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Western swing videos, de-Flashified
In writing the previous entry, I came across an old draft, from October 2006, with embed code for four YouTube videos featuring western swing: Noel Boggs playing "Alabama Bound" as a steel guitar solo, Bobby Koefer with Truitt Cunningham and the San Antonio Rose Band performing his extremely animated version...
Texas Playboys under new leadership
Tomorrow night (Saturday, March 2, 2019) is the annual Bob Wills birthday celebration at Cain's Ballroom, the site of weekly dances and daily radio broadcasts for bands fronted Bob and his brother Johnnie Lee for a quarter-century, from 1934 to 1959. Doors open at 6 p.m. Western Swing historian John...
Mandolin Special: Johnny Gimble, Tiny Moore, Jethro Burns, Eldon Shamblin
These seem to vanish as soon as they're posted, but here's a series of clips from a 1981 Austin City Limits episode featuring three virtuoso mandolinists, playing blues and swing: The line up, from left to right, front to back: Johnny Gimble - mandolin and fiddle Tiny Moore - mandolin...
Tommy Allsup, RIP
UPDATE: The funeral for Tommy Allsup will be held Wednesday, January 18, 2017, at 11 a.m., at First Baptist Church, Owasso. Flowers may be sent to Mowery Funeral Home 9110 N. Garnett Rd. Owasso, OK 74055. Legendary guitarist Tommy Allsup died yesterday, January 11, 2017, at the age of 85....
Merle Haggard, RIP: His role in the western swing revival
Legendary country singer and songwriter Merle Haggard died Wednesday on his 79th birthday. It might be going too far to say he saved western swing from oblivion, but Merle Haggard's efforts to honor Bob Wills went a long way toward introducing a new generation to the sound. In 1946 or...
The oral history of Western Swing
I've been reading a very interesting book, The Jazz of the Southwest: An Oral History of Western Swing by Jean A. Boyd (1998, University of Texas Press). Boyd is professor of musicology at Baylor University. The book begins by tracing the overall history of the genre, as it began in...
Okie Boogie remix
A reader sends along this interesting remix of "Oakie Boogie" by a Bristol-based DJ called Howla. (That's Bristol, England -- another indication of the international audience for western swing and related genres of American music.) The song "Oakie Boogie" (spelled "Okie Boogie" after the "a" was dropped from the toponym),...
Johnny Gimble, RIP
Legendary fiddler Johnny Gimble died today at the age of 88. Gimble was hired by Bob Wills for the Texas Playboys in 1949. After a few years on the road, he retired to barbering and playing music on the weekends. But in 1968 he moved to Nashville and made...
Curly Lewis and Reece Anderson, RIP
We've lost two more western swing greats in the last couple of weeks. Tulsa fiddler and vocalist Julian "Curly" Lewis died Sunday at the age of 88. Lewis spent much of his career with Johnnie Lee Wills's band in the late '40s and '50s, but he also toured and performed...
Johnny Cuviello, "Texas Drummer Boy," RIP
In the last year or two we've lost several Texas Playboys from the 1940s: guitarist Jimmy Wyble, singing sisters Dean McKinney Moore and Evelyn McKinney Wills, and now Johnny Cuviello. Johnny Cuviello, drummer for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in 1946 and 1947 and one of the last surviving...
Cherokee Maiden (not 1/32, the real deal)
Here's Merle Haggard, singing lead and doing his best imitation of Bob Wills' hollers, with three Texas Playboys: Johnny Gimble playing fiddle, Tiny Moore (next to Merle, holding a fiddle) and Eldon Shamblin (playing his Stratocaster) singing harmony. Let's send this one out to Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren in Massachusetts. Tiny...
Tommy Duncan's 100th Birthday Gala, January 15, 2011
UPDATE: More info on the Tommy Duncan gala and the special guests on Billy Mata's schedule page -- scroll down to January 15 for all the details. The life and music of legendary western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan will be celebrated in his hometown of Whitney, Texas, with an all-day...
Friday night music: Herb Remington, Les Paul & Mary Ford, Noel Boggs
Here's a 10-minute profile of legendary Texas Playboys steel guitarist Herb Remington, who tells about his audition for Bob Wills, his opening night flub at the Santa Monica Pier, Bob Wills's generosity, life on the road, how he covered his mistake on a record, and his big hit, "Boot Heel...
Just the facts, Bob
Jack Webb, of "Dragnet" fame, was the announcer for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys? Yes, indeed! For a few months, at any rate. Back in 1946, Bob Wills had a weekly half-hour radio show on San Francisco's KGO, broadcast live from the Oakland Auditorium Theatre. TiffanyTranscriptions.com, a website devoted...
Ah, that Texas Drummer Boy: Johnny Cuviello!
Drummer Johnny Cuviello and steel guitarist Herb Remington wrote and recorded this song as part of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys way back in 1947 -- with Johnny's drum solos alternating with a catchy steel melody. Sixty years later, last October, on Johnny's 92nd birthday, they played it again...
Steel in the spotlight
The news is depressing, so let's turn to music for some relief. Ever wondered how virtuosi like Herb Remington, Leon McAuliffe, Santo and Johnny, Noel Boggs, and Bobby Koefer tease those sweet sounds out of their steel guitars? Steel guitarist Rick Alexander has posted a series of song and technique...
Belfast writer wishes Bob wouldn't holler
Belfast hosted a songwriters' festival recently, which featured musicians from Belfast's American sister city, Nashville. (That's an apt pairing. Belfast is the buckle of the Bible Belt of Europe, the most religious region in the UK. Nashville is HQ for the Southern Baptist Convention. And Tennessee was settled by Ulster...
Missing: 1971 Bob Wills album, Tiffany Transcriptions
I've been reading San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills, Charles R. Townsend's definitive biography. At the back of the book is what looks to be a comprehensive discography -- every studio recording Bob Wills ever made, including a couple he cut in 1929 with Herman Arnspiger...
"Coyote Blues" times two this Saturday night
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned listening to a Johnnie Lee Wills transcription and hearing the announcer call out "Coyote Blues," by Lewis Meyer, best known to Tulsans for his bookstore and weekly book review show on TV. Tomorrow night (Saturday), John Wooley will be playing two versions of...
West Texas soundtrack
I used iTunes to mix a CD for our recent trip to west Texas. It's a combination of songs about Texas, songs about cotton farming, favorite Western Swing instrumentals (including arguably the first rock'n'roll song ever recorded -- Junior Barnard's Fat Boy Rag, recorded in 1946), and a few other...
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