JAMES BURTON, WITH THE SHINDOGS AND PATTY DUKE, "I'M HENRY THE VIIITH I AM"

James plays a hot solo here, a great example of how he could take a pretty stale song and breathe some life into it with his twangy rock and roll sound. Burton's country playing is generally my favorite stuff by him, but it's always interesting to see how he approaches a melody, no matter how generic the track is otherwise. Burton's work from this period shows how he was a master of the same skill I associate with Nokie Edwards from the Ventures-- the ability to take virtually any tune and attack it from a surf/trash/twang perspective.
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GENE MOLES, UNSUNG PICKER, WITH RED SIMPSON, "DIESEL SMOKE AND DANGEROUS CURVES"

There's plenty of twang from the unsung Gene Moles, on this Red Simpson trucking cut. It may be a Mosrite he's playing here; Moles was the quality control man at Mosrite. (Incidentally, Mosrite and Moles were both based in Bakersfield. I found Gene Moles's name on an early Merle Haggard personnel credit while I was researching Roy Nichols. Apparently Moles also hung out with Nokie Edwards of the Ventures; obviously I need to investigate Gene's work further!)
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ROY NICHOLS, "MAMA TRIED," 1978

Here's a rare live clip of Merle Haggard in 1978. Roy Nichols plays his classic intro lick, and the solo more or less like the original, but then tears into a nifty three-part (with Merle and the saxophonist) western swing version of the melody. (Most likely this was arranged by Eldon Shamblin, visible in the clip.) It's an interesting melding of Merle's earlier Bakersfield style with his Bob Wills influence.
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ROY NICHOLS, "WORKINGMAN'S BLUES," PLUS A BONUS-- TINY MOORE

Here, finally, is some earlier Roy Nichols than I've previously posted. You can buy this clip on the great shoutfactory Haggard dvd "Legendary Performances." (There's not nearly enough Roy on there for my taste, but that's mainly because I want to hear Roy playing five minute solos on every tune. Also, a few clips have Merle on shows without the Strangers. The house bands are still pretty hot, though.)

Here's one from the great period where Roy was still getting a lot of solo space, but you also had Tiny Moore on electric mandolin. (Tiny sounds like he's using phase shifter on this clip-- perhaps everyone won't consider that a bonus, but it sure doesn't stop him from picking a hot solo.)

Note for gear fanatics-- Roy has something that looks like a Charlie Christian pickup in the neck position on his Tele. Should you care? Only you know the answer to that.

WAIT AROUND FOR THE ENDING-- Roy gets in a few more bends at the tag.
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WAYLON, "MENTAL REVENGE"

Here's a great but obscure Mel Tillis song, with Waylon picking a few Tele licks.
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PHIL BAUGH ON MOSRITE WITH FUZZ, GLEN CAMPBELL PICKING ACTUAL COUNTRY MUSIC

Here's a real oddity-- an artifact from the pre-Cambrian Glen Campbell career, when he was picking some serious old-school country. Then you get Phil Baugh with a Mosrite doubleneck and fuzztone-- I like fuzztone in general, but it's a special treat when the hillbilly pickers break out the fuzz. It's always interesting to see what a country picker will do with fuzz, and Phil does a cool whammy bar trick that sounds like a truck revving up. Hot!
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JAMES BURTON FEATURE ON SHINDIG

I would guess there's lots of James Burton pickin' on old Shindig clips. I haven't been able to find much more than this one so far, though.
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UNSUNG PICKERS- GENE SLONE W/DON GIBSON

Excellent solo and fills by Gene Slone. I saw a post where some know-it-all wrote that Hank Garland would have played a better solo, but he guessed Gene Slone did all right. What a bunch of horseshit! No-one digs Hank Garland more than I do; he was arguably the best Nashville guitar picker ever. That doesn't take anything away from Slone's great solo here-- interestingly, he plays a bunch of Hank Garland/Grady Martin single-note fills early on, then plays a solo with pedal steel-like phrasing and tone. The fills later in the song sound like they could be a steel player-- but I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's Slone again. (note for non-players-- it's not easy to get that steel sound on guitar.) It's fun to obsess about the legends like Garland and Martin, and search around for their work, but it's important to remember that for every hot A-list guy, there were hundreds of great pickers yapping at their heels. The fact that producers chose to use the same players on session after session doesn't mean there weren't tons of also-rans that could play "clean as country water," and I'm happy to learn from 'em-- in Nashville, a fourth string guy is often better than the first string in any normal town.
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"WILDWOOD FLOWER," CHET ATKINS

The usual jaw-dropping (yet still mild-mannered) arrangement by the great Chet Atkins. It's interesting to compare this to Maybelle Carter's classic version.

karlstraubguitar.blogspot.com/2009/11/wildwood-flower-maybelle-carter.html
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LLOYD GREEN, WITH CHARLEY PRIDE (LAWRENCE WELK SHOW)

"Just Between You and Me," a honky-tonk weeper (but with some bounce to it!), was a memorable cut on the famous Panther Hall live album. Here's a version from a couple years earlier, with the great Lloyd Green joining Charley Pride on the Lawrence Welk show.
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