The Life And Times OF Bob Wills, Bob Wills and various artists who played with him under the name Texas Playboys, VIEW Video, 1996
I have spent an inordinate amount of time in this space reviewing the work of that quintessential product of the hills of Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie. And that has been appropriate in my long time search for the roots of American music, if for no other reason than, his decisive influence on such later folk revivalists as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan (to speak nothing of son, Arlo Guthrie). But those Oklahoma hills (and Texas) also produced in an almost contemporary time frame a very different kind of roots music, western swing, that will always be associated with the name Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. I may, personally be more at home with the 1930s city-driven swing music of Mr. Benny Goodman but only a complete fool would deny Bob Wills his place as a seminal influence in American roots music. This hour long musical documentary gives a rough biographic sketch of that career, and along the way some toe-tapping footage of Bob Wills and his various Texas Playboy configurations doing their swing music.
To set the tone for the DVD I post a paragraph from an entry that reviewed one of Bob Wills CD compilations:
“Every once in a while I like a little change of pace from my main folk/rock/mountain music interest. Usually, that entails getting out the old jazz classics like Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman. However, every so often it also includes getting up a little dust with old Bob Wills. His countrified swing from the heyday of that genre is a pleasant surprise taken in small doses. Remember not everyone who needed to swing in order to drive away those Great Depression and World War II blues was in the city. Wills played around with and adapted the swing idea to that rural Saturday night barn dance milieu. From ballads like "Right or Wrong" to stompers like "Sugar Blues" to the haunting "Lone Star Rag" you get a good beginner mix with this album. That is as far as I am willing to take you. If you need more then you are on your own.”
Bob Wills was, like Woody, a product of the dirt poor Greta Depression-era who latched onto the idea of mixing up a whole bunch of genres of music including what today is called Tex-Mex (or Tejan) , a whole bunch of instruments, and an uncanny sense of which way the rhythm trends were heading. Some country, some jazz, some city swing, a little mountain and, as always in early American recorded music, some kind of blues those are the influences heard in this film from cowboys movie songs to square dance type tunes to love ballads. And all, as the interviewees here, including various ex-band members, make clear led by the charismatic and demanding Wills.
If you are not interested in the Wills story though you must watch this film for the vintage footage of Wills and the boys (women are, as far as I could tell, used only for backup singing) on locale in Hollywood as background to the ubiquitous cowboy movies that many of us older devotees cut our teeth on watching (or watching the television re-runs). As well, here you will see and hear the Western swing treatment of the classic “San Antone Rose”, “Sitting On Top Of The World” , “Milk Cow Blues”, and the signature “Take Me Back To Tulsa”. See, even I know it was not only about Woody back in the days.
Note: I would point out that while Bob Wills, over a long career spanning almost half a century, is truly identified as the originator of western swing he was not the only “hot” swing man of the period. An argument can be made and has, by folk singer Geoff Muldaur, that the work of Wills contemporary Milton Brown whose career was cut short by his death in an automobile accident, was perhaps better than Wills’ during that period. I have heard some of Brown’s work. I would say the jury is still out on this question.
Bob Wills, San Antonio Rose Tabs/Chords
F7 F+ Bb
A song of old San An - tone.
Bb7 Eb C7
Where in dreams I live with a memory,
F7 Bb
Beneath the stars all alone.
Bb7Eb C7
It was there I found beside the Alamo
F7 Bb
Enchantment strange as the blue up above.
Bb7 Eb C7
A moonlit pass only she would know,
F7 Bb
Still hears my broken song of love.
F Fdim C7 F C7 Abm C9
Moon in all your splendor, know only my heart
C Abm C9 F
Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone.
Fdim F C7 F C C9
Lips so sweet and tender, like petals falling apart.
C Abm C9 F F7
Speak once a - gain of my love, my own.
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 F+ Bb
Broken song, empty words I know still live in my heart all a - lone
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 Bb
For that moonlit pass by the Alamo, and Rose, my Rose of San Antone.
DVD Review
Fiddlin’ Man: The Life And Times OF Bob Wills, Bob Wills and various artists who played with him under the name Texas Playboys, VIEW Video, 1996
I have spent an inordinate amount of time in this space reviewing the work of that quintessential product of the hills of Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie. And that has been appropriate in my long time search for the roots of American music, if for no other reason than, his decisive influence on such later folk revivalists as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan (to speak nothing of son, Arlo Guthrie). But those Oklahoma hills (and Texas) also produced in an almost contemporary time frame a very different kind of roots music, western swing, that will always be associated with the name Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. I may, personally be more at home with the 1930s city-driven swing music of Mr. Benny Goodman but only a complete fool would deny Bob Wills his place as a seminal influence in American roots music. This hour long musical documentary gives a rough biographic sketch of that career, and along the way some toe-tapping footage of Bob Wills and his various Texas Playboy configurations doing their swing music.
To set the tone for the DVD I post a paragraph from an entry that reviewed one of Bob Wills CD compilations:
“Every once in a while I like a little change of pace from my main folk/rock/mountain music interest. Usually, that entails getting out the old jazz classics like Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman. However, every so often it also includes getting up a little dust with old Bob Wills. His countrified swing from the heyday of that genre is a pleasant surprise taken in small doses. Remember not everyone who needed to swing in order to drive away those Great Depression and World War II blues was in the city. Wills played around with and adapted the swing idea to that rural Saturday night barn dance milieu. From ballads like "Right or Wrong" to stompers like "Sugar Blues" to the haunting "Lone Star Rag" you get a good beginner mix with this album. That is as far as I am willing to take you. If you need more then you are on your own.”
Bob Wills was, like Woody, a product of the dirt poor Greta Depression-era who latched onto the idea of mixing up a whole bunch of genres of music including what today is called Tex-Mex (or Tejan) , a whole bunch of instruments, and an uncanny sense of which way the rhythm trends were heading. Some country, some jazz, some city swing, a little mountain and, as always in early American recorded music, some kind of blues those are the influences heard in this film from cowboys movie songs to square dance type tunes to love ballads. And all, as the interviewees here, including various ex-band members, make clear led by the charismatic and demanding Wills.
If you are not interested in the Wills story though you must watch this film for the vintage footage of Wills and the boys (women are, as far as I could tell, used only for backup singing) on locale in Hollywood as background to the ubiquitous cowboy movies that many of us older devotees cut our teeth on watching (or watching the television re-runs). As well, here you will see and hear the Western swing treatment of the classic “San Antone Rose”, “Sitting On Top Of The World” , “Milk Cow Blues”, and the signature “Take Me Back To Tulsa”. See, even I know it was not only about Woody back in the days.
Note: I would point out that while Bob Wills, over a long career spanning almost half a century, is truly identified as the originator of western swing he was not the only “hot” swing man of the period. An argument can be made and has, by folk singer Geoff Muldaur, that the work of Wills contemporary Milton Brown whose career was cut short by his death in an automobile accident, was perhaps better than Wills’ during that period. I have heard some of Brown’s work. I would say the jury is still out on this question.
Bob Wills, San Antonio Rose Tabs/Chords
F7 F+ Bb
A song of old San An - tone.
Bb7 Eb C7
Where in dreams I live with a memory,
F7 Bb
Beneath the stars all alone.
Bb7Eb C7
It was there I found beside the Alamo
F7 Bb
Enchantment strange as the blue up above.
Bb7 Eb C7
A moonlit pass only she would know,
F7 Bb
Still hears my broken song of love.
F Fdim C7 F C7 Abm C9
Moon in all your splendor, know only my heart
C Abm C9 F
Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone.
Fdim F C7 F C C9
Lips so sweet and tender, like petals falling apart.
C Abm C9 F F7
Speak once a - gain of my love, my own.
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 F+ Bb
Broken song, empty words I know still live in my heart all a - lone
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 Bb
For that moonlit pass by the Alamo, and Rose, my Rose of San Antone.
*That Other Musician From The Hills Of Oklahoma-The Music Of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys-“Still Swingin’”
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys performing "Take Me Back To Tulsa".
DVD Review
Still Swingin’: 100th Anniversary Special Edition: Bob Wills, , hosted by Red Steagall with various artists, VCI, 1994
The first two paragraphs of this review have been used in reviews of other Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys material.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time in this space reviewing the work of that quintessential product of the hills of Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie. And that has been appropriate in my long time search for the roots of American music, if for no other reason than, his decisive influence on such later folk revivalists as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan (to speak nothing of son, Arlo Guthrie). But those Oklahoma hills (and Texas) also produced in an almost contemporary time frame a very different kind of roots music, western swing, that will always be associated with the name Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. I may, personally be more at home with the 1930s city-driven swing music of Mr. Benny Goodman but only a complete fool would deny Bob Wills his place as a seminal influence in American roots music. This hour long musical documentary gives a rough biographic sketch of that career, some toe-tapping footage of Bob Wills and his various Texas Playboy configurations doing their swing music, and unlike another Wills documentary, “Fiddlin’ Man”, that I have reviewed in this space spends some time on his influence on later artists and later covers by the likes of Tracy Bird and Asleep At The Wheel who carry on the tradition as best they can.
To set the tone for the DVD I post a paragraph from an entry that reviewed one of Bob Wills CD compilations:
“Every once in a while I like a little change of pace from my main folk/rock/mountain music interest. Usually, that entails getting out the old jazz classics like Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman. However, every so often it also includes getting up a little dust with old Bob Wills. His countrified swing from the heyday of that genre is a pleasant surprise taken in small doses. Remember not everyone who needed to swing in order to drive away those Great Depression and World War II blues was in the city. Wills played around with and adapted the swing idea to that rural Saturday night barn dance milieu. From ballads like "Right or Wrong" to stompers like "Sugar Blues" to the haunting "Lone Star Rag" you get a good beginner mix with this album. That is as far as I am willing to take you. If you need more then you are on your own.”
Bob Wills was, like Woody, a product of the dirt poor Great Depression-era who latched onto the idea of mixing up a whole bunch of genres of music including what today is called Tex-Mex (or Tejan) , a whole bunch of instruments, and an uncanny sense of which way the rhythm trends were heading. Some country, some jazz, some city swing, a little mountain and, as always in early American recorded music, some kind of blues those are the influences heard in this film from cowboys movie songs to square dance type tunes to love ballads. And all, as the interviewees here, including various ex-band members, make clear led by the charismatic and demanding Wills.
If you are not interested in the Wills story though you must watch this film for the vintage footage of Wills and the boys (women are, as far as I could tell, used only for backup singing) on locale in Hollywood as background to the ubiquitous cowboy movies that many of us older devotees cut our teeth on watching (or watching the television re-runs). As well, here you will see and hear the Western swing treatment of the classic “San Antonio Rose”, “Sitting On Top Of The World” , “Milk Cow Blues”, and the signature “Take Me Back To Tulsa”. See, even I know it was not only about Woody back in the days.
Note: I would point out that while Bob Wills, over a long career spanning almost half a century, is truly identified as the originator of western swing although he was not the only “hot” swing man of the period. An argument can be made and has, by folk singer Geoff Muldaur, that the work of Wills contemporary Milton Brown whose career was cut short by his death in an automobile accident, was perhaps better than Wills’ during that period. I have heard some of Brown’s work. I would say the jury is still out on this question.
Bob Wills, San Antonio Rose Tabs/Chords
F7 F+ Bb
A song of old San An - tone.
Bb7 Eb C7
Where in dreams I live with a memory,
F7 Bb
Beneath the stars all alone.
Bb7Eb C7
It was there I found beside the Alamo
F7 Bb
Enchantment strange as the blue up above.
Bb7 Eb C7
A moonlit pass only she would know,
F7 Bb
Still hears my broken song of love.
F Fdim C7 F C7 Abm C9
Moon in all your splendor, know only my heart
C Abm C9 F
Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone.
Fdim F C7 F C C9
Lips so sweet and tender, like petals falling apart.
C Abm C9 F F7
Speak once a - gain of my love, my own.
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 F+ Bb
Broken song, empty words I know still live in my heart all a - lone
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 Bb
For that moonlit pass by the Alamo, and Rose, my Rose of San Antone.
DVD Review
Still Swingin’: 100th Anniversary Special Edition: Bob Wills, , hosted by Red Steagall with various artists, VCI, 1994
The first two paragraphs of this review have been used in reviews of other Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys material.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time in this space reviewing the work of that quintessential product of the hills of Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie. And that has been appropriate in my long time search for the roots of American music, if for no other reason than, his decisive influence on such later folk revivalists as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan (to speak nothing of son, Arlo Guthrie). But those Oklahoma hills (and Texas) also produced in an almost contemporary time frame a very different kind of roots music, western swing, that will always be associated with the name Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. I may, personally be more at home with the 1930s city-driven swing music of Mr. Benny Goodman but only a complete fool would deny Bob Wills his place as a seminal influence in American roots music. This hour long musical documentary gives a rough biographic sketch of that career, some toe-tapping footage of Bob Wills and his various Texas Playboy configurations doing their swing music, and unlike another Wills documentary, “Fiddlin’ Man”, that I have reviewed in this space spends some time on his influence on later artists and later covers by the likes of Tracy Bird and Asleep At The Wheel who carry on the tradition as best they can.
To set the tone for the DVD I post a paragraph from an entry that reviewed one of Bob Wills CD compilations:
“Every once in a while I like a little change of pace from my main folk/rock/mountain music interest. Usually, that entails getting out the old jazz classics like Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman. However, every so often it also includes getting up a little dust with old Bob Wills. His countrified swing from the heyday of that genre is a pleasant surprise taken in small doses. Remember not everyone who needed to swing in order to drive away those Great Depression and World War II blues was in the city. Wills played around with and adapted the swing idea to that rural Saturday night barn dance milieu. From ballads like "Right or Wrong" to stompers like "Sugar Blues" to the haunting "Lone Star Rag" you get a good beginner mix with this album. That is as far as I am willing to take you. If you need more then you are on your own.”
Bob Wills was, like Woody, a product of the dirt poor Great Depression-era who latched onto the idea of mixing up a whole bunch of genres of music including what today is called Tex-Mex (or Tejan) , a whole bunch of instruments, and an uncanny sense of which way the rhythm trends were heading. Some country, some jazz, some city swing, a little mountain and, as always in early American recorded music, some kind of blues those are the influences heard in this film from cowboys movie songs to square dance type tunes to love ballads. And all, as the interviewees here, including various ex-band members, make clear led by the charismatic and demanding Wills.
If you are not interested in the Wills story though you must watch this film for the vintage footage of Wills and the boys (women are, as far as I could tell, used only for backup singing) on locale in Hollywood as background to the ubiquitous cowboy movies that many of us older devotees cut our teeth on watching (or watching the television re-runs). As well, here you will see and hear the Western swing treatment of the classic “San Antonio Rose”, “Sitting On Top Of The World” , “Milk Cow Blues”, and the signature “Take Me Back To Tulsa”. See, even I know it was not only about Woody back in the days.
Note: I would point out that while Bob Wills, over a long career spanning almost half a century, is truly identified as the originator of western swing although he was not the only “hot” swing man of the period. An argument can be made and has, by folk singer Geoff Muldaur, that the work of Wills contemporary Milton Brown whose career was cut short by his death in an automobile accident, was perhaps better than Wills’ during that period. I have heard some of Brown’s work. I would say the jury is still out on this question.
Bob Wills, San Antonio Rose Tabs/Chords
F7 F+ Bb
A song of old San An - tone.
Bb7 Eb C7
Where in dreams I live with a memory,
F7 Bb
Beneath the stars all alone.
Bb7Eb C7
It was there I found beside the Alamo
F7 Bb
Enchantment strange as the blue up above.
Bb7 Eb C7
A moonlit pass only she would know,
F7 Bb
Still hears my broken song of love.
F Fdim C7 F C7 Abm C9
Moon in all your splendor, know only my heart
C Abm C9 F
Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone.
Fdim F C7 F C C9
Lips so sweet and tender, like petals falling apart.
C Abm C9 F F7
Speak once a - gain of my love, my own.
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 F+ Bb
Broken song, empty words I know still live in my heart all a - lone
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 Bb
For that moonlit pass by the Alamo, and Rose, my Rose of San Antone.
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