Tuesday, January 18, 2000
'Cowfolk' CD sounds good till the cows come home
BY LARRY NAGER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Carlos Santana isn't the only music veteran looking for a big night at the Grammys on Feb. 23. Western swing revivalist Ray Benson scored six nominations for Ride With Bob, his group Asleep At the Wheel's multi-artist tribute to Bob Wills' Texas Playboys.
But even that eclectic CD, mixing the Dixie Chicks' pop-bluegrass with the Squirrel Nut Zippers' Dixieland horns, barely touched the Texas-sized stylistic sweep of western swing.
This new, bargain-priced boxed set provides the most varied and detailed look at that omnivorous style, digesting blues, jazz, hoedowns, pop ballads, Hawaiian music, polkas, boogie woogie and even classical music. No genre other than rock, which owes a huge debt to western swing, has encompassed so many sounds. And as all those Grammy nominations prove, western swing is still rocking the house in 2000.
Bob Wills is well represented here, appearing on a dozen of the 99 songs, including his debut recordings, 1932 sessions he made with the Fort Worth Doughboys. That group featured Mr. Wills on fiddle and vocal harmony, while the lead singer was his future rival bandleader Milton Brown.
Mr. Brown went on to head the Musical Brownies, the Western swing Rolling Stones to Mr. Wills' Beatles. The short-lived Brownies (bandleader Brown was killed in a 1936 auto accident) also get good play here.
But while the better known bands are featured, and such hits as Tex Williams' “Smoke Smoke Smoke (That Cigarette),” Al Dexter's “Pistol Packin' Mama” and Spade Cooley's “Shame on You” are included, Doughboys, Playboys and Cowboys is also packed with great, lesser-known groups.
There's the hot jazz of the Hi-Flyers' “Whatcha Gonna Do?”, the Hawaiian-flavored pop of the Modern Mountaineers “Mississippi Sandman,” the Jewel Cowboys' bilingual Tex-Mex take on “My Untrue Cowgirl.”
Cincinnati's own king of western swing, Hank Penny, a star of local radio in the '40s and a King recording artist, is here. So is the early version of the Sons of the Pioneers, featuring a young Roy Rogers, a year away from becoming a star.
But most of the musicians hail from Texas and Oklahoma. Instead of the Pioneers' sweet harmony, these groups owe more to the jazzier, bluesier sounds of the Memphis Jug Band and Louis Armstrong.
Western swing's great soloists, such as steel guitarists Bob Dunn, Leon McAuliffe and Joaquin Murphey and pioneering electric guitarist Zeke Campbell, are showcased. But the evolution of the music can be plainly seen in the 1932-1947 period covered here. Western swing may have started off as a honky tonk offshoot of hot jazz, but by the time of Hank Thompson's “Humpty Dumpty Heart,” the music found commercial paydirt as standard country & western.
Today, thanks to Asleep At the Wheel and newer groups like BR5-49 and Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, western swing is swinging again. If you want to hear what it was like the first time around, there's no better place than Doughboys, Playboys and Cowboys.
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'Cowfolk' CD sounds good till the cows come home
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