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Post by TRK on Jun 3, 2008 8:33:24 GMT -5
According to Bo, he came up with the "Bo Diddley Beat" while trying to work out an arrangement of "I've Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle" by Gene Autry...just another example of that cross-pollination and category-jumping we've talked about here.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 3, 2008 9:20:36 GMT -5
Yeah. It's always interesting to read which artists were being listened to by later generations or contemporaries. I think Autry was more influential than is usually acknowledged. I know Ringo Starr mentioned him as his earliest influence and "my hero." I think Autry also was instrumental (no pun) in bringing western music into the mainstream, partly through his arrangements and partly through his personal popularity, especially in movies. He did crossover stuff too, like "Blueberry Hill" and "Harbor Lights," etc. I think Bob Wills was developing his own style around the same time (mid-late 1930s and early 40s) and may have been influenced by Autry, but I'm not really sure about that.
AW
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Post by TRK on Jun 3, 2008 10:21:28 GMT -5
I don't think Wills was heavily influenced by Autry. In the 1930s Wills' style evolved from string-band dance music to big-band jazz, and he listened a lot to blues (he was a big fan of Bessie Smith). Probably, like everybody else, he listened to Autry and soaked some of that style up. (And like Autry, Wills was known to cut a pretty risqué cut now and then.) Wills' lead singer in that era, Tommy Duncan, was a big fan of the blues, and influenced heavily by Jimmie Rodgers.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 3, 2008 12:28:51 GMT -5
More irony there. Autry's many early blues recordings were virtual impersonations of Rodgers. I have to check that recent Autry bio, but at some point he developed his own distinctive style and voice, which discarded the early country blues influences and led to his being identified as a western/cowboy singer, mainly after he started appearing regularly on the Barn Dance program on WLS in Chicago. The movies completed the cowboy image. His cowboy outfits (which he spent a lot on, even early on) and movies gave him a cowboy image, but by covering mainstream pop songs and often appearing with pop stars, like Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, et al, he became a kind of crossover who brought something of western music into the mainstream and made it somehow more "acceptable."
I guess Wills did something like that with western swing, which coupled western material with a big band sound, but I was unaware of his blues influences. The more I read on this the more I'm convinced that these early American forms influenced nearly everyone.
Hank Williams had a similar impact (probably unintentional) on the maintreaming of country music. Pop stars like Crosby or Jo Safford would cover his songs, like "Jambalaya." Jo Stafford's recording of that was a big hit and I heard it on the radio all the time, but the only place I heard Williams' original was in my father's saloon, which featured only C&W music.
AW
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 3, 2008 19:06:19 GMT -5
Wills was a big blues fan. I have that 10 CD set of Wills radio performances, and once you get away from his hits like "San Antonio Rose", the blues influences are a lot more evident. I always saw a lot of parallels between the western swing/country scene and the jazz scene. Wills was comparable to the big band guys and the bluegrassers like Bill Monroe are the equivalent of the beboppers like Charlie Parker. Of course, a lot of jazzbos would hate me for saying that... Jim
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Post by TRK on Jun 3, 2008 20:11:26 GMT -5
Do you mean "The Tiffany Transcriptions," Jim? I have a few of those, and they're wonderful.
It's quite a study in and of itself to follow Wills' recording career, from his early Okeh sides to the MGM, Decca, Liberty, etc. years. He and the Texas Playboys went through a lot of drastic changes, from simple fiddle & string bands to full-blown big band, and back to increasingly simple lineups and arrangements in the '50s and '60s. It's all good, but I always go back to that stripped-down MGM stuff. Tommy Duncan and the horns were gone, but the sound was still tough, with Eldon Shamblin on guitar, Tiny Moore on electric mandolin, Bill Bowman on steel, and Bob, Johnny Gimble, and Joe Holly on fiddles. Ever hear "Mean Woman with Green Eyes"? It's circa 1950, but sounds like it could have been Memphis around 1920.
Wills was also increasingly interested in rock n' roll in the 1950s; he supposedly thought a lot of Bill Haley, and some of his records in that decade had that proto-rock feel. He soaked up all kinds of music and was open to new things, even as an older guy.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 5, 2008 8:31:57 GMT -5
Those are the ones. Wills' stuff is swinging, and the Tiffany series is really good. He's another one of those guys who was able to mix genres, yet it all came out sounding totally original. I'm a fan of western swing and have a reasonably big collection of the stuff but, for my money, Wills is head and shoulders above all the rest. Jim
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Post by TRK on Jun 5, 2008 8:55:21 GMT -5
I don't know if you'd call him exactly Western Swing or Hillbilly Jazz, but Jimmy Bryant is a picker I need to start studying. I've heard bits of his stuff with steel player Speedy West and some of his solo work, but I hear Bryant's box set, "Frettin Fingers," singing me a siren song Oh, I've been meaning to ask, Jim: do you have Charles Townsend's biography of Bob Wills, first published IIRC in 1975? If not, it's really excellent, and sheds a lot of light on his character, influences, working style, etc.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 5, 2008 13:15:19 GMT -5
I read the Townshend Wills bio some years back and agree that it was a fine piece of work. Somewhere I have another memoir by a Wills bandmate (maybe Leon McAuliffe?) that was interesting as well. I have a good Jimmy Bryant/Speedy West compilation that is (I think) on the Razor and Tie label. Those guys play some mind-blowing duets. That Bear Family box set might be a little too rich for my blood though! I also stumbled on that James Burton lp (the one with the steel player) on CD recently...not as hot as I remembered, but good nonetheless. Love those double-stops! Jim
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Post by TRK on Jun 5, 2008 15:53:20 GMT -5
That Bear Family box set might be a little too rich for my blood though! The box set I'm looking at is from Sundazed. That's Ralph Mooney. He was Waylon Jennings' steel player for many years, and long before that, backed Buck Owens and Merle Haggard when their careers were first taking off.
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Post by Don Allen on Jun 12, 2008 14:21:52 GMT -5
Speaking of playing, I know Tom and Bill C are players too. How about you, RR? Music is in my family's background, but it's more Bluegrass, than Blues. My father played with two of the biggest Blue- grass bands of the 70s and 80s before he passed away. I played guitar briefly in school before I got into art and cartooning. My brother is the real musical talent in the family and can play several instruments. He plays lead guitar in the rock band Sancho and played recently at the Home of the Blues (Antone's) among other Austin clubs. We both like Blues, but I'm more into the real old stuff. RangerRod...I had the privaledge of hanging out with Ricky Skaggs for half an hour in 1989 when he visited Clark Air Base, in The Phillippines. Super nice guy and extremely talented.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 12, 2008 14:25:53 GMT -5
Ricky did an album recently with Bruce Hornsby. Seems like an odd pairing, but it worked!
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Post by Don Allen on Jun 12, 2008 14:27:55 GMT -5
I don't think Wills was heavily influenced by Autry. In the 1930s Wills' style evolved from string-band dance music to big-band jazz, and he listened a lot to blues (he was a big fan of Bessie Smith). Probably, like everybody else, he listened to Autry and soaked some of that style up. (And like Autry, Wills was known to cut a pretty risqué cut now and then.) Wills' lead singer in that era, Tommy Duncan, was a big fan of the blues, and influenced heavily by Jimmie Rodgers. Since Bob Wills is a cousin of mine (a couple times removed), we do share the same music-playing ancestry. My grandmother, Wretha Wills, taught me to love good music and taught me to dance to it as well. This manifested itself during my stint as the lead singer for a country band in the early 90's (I played some guitar as well) and continues to be a big part of my life today. I keep telling myself that as soon as my kids grow up just a bit more, I'm going to get something started again.
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Post by Don Allen on Jun 12, 2008 14:29:45 GMT -5
Ricky did an album recently with Bruce Hornsby. Seems like an odd pairing, but it worked! Ricky can do just about anything and have it sound good. I sat in the front row of his USO tour show in 1989 and watched him play no less than 5 different instruments during the course of the show.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 12, 2008 14:30:29 GMT -5
Me too, Don. I've got one married off. Two to go! Jim
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