Early Western Swing 78s on Jazz-O-Rama
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| Link Davis |
Bob Wills, Bill Boyd and Al Dexter will be among the country artists who's 78 RPM records will be heard on the this week's The Jazz-O-Rama Hour.
Host Joe Bev presents 78 RPM Jazz with a Sense of Humor: "Early Western Swing", including:
Link Davis - Texas Swing
Milton Brown - I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys - Who Walks In When I Walk Out
Light Crust Doughboys - Blue Guitars
Al Dexter - Saturday Night Boogie
Crystal Spring Ramblers - Fort Worth Stomp
Jimmie Revard & His Oklahoma Playboys- Ride'em Cowboy
The Tune Wranglers - El Rancho Grande
Noel Boggs & His Day Sleepers - Steelin' Home
Light Crust Doughboys - Pussy Pussy Pussy
Red Sovine - Billy Goat Boogie
Cliffie Stone - Silver Stars
Al Dexter - New Broom Boogie
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys - Cowboy Stomp
Bill Boyd and the California Wranglers - Show Me The Way To Go Home
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| The Tune Wranglers |
Link Davis was born in 1914 in Sunset, Montague County, Texas.
One of eight children, he formed a trio with two of his brothers
during the late '20s, playing local dances. A natural musician,
Davis started out playing the fiddle and later took up the
saxophone. He gravitated toward Western swing music when he
turned professional and one of his earliest known steady gigs
was as a member of the Crystal Springs Ramblers, a Fort
Worth-based outfit with which he cut his first record in 1937.
Louis Armstrong's New Orleans,
with Wynton Marsalis:
A Joe Bev Muiscal Sound Portrait
by Joe Bevilacqua Narrated by Joe Bevilacqua, Winton Marsalis, Donald Newlove, Leonard Lopate, Louis Armstrong
Length: 59 min.
Veteran radio producer Joe Bevilacqua hosts this entertaining, informative hour, recorded in the French Quarter of New Orleans and featuring jazz great Wynton Marsalis, jazz author and historian Donald Newlove, WNYC Radio talk show host Leonard Lopate, members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and others, on the origins of jazz, and the life and music of legendary trumpeter Louis Armstrong. Also featured is the music of Armstrong throughout his long career, and rare recordings, including audio from a 1957 CBS TV documentary with Edward R. Murrow.
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Milton Brown (September 7, 1903–April 18, 1936) was an American
band leader and vocalist who co-founded the genre of Western
swing. His band was the first to fuse hillbilly hokum, jazz, and
pop together into a unique, distinctly American hybrid, thus
giving him the nickname, "Father of Western Swing". The
birthplace of Brown's upbeat "hot-jazz hillbilly" string band
sound was developed at the Crystal Springs Dance Hall in Fort
Worth, Texas from 1931 to 1936. Brown's music inspired the great
string jazz musicians from Europe, Django Reinhardt and Stephane
Grapelli who in 1935 formed the Hot Club de Paris quintet.
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| Milton Brown |
Along with Bob Wills—whom he performed with at the beginning of
this career—Brown developed the sound and style of Western swing
in the early 1930s; and for a while he and his band, the Musical
Brownies, were more popular than Bob Wills and his Texas
Playboys. Brown's career was cut short in 1936 when he died in a
car accident, just as he was poised to break into national
stardom.
James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975), better known
as Bob Wills, was an American Western swing musician,
songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as
the co-founder of Western swing,[1][2][3] he was
universally known as the King of Western Swing. Wills formed
several bands and played radio stations around the South and
West until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934 with Wills on
fiddle, Tommy Duncan on piano and vocals, rhythm guitarist June
Whalin, tenor banjoist Johnnie Lee Wills, and Kermit Whalin, who
played steel guitar and bass. The band played regularly on a
Tulsa, Oklahoma radio station, and added Leon McAuliffe on steel
guitar, pianist Al Stricklin, drummer Smokey Dacus, and a horn
section that expanded the band's sound.
The Light Crust Doughboys are western swings longest running
band spanning from 1931 to the present. Over the years ther
group has had many member changes and many of the WS greats had
played with them at one time or another. Their music ranged from
cowboy ballads to all out hot jazz.
Woodrow Wilson Sovine (July 17, 1918 – April 4, 1980), better
known as Red Sovine, was an American country music singer
associated with truck driving songs, particularly those recited
as narratives but set to music. The most famous example was his
1976 number one hit "Teddy Bear".
Al Dexter (May 4, 1905 – January 28, 1984) was an American
country musician and songwriter. He is best known for "Pistol
Packin' Mama," a 1944 hit that was one of the most popular
recordings of the World War II years and later became a hit
again with a cover by Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters.
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| Al Dexter |
Born into a musical Oklahoma family that had fiddled for
generations, Jimmie Revard moved to Texas before he became a
teenager, but honored his home state when he named his band
Jimmie Revard's Oklahoma Playboys. Revard's foray into the
western swing scene of 1930s Texas began at St. Mary's
University and soon after, he recruited the Hofner brothers,
singer/guitarist Adolph and steel guitarist Emil. The band so
impressed a rep from Bluebird Records who had stopped by San
Antonio to hear them that he decided to record them immediately;
"Oh! Swing It" was
released in October 1936. After completing his recording
contract in 1940, he become a San Antonio policeman. After the
war, Revard performed locally, but never made another serious
attempt to record.
During his life, Noel Boggs appeared on some 2,000 recordings as
a soloist, with Bob Wills, Spade Cooley, Jimmy Wakely, Hank
Penny, Bill Boyd, Sheb Wooley, Les Anderson, Merle Travis, Tommy
Duncan's Western All Stars and the Cass County Boys. He worked
on the radio with Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and the Sons of the
Pioneers. He made regular television appearances with Spade
Cooley and on Jimmy Wakely's television show. His motion picture
work included appearances in Rhythm Roundup, Blazing the Western
Trail, Lawless Empire, Frontier Frolic, Everybody's Dancin', and
Out West Teenagers.
The Tune Wranglers formed in 1935, and its original membership
included Buster Coward (vocals, guitar), Eddie Fielding (banjo),
and Charlie Gregg (vocals, fiddle). Fielding was replaced by Joe
Barnes (known as Red Brown) soon after, and around 1936 Eddie
Duncan joined on steel guitar. Fiddler Leonard Seago also played
with the group for a short period. They played most often in
Texas and Mexico, where they received airplay on border radio
stations such as WOAI and KTSA. From 1936 they recorded for
Bluebird Records, both under their own name in English and under
the name Tono Hombres in Spanish. In total, they recorded about
80 tunes, including a session of Hawaiian-style songs with
banjoist/reeds twins Neal & Beal.
Bill Boyd and The Cowboy Ramblers became major stars on radio
and were offered work in Hollywood films and Boyd eventually
appeared in six Western films during the 1940s. One of his other
hits was "If You'll Come Back", No. 4, Jan. 1941. For his
contribution to radio, Bill 'Cowboy Rambler' Boyd has a star on
the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6101 Hollywood Blvd.
Joe Bevilacqua (Joe Bev) has been producing radio in many genres
since 1971 when he was 12. At 19
in 1980, Bev became the
youngest person to produce a radio show for public radio. He
co-hosted The Jazz Show with Garret Gega in the early 80s, a
four hour a week mix classic jazz and comedy. Bev also worked
for WBGO, Jazz 88 in Newark, NJ and produced documentaries for
WNYC New York Public Radio on jazz legends including Louis
Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Cab
Calloway, and Lionel Hampton.
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| Joe Bevilacqua |
Bev also produces, directs, writes and voices half of The
Comedy-O-Rama Hour, which is has been highest rated radio show
on Cult Radio A-Go-Go! for many weeks. Joe Bev's other weekly
radio show, The Jazz-O-Rama Hour debuted at #2.
22 weeks ago, the veteran voice actor added his third hour for
Cult Radio, called The Joe Bev Experience which airs right after
The Jazz-O-Rama Hour.
