My yellow rose of Texas packed up and left this mornin'
I don't know where she's gone and most of all I don't know why
I only know I've got the blues I've never been this lonesome
It's enough to make a man lay down and die

Lone Star Beer and Bob Wills music
When I hear Faded Love I feel at home
Lone Star Beer and Bob Wills music
Have kept my heart alive since you've been gone
-- Red Steagall, "Lone Star Beer and Bob Wills Music"

Only a music geek would get excited about the release of a batch of old tunes recorded in obscure radio station studios in Oklahoma and Texas in 1946 and 1947. So I'll let my geek flag fly. I know and love Bob Wills' music, albeit not to the level of the true fanboy. But I'm about to be indoctrinated. The massive, 10-CD box set The Tiffany Transcriptions is winging my way (or, more appropriately, I hope, being transported on some big rig). When it arrives I'll have 150 tunes to digest, many of them the bedrock "western" part of "country and western." Eventually my thoughts will end up in Paste Magazine, but in the meantime I'll have a lot to take in. If you see me attempting the occasional Texas Two Step, you'll understand. You might mistake it for random, otherwise inexplicable spasms, but at least you'll know the intent.

Me, I'm anxious for a re-release of Merle Haggard's Willis tribute, A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World-- a real classic. But while I'm waiting, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to familiarize myself with the source material.

I started with the Rhino Anthology covering his career (1935-1973) in 32 tracks. I like it. Especially the first CD with stuff like the irresistible "Steel Guitar Rag" and "Big Beaver". There's an immediate, genuine joy in this western swing. It fits very well with the northern swing of the day (Boswell Sisters, etc). But still, with the perfume of the South - imagine: honky tonk hillbillies trying to swing.

Oh Man!Tiffany transcriptions..............the only thing is... you have to be willing to listen to Bob shout out all the time "Kelso, Kelso"....and non stop "aha's"...

So worth it.

All 10cd's...color me jealous.


I hate to admit how much time I have spent with Roly Poly alone.

I have one or two of those discs, but to have the whole shootin' match at once ... wow. Looks like they're being reissued with new artwork?

Bob Wills' real talent was in recognizing greater talents than his own and collecting them all in one room. His own unpolished hoedown fiddling was easily eclipsed by the sophisticated jazzbo fiddlers he hired, notably Louis Tierney, the great southpaw Joe Holley, and a little later on, Johnny Gimble, who is in his 80s and still setting the strings aflame. Bob as a vocalist was no great shakes compared to the peerless Tommy Duncan. (Famous for his temper, Wills fired Duncan in a fit of pique over some minor annoyance, but his reputation as a bandleader survived this and many similar incidents.) That's to say nothing of Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, Tiny Moore on mandolin, and Eldon Shamblin along with proto-rocker Junior Barnard on electric guitars ... each of whom is still regarded as one of the guys who mapped out the territory for his instrument within the genre.

Yes, even more so on the Transcriptions than his studio recordings, you'll hear Wills holler and call out the names of the musicians. ("Ladies and gentlemen, that is Junior Barnard and his standard guitar. At least, two more payments and it'll be his.") Kind of annoying to modern ears, perhaps, but this was live radio and Wills was one bandleader who wanted his soloists to get proper credit. Imagine how much easier this makes things for the archivists trying to document who played on what.

Back when Wills was getting started, "country" and "western" were still two distinct genres of music, each a vital cultural touchstone in its own way. Later on some knucklehead in a three-piece suit decided to slap them together, and it's been all downhill from there.

P.S. Check out this documentary on one of the other great Western swing bandleaders, Adolph Hofner, who kept going from the 1930s right up till his death in 2000. During the '40s, it seems there was some interest in getting Hofner into a film career, but Hollywood wanted him to change his name, possibly to avoid confusion with other guys named Adol(f) H---er. But Hofner refused. The name was good enough for his dad, he said, and it was good enough for him. Poof went the film contract, and Hofner went back to Texas. His music didn't change that much, but the lyrics did -- for the rest of his career, Hofner sang most of his songs in Czech.

Bob's Western Swing is mostly thought of as a Texas and Oklahoma phenomenon but during the war he hammered in out in LA. His Concerts at Santa Monica pier set records. His band went up to 23 members. It is easy to forget that during WWII Bob Wills was as big or bigger than Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller. Radio was the ticket to stardom and Bob was on the Radio.

California has a pretty good record when it comes to Country. I say it goes back to Bob.He and his caravan of stompers had a lasting impact on the sound of West Coast. Working men, playing dances for hard working folks, loud and up tempo. There is a direct line from these broadcasts to Merle, Buck, the Burrito's and Yoakum.

Aha!!! indeed!

No argument about Bob Willis (or Merle or Buck or the Burritos). I can't let you slide by with that Dwight Yoakum comment, though. Yoakam grew up about five miles from me, and although he lit out for greener musical pastures (i.e., anywhere but Columbus, Ohio), as a young b(B)uck, we still claim him as one of our own. When I interviewed him a couple years ago he admitted to being a closet Ohio State fan.

Come bowl season, that's the best kind of Ohio State fan to be.

I wasn't trying to claim original ownership of either the Burrito's or Dwight. I was thinking of seeing a tall skinny country guy on what were essentially punk rock shows around LA and him carrying a big torch for Bakersfield.

My neighbors across the street Fly an OSU Banner all football season. They are nice enough people, except for all the yelling around their house on Fall Saturdays.


They don't listen to Country or Western.


an edit addition. I will advocate for California whenever I can but I am smart enough to realize that the Mississipi Delta and Appalachia has musical history that scoffs at our west coast pretensions....


Now back to Bob. Stratocasters were invented for Eldon Shamblin. Leo Fender sought ought his advice and Eldon owned the first one.