Monday, June 15, 2009

HANK GARLAND, WITH DON GIBSON "BLUE, BLUE, DAY"



Hank Garland is one of the prototypes (Jimmy Bryant being another) of the country guitarist who can mix twang and jazz.
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Friday, June 12, 2009

TUXES, BATSHIRTS, THUMBS CARLILLE, A PRETTY BLEARY-EYED ROGER MILLER, ETC.

http://youtu.be/Mc5WLLjsd7c
(NOTE--since posting this, the link with the entire TV appearance has flown. Here's a healthy chunk of it, and there is more on youtube.) 
This clip has Thumbs Carlille, some country-jazz playing, another excellent unsung picker named Jimmy Colvard (he played on Dave Dudley's "Six Days On the Road") and much, much more. There's really too much great music and weirdness to explain. Enjoy, and thank Charlie McCardell for passing this along. (Bill Kirchen passed it to him, evidently.)

I am quite sure I have never seen anything on TV in my life that was as real and strange as this long clip. (I didn't even mention a hung-over Roger Miller.)
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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

SOME BILLY BYRD (FINALLY!)



here's some Ernest Tubb with Billy Byrd. Leon Rhodes came along and took the Billy Byrd style to another level, arguably, but it's important not to forget how perfect and melodic Byrd's lines were. Sort of like Bach, but with twang.

Note-- since I wrote this, I've seen some early (pre-Byrd) clips of Tubb, with Jimmie Short playing some excellent guitar. I'd like to clarify that the "Billy Byrd" style is really Byrd's expansion of the earlier style played by Short and others. I think Byrd really set the standard, though, taking Tubb's style and combining it with a jazzman's familiarity with the whole guitar neck. (Incidentally, I always read that Byrd was really a jazzman at heart, but I haven't heard any recorded evidence that he played jazz. There's plenty of Troubadours stuff where you can hear Leon and Charleton demonstrating jazz chops, but nothing comparable with Byrd, to my knowledge. If anyone out there can enlighten me about this, please do!)
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Thursday, June 4, 2009

THUMBS CARLILLE, "SPRINGFIELD GUITAR SOCIAL"



This is pretty similar to the Phil Baugh showcase I posted a while back, with the bonus that more obscure guitarists are included. Even a sick Speedy West imitation!
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