kenny weir

Yep, Steve, I have a bunch of Krazy Kats. You make some good points. Please note, I also expressed hesitancy about the potential sameness/tedium of the Carter Family, Dave Macon and Louvin sets - as well as the Cliff Bruner. That latter surprised me, given the deserved esteem in which I hold that fiddler, Bob Dunn and and Moon Mullican. Having said that, my Merle Travis, Bob Wills, Hag (2 out of the three anyway), Floyd Tillman, Frankie Miller and Jimmie Davis multi-disc sets all feature what I consider to be major artists. And there is so much outstanding music and so much diversity that they certainly don't suffer from the somewhat inevitable flaws you detail. Note also my eager embracing Bear Family's Gonna Shake This Shack series. Do I need a box set by Jimmie Skinner or Skeets McDonald or Hank Snow? No. Do their cherry-picked single disc comps thrill me to bits? Yep. Note also that before detailing my relatively modest list of boxes I did also detail my single disc purchases from recent years and before - numbering 18 in all. Yes, yes - the Troubadors and McAuliffe discs are great! Going by a couple of replies here, and perhaps even for my self, it seems there is a tendency to think Bear Family=box sets. That's actually not the case.

No.

Um, a question: How does it hold together as a package, mixing the early King/Federal stuff with the later Cotillion/Shelter material? There are plenty of good comps of the early stuff available. Besdies, what about the Buck Owens set? Pretty much top of my wishlist that is ...

And some very hot tips for the new year ... Big Jeff Bess - Tennessee Home Brew The Browns - A Country Music Odyssey And then there's recent Sons Of The Pioneers box, and two boxes devoted to George Jones's Musicor recordings, not to mention the Freddie King box, as well as one featuring the complete Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, and also a box of the complete Charlie Rich on Sun and ... Damn! But I guess I'll let the John Wayne box - 10 cds, 1 dvd, 464-page book - pass.

Used to own the Farmer Boys on vinyl. Not sure it'd really do the trick for me these days. I have the earlier 4-Star & Pacemaker tracks - fantastic raw stuff - on a double CD on Acrobat, so can live without the later (Decca?) Pierce hits on Wondering Boy.

Not for the first time in my life Bear Family is taking a big whack of my time in terms of listening, money, online browsing, researching and pulling of triggers. The outfit is so broad and diverse that there’s no way I could claim to be holus bolus in love with all of it, as opposed to maybe Mosaic or Jazz Oracle. Nope, not interested in Doris Day or Bonanza box sets, or even Nat King Cole. There’s a few rockabilly releases I’d like get familiar with again – Johnny Brunette Trio, Sid King maybe – but by and large I find straight-out rockabilly near unlistenable these days. But for my areas of interest – honky tonk, western wing, hillbilly boogie and so on, with a nod to old-timey and bluegrass – it sometimes seems that there’s not a Bear Family release out there that will not provide at the very least some interest and at best jump-for-joy delirium. And unlike, say, Ace (who have also been getting a fair whack of my custom), BF always has full recording/personnel details. And with BF there’s always the thrill of knowing the next revelation is just around the corner! Here’s what I picked up in the run-up to Christmas … The Texas Troubadours – Almost To Tulsa: The Instrumentals Simply incredible! Backin’ the boss, Ernest Tubb, these guys were kept on a pretty tight – if very tasty – leash. Here they sizzle. Smokin’ pedal steel and lead guitar, particularly from Buddy Charleton and Leon Rhodes. There’s a whole CD at the rear end of the third final Hag BF box of the Strangers doing the same sort of stuff – but nowhere near as compellingly as this. IMO. On a couple of tracks the Troubadours veer towards bachelor pad/lounge territory, but that’s cool with me, too. Unreservedly recommended to diggers of Hank Garland, Speedy West/Jimmy Bryant and so on, but also fans of Hank Roberts and Tal Farlow, and anyone interested in checking out the roots of Area Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry. Ernest Tubb – Thirty Days Picked this up at the same time after a year or so of prevarication. The Bear Family Tubb boxes stretch to five, comprising 30 discs. So it was time get real and admit I was never going to go that far, even had I the money! There’s a Proper box, but that would’ve restricted me the early stuff only. Thus it seems clear this is the best single-disc available – and it sounds great. Like all in the BF Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight series, it puts the emphasis on uptempos, rockers and groovers. But not exclusively. (Arguing the toss on country music at the weekend with a buddy, he admitted that when it comes to country he prefers, erm, Gillian Welch, John Prine and even Neil Young, and that what he called that “catch” or “cry” in the voice of Hag and his ilk was always going to be a deal-breaker for him. My response was that if you don’t dig that kind of voice – God knows what he’d have thought if I’d spun some Tubb for him – and if you have a problem with novelty tunes, drinking songs, cowboy tunes, Bible-thumping gospel outings, sickly sweet sentimentality as found on Wayne Raney’s The Child’s Side Of Life or Fuzzy-Wuzzy Teddy Bear by Hal “Lone” Pine/Betty Cody (see below), wailing steel guitars (pedal and otherwise), endless tributes to southern culture, well … you may be loving some fine artists, but you sure as hell ain’t digging country. IMO. Take all that stuff away and it’s no longer country.) (In some ways I feel lucky to be free of all the baggage that seems to accompany country for many people, including it seems many Americans … Another mutual friend of ours once confessed that the sound of bluegrass made her feel ill.) But back to specifics … Leon McAuliffe – Tulsa Straight Ahead (Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight series) Wow, wow, wow! This has blown me away. Capitol ’50s recordings from Bob Wills’ steel man. Nothing all that original here, but it all swings and rocks. More slick than the Wills recordings on which Leon performed – and more in line with the R&B-tinged cuts available by Billy Jack Wills. Great and hot fiddle, steel guitar and vocals. Leon Payne – I Love You Because This one had been calling to me for a while, so it’s sad to report I’ve been a little underwhelmed. A hugely successful songwriter (viz the title track right through to Jim Reeves), Payne turns in a mixed bag of honky tonk and related stuff. One for the true believers (which is me), but not essential. Other goodies in my Bear Family collection … Hank Snow – The Goldrush Is Over (Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight series) Ah, yes, bliss, another blind spot eradicated. I don’t know why I spent four decades of country fandom without ever really checking out Snow – maybe (shamefully) because in my mind’s eye there was some sort of connection between Snow and the likes of the aforementioned Jim Reeves. Silly! Anyways, this does the job – rocking, wailing brilliance from beginning to end. Especially surprising are Snow’s own acoustic guitar breaks. He ain’t no virtuoso, but perfection doesn’t always require that level of genius. Which is no doubt genius of a kind, too. Like Tubb, Snow is covered by multiple box sets – a whole lot too much for me, although the set showcasing the Thesaurus transcriptions of Snow doing his own material and covers with his own band has profound appeal. I’m more likely to spring for one or two of the recent releases that are thematically presented - railroad tunes, cowboy songs, Hawaian stuff. Hal Lone Pine/Betty Cody – On The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine More from Canada. Straight-up mixed bag but almost always with a twist that contrats it from the mainstream US product of the times. Lovely! Montana Slim/Wilf Carter – The Dynamite Trail Another Canadian! My country adventures of recent years could well be sub-titled “How Kenny Learned To Chill Out And Love The Yodel”. But that might be going a bit too far. More like “Kenny Learns To Live With The Yodel”. In any case, there’s wall-to-wall yodelling here, a single disc I chose to get to grips with this particular artist. I dunno – maybe some earlier stuff might be more my go, but this is too slick/formulaic for me, yodelling aside. Frankie Miller – Blackland Farmer (The Complete Starday Recordings and More …) Whooeeee – three discs of unrepentant honky tonk brilliance. Many of these sides are, I’m guessing, among the last with Nashville fire before countrypolitan doused the flames. Like fellow Starday artist George Jones, Miller writes little but has a genius for making other’s lyrics his own and so believable one simply falls into the song. A prime example: Baby Rocked Her Dolly – in which an old codger in a rest home looks back on his life – is pure dynamite. There’s a single BF release of Miller’s earlier recs for Columbia, more in the Hank mould. (Hey, hey – the magic of subliminal listening! As I’m bashing this out, Leon Payne is sounding better by the minute! Similarly, I find that when doing such a banal time-wasting thing as playing computer solitaire, I often pick up details in the music that have previously passed me by.) Benny Barnes – Poor Man’s Riches (The Complete 1950s Recordings) More Texas honky tonk schtick a la Miller/Jones. Some great, some good, some pretty awful really. Not essential. Jess Willard – Honk Tonk Hardwood Floor One of those BF releases on which I simply took a punt, with spectacularly enjoyable results. Lisping former sidekick of Jack Guthrie doing one-of-a-kind west coast honk tonk/hillbilly. Weird, surreal, essential. And absolutely one of THOSE voices seemingly calculated to give the screaming shits to those who dig, say, the likes of Shania “Ball Of Twine”. Gene O’Quin – Boogie Woogie Fever Ah, re-acquainted with another old friend. And another one of THOSE voices. Irresistibly enjoyable west coast jive with beaucoup Speedy West, Jimmy Bryant, Merle Travis and so on. The musical equivalent of a shit-eating grin. Jimmy Swan – Honky Tonkin’ In Mississippi The liners notes make quite a bit of Swan’s campaign for the Miss. Governorship on a segregationist platform. So what? Heaven forbid we stop listening to music for such reasons. Real, real hardcore honky tonk in the Hank Williams mould. Jack Guthrie – Milk Cow Blues One of three BF Guthrie releases, this features him and his band doing covers such as Muleskinner Blues, San Antonio Rose, Peach Picking Time In Georgia and so on. Really fine, but the Oklahoma Hills CD is probably the better pick in terms of Guthrie’s individual talent/voice. That’s on my wishlist. Jimmy Murphy - Electricity Brilliant beyond words. Right up there with the likes of Monk, Longhair, Howlin’ Wolf, Roger Miller in terms of one-off American genius. Roger Miller – Kings Of The Road Speaking of which … quite an old release by now (1990), but still the best single disc comp as far as I know. Skeets McDonald – Heart Breakin’ Mama Jimmie Skinner – One Dead Man Ago As with the Hank Snow and Ernest Tubb single-disc comps, these gonna Shake This Shack releases cherry pick in sublime fashion multi-disc box sets. These’ll do me for these two fine artists. More essential stuff. Jimmie Skinner has the laudable knack of doing a relatively modern honky tonk style with a real old-timey feel. A fair bet, too, he's an influence on Bob Dylan. Skeets is simply classic and about as hard as country gets - mostly a mix of Nashville cats and pre-Hag Bakersfield. Hawkshaw Hawkins – Car Hoppin’ Mama Eddie Hill – The Hot Guitar Two more Gonna Shake This Shack release. The Hawkins is genial, rocking and pure ambrosia, with the vocals more in the Merle Travis/Johnny Mercer vein. The Eddie Hill is good fun along the Hot Rod Lincoln lines, but not essential. Harry Choates – Devil In The Bayou (The Gold Star Recordings) 2 cds Link Davis – Big Mamou Two more American heroes, sort-of Cajuns both. Essential, both of ’em – heaps of wailing fiddles, swing, cajun, rockabilly and much more. And, of course, Kenny has boxes … Merle Travis - Guitars Rags And A Too Fast Past His Capitol classics - couldn’t live without it. Genius/loon/jiver all in one. Bob Wills – San Antonio Rose Ditto. Various – A Shot In The Dark/Tennessee Jive Heavyweight comp of early Nashville labels. Fabulous. The Blue Sky Boys – The Sunny Side Of Life Far and away my fave sibling harmony outfit. And, yes, couldn’t live without it. But … there is an undeniable sameness about the tempos, keys, lyric content and so on. Would make me hesitant about picking the Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon and Louvin Bros sets, even if I could afford them. Merle Haggard – Untamed Hawk/Hag Another blind spot joyfully banished. I’m a Johnny-come-lately when it comes to Hag, but with these two boxes I’ve become a zealot. Why are Johnny Cash and Gram Parsons, just for example, so revered in rock circles when Hag’s associated with Okie From Muskogee and not much else? Merle Haggard – Hag: Concepts, Live & The Strangers Not nearly as compelling as the Capitol studio tracks covered in the first two boxes, but has its moments. But not the gospel stuff, which is frankly bloody awful. Floyd Tillman – I Love You So Much It Hurts Founding father of honky tonk along with Tubb and Williams. Unsung giant/genius. And another one-of-a-kind a la Longhair and Monk and so on. Jimmie Davis - Nobody’s Darlin’ But Mine Louisiana Governor-to-be does much country smut and hard-grinding blues with Oscar Woods on steel. Cliff Bruner And His Texas Wanderers This was pretty much the beginning of my born-again interest in this area. But despite having large amounts of Bob Dunn and Moon Mullican, I find there is something ho-hum about this as a whole. Geez, that sound sacreligious even to me! Bill Monroe – Blue Moon Of Kentucky Has the duets with Charlie, the tremendous proto-bluegrass with accordian and classic early cuts with Flatt & Scruggs. As well as two discs of alternate takes. But it is the earlier four-disc box of the ’50s Decca stuff with Jimmy Martin that I really covet. Maddox Brothers & Rose – The Most Colourful Hillbilly Band In America Slightly silly impulse buy, as it has plenty of the band’s whacko rocking stuff, but also unfortunately also plenty of Rose’s routine but still enjoyable Nashville cuts. I even have non-country boxes … Duke Ellington – Live From The Cotton Club Smiley Lewis - Shame Shame Shame I got this 2nd hand here in Melbourne. As I walked to the counter, a smartass quipped: “I always wanted to see what someone who wanted four discs by Smiley Lewis looked like.” Idiot! Four discs, sure, but larded with not just one of great blues singers but also plenty of other Crescent City greats such as Tuts Washington and many more. Basically replaces the stuff I used to own on vinyl in another time, if not another place. Kenny’s wishlist … Gonna Shake This Shack tonight series: Johnny Horton, Faron Young, Cowboy Copas and many more. Multi-disc boxes: Marty Robbins western/cowboy set, Speedy West Jimmy Bryant, Darby & Tarlton. Plenty curious about: Tex Ritter, Gene Autry and literally dozens more. Bear Family – the fun way to poverty. Tips and recommendations most welcome!

Nah, stuff that!

Yup.

Damn I hate it - 40C + in Melbourne. AC just ain't cutting it. Cold bath here I come. Too hot to put on a CD.

Wishing that Armstrong had been - at this point - involved in some sort of collaboration of the Gil/Miles nature seems to me less like a case of not underestimating the man's genius and more like misinterpreting the nature of that genius.

which is, of course absurd and you seem to be missing my original and somewhat more modest point which was that it would have been interesting and possibly very productive if Armstrong had recorded with charts by the likes of Jimmy Mundy, Eddie Durham, Sy Oliver, gosh - maybe even Duke himself, Jerry Gray, Eddie Sauter and so on.....(yes - I know he recorded with Oliver later on). There's little in Louis' recorded output from this period that I haven't heard many times over (even Elder Eatmore) - probably more times than you've had hot dinners - and as far as I'm concerned they are mostly good, sometimes great performances by him - and I get it that Glaser and Kapp were marketing what they thought of as a a pop star. But Louis was also more than that and to say that the arrangements are not always top notch and equal to his talent hardly seems to me to amount to 'misunderstanding the entire nature of African American entertainment' I trust you're not out on that slippery slope that resounds to the slogan "It's All Good" which we hear increasingly these days. Finally - to throw Kenton into the mix is, with respect, a bit pathetic. For the past six months or so, I've been digging pretty much nothing but purebred vintage honky tonk, hillbilly boogie, western swing, old timey, bluegrass, pre-war blues of various stripes and so on. But the Louis Mosaic - thanks Lon! - is a near daily pleasure, too. After living with the set since release, and hammering it a lot lately, more than ever I thoroughly disagree with the gist of the above post - chosen as representing the meat of one aspect of this thread. The idea that Armstrong would have been better served by arrangers, charts and so on "equal to his talent" - as if! - is enough to make me shudder. I adore this as it is - which is to say perfect, notwithstanding the odd bit of quirkiness and/or weirdness! It's all "what if" stuff, of course, but putting the man is a supposedly more challenging setting - "equal to his talent"! - seems to me to be missing the point completely. In fact, such a mindset for mine would have likely have had just the opposite effect.

Do you mean "District 9"? If so I agree. I liked Avatar and had a good time but in some ways (even technically) was more impressed with District 9. No, I mean this one: http://www.madman.com.au/9/

Saw it. Liked it, without getting that excited. A few days later caught 9, which also deals with SF/Fantasy themes but in a whole different way.. My, my - much better! Creepy, grim, bleak, groovy in a sort Gormenghastian/Perdido Street Station way.

If so, not on the basis detailed here - IMO. Now, the dreams concerning my father - 10 years gone the old bugger is, and they still happen, with me waking in a cold sweat - that's anutha matter entirely.

One of my most memorable - and one of the few rememberable - dreams ... I dreamed I WAS Professor Longhair, playing sheer magic for an outdoor amphitheatre full of in-the-groove fans. At least 25 years ago, I'd guess, it was. But I still remember vividly how cool it felt ...

Oi, you forgots Kiwis! Baaaaaa!

Whatever Hunter's singing problems, my understanding is that he was responsible for the lyrics, rather than the melodies and so on. So let's just accept - nay, rejoice! - in the knowledge the GD had/have warbling limitations, except for the odd purple patch. I'm still waiting for the mother of all box sets - The Maternity Leave Sessions.

Nice paint job!

Called The Complete Decca Sessions on American Music. I have the same stuff on a Document CD called The Complete Deccas, Victors and V Discs Plus Alternate Takes November 1945 to January 1946. Have just done a comparison. Don't know the sound of the recent AM reissue, but it appears to have just 4 tracks + many alternates of same, so the Document would appear to be the better buy. Very Good! As my neigbours were blessed to find out this morning when it was the blastin' soundtrack to my begrudged clearing of rampant spring growth on our front-yard trees. Out of tune pianos that I don't care about - just like on some of those live Blue Note dates - and minus that boxy Bill Russell sound.

Has it already been mentioned? The Louis Armstrong Mosaic. Going to be the soundtrack for the big pot of read beans and rice I'm about to cook for Sunday supper!

Watching a couple of A-League games tonight, one of the commentators quoted a headline in the Brit press referring to the relatively soft draw for England: "Best group since the Beatles" Haw!

Australia got no help from the mighty Gods Of The Draw. NZ maybe not so bad. But it doesn't matter. We're there (I feel privileged to have two teams in South Africa), most of the world isn't and crazy shit happens! Bring it on!

Yes, that's what I figured, too. Even if there are alt takes involved, it's too much like the 2cd singles set for me - much as I love it.

I want to hear that (bit slow on the uptake) What's the best bet?

Whoa ... my comments re Johnson & Lewis was directed only at their seeming dominance of the Jazzology catalogue. Which is why I much appreciate hearing other artists, such as Herb Morand. The Johnson/Lewis American Music outings are some of the most atmospheric recordings I have - warts and all! In fact, IMO the loping King Of The Blues is one of the most New Orleans records of all.