#Bob Wills

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

Discussing why/how/when it became “cool” to hate Taylor -> country music history lesson from banjo enthusiast about how every decade someone has to come along and “ruin” country music again. For example, in the 40s, Bob Wills ruined country music by daring to add drums. And in the 2000’s, Taylor Swift dared to be a teenage girl.

[principiumindividuationis777]

Roots of Rock and Roll

You have probably seen this or that opinion on the "first" rock and roll record. The problem with most of those opinions is that they are describing the acknowledged era of rock and roll, the era in which Alan Freed and others were calling it by that name.

In reality, music that sounded little different goes back to the 1920's. The first song that might possibly be described as rock and roll comes from an unlikely source: A proto-country musician who goes back so far that his music is called "old time" rather than country, one "Uncle" Dave Macon.

While West African rhythms form the basis of most rock and roll, there were fast fiddle reels (County Donegal, Ireland comes to mind) that had similarly scorching rhythms, and in one song, "Sail Away Ladies" (1927), Macon, originally from Tennessee, released a song that not only had a rockabilly feel and tempo, but included the lyrics, "Don't she rock, daddio?"

"Minnie the Moocher" (1931) by Cab Calloway set the tone for Calloway's career, which, while generally placed in the jazz genre, had sharper syncopation and far edgier lyrics than any jazz in the mainstream, at least in his era.

Bob Wills was the chief innovator of Western swing, from which one Bill Haley later emerged. He grew up in Texas, and unlike most people in a tragically segregated era, was allowed to befriend other children regardless of race, and as such, heard boogie-woogie and similar "fast blues", which African-American musicians in Texas played at a faster tempo than their counterparts in the southeast.

Wills's most proto-rockabilly (or, arguably, rockabilly) song might be "Steel Guitar Rag" (1936). Wills famously said of rock and roll, "Why, man, that's the same kind of music we've been playin' since 1928!"

It may have been of Wills's music that Don Raye (not from Texas) was thinking in the song "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" (1940), with the lyrics, "In a little honky tonky village in Texas". It is often cited as the first rock and roll record, and a case could be made to that effect.

World War II interrupted musical innovation to some extent, that being the least of a generation's concerns, so the final piece of what was rock and roll in everything but name was provided by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup.

Crudup's "That's All Right (Mama)", released in his, the original 1946 version, was not only later covered by Elvis Presley, but contains the first recorded guitar "breaks", adding another, jolting layer of syncopation to the increasingly fast blues of the era. By this time, rock and roll was alive and well, by any name, and so was rockabilly, as a listen to "Freight Train Boogie" (1946) by The Delmore Brothers, demonstrates.

[marjoree]

14 seconds of downtown Smithville on a Saturday night

[lisamarie-vee]

[sixbucks]

Im still trying to stop the senseless acquisition of tshirts.

But I really need this eyeball-scorching DayGlo® design disaster tribute to Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing.

[odk-2]

Asleep at the Wheel - Take Me Back to Tulsa (1999) Bob Wills / Tommy Duncan from: "Ride with Bob (A Tribute to Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys)" (LP)

Western Swing Revival | Bob Wills | Country Music

JukeHostUK (left click = play) (320kbps)

Personnel: Ray Benson: Vocals: Lead and Duet / Guitar Clay Walker: Vocals: Lead and Duet Cindy Cashdollar: Steel Guitar David Biller: Guitar Jason Roberts:Fiddle / Mandolin Chris Booher: Piano David Miller: Bass David Sanger: Drums

Backing Vocals: David Miller / Jason Roberts

Produced by Ray Benson

Album Recorded: @ The Bismeaux Studio (in Austin, Texas) and The Hum Depot Studio Loud Recording Studio Westwood Sound Studio (all Nashville, Tennessee) during June 1998 – March 1999

Album Released: on August 10, 1999

DreamWorks Records

Bob Wills Wikipedia

[wastehound-voof]

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys - Goin' Away Party

[greatgiverparadise]

[justahillbillyfromouterspace]

White Cross on Okinawa ... ... ... 

[oskarlevant]

[msbamamomma]

[principiumindividuationis777]

[sonicandartisticsurprises]

Bob Wills - Santa's On His Way

[lisamarie-vee]

[onceuponatimeinthe70s]

It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Western Swing.

As a teenager in the seventies there was one genre of music I didn’t really take to. Country & Festering – sorry Western. All those plaid shirted cow pokes and lasses with bee hive hair-dos hollering and wailing about life’s myriad of woes. The sort of songs that when you play them backwards you get your dog back, your farm back and your wife back ! I thought Waylon Jennings was uncontrollable…