Swing music question. Western

[Miss 1929]

2 more current WS bands:

Cowbop
http://www.cowbop.com

Lost Weekend (what a great name for a band)
http://www.lostweekend.ws/

Also, in the discussion on genres...
I have a paperback book from about 1950, that has a page-long list of all the swing genres at that time. I will dig it up and post some - definitely Hillbilly Swing and Western Swing are different!
And then there's Horror Swing, Circus Swing, the list goes on...
It's a fun book - and amusingly/disturbingly, the photos of performers are segregated by color - probably so they could print it with only white people for distribution in the deep South.

 

[BeBopBaby]

Bob Wills and Spade cooley also made quite a few soundies. If you search for Bob Wills or Spade Cooley on You Tube, you can see a couple of the videos. I like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmfo5h_AX9w

Here's one of Spade:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkM2igp82Ec

And for fun, here are The three Stooges performing a Bob Wills classic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGKvobvlnMU

(Sorry to keep posting, but western swing and classic country music are two genres near and dear to my heart.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

If you want to go back even further than Bob Wills, look up the founding fathers of western swing, Milton Brown and his Brownies -- a group which became very popular in Texas and environs in the early/mid thirties. Some years ago I was asked to authenticate what turned out to be the earliest known recording of a broadcast by this group, dating from 1934, which showed that the basics elements of the style were firmly in place by that time.

An article on the discovery, and a download of the recording itself -- made available by the copyright owners of the disc-- http://thompsonian.info/1934_WRR_Broadcast_Discovered.htm

 

[Forgotten Man]

Milton Brown is great! They have some fun songs they recorded back in the 30s. Fact is, the western culture was very popular during the 20s and 30s that influenced styles and music... Especially in California!

Big Sandy is fun, they're a good band but, I wouldn't classify them as true "Western Swing" they are to me more "Rockabilly" which isn't bad but, to me, the true blue western swingers have a violin, slide guitar, upright bass, and lead guitar.

 

[Talbot]

Love that Western Swing!

Lots of great suggestions made already

Ditto Big Sandy, the Lucky Stars, Spade Cooley, and Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

I was lucky enough to see (by accident) Asleep at The Wheel at SXSW a few years back. They are a great outfit. I defy anyone to stand still when they play 'Tulsa Straight Ahead'.

Cow Jazz are (I think) the house western swing band at the Broken Spoke. They are great live, but their CD's are a bit over produced for my liking.

The Broken Spoke is a great venue, may James White live forever!

Consider also:
Tom Morell and the Time Warp Top Hands
The Light Crust Dough Boys
Ole Rasmussen and his Nebraska Cornhuskers

Reg'ds

Talbot

 

[DutchIndo]

I'm with Caroselvic Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys is what I grew up with.
San Antonio Rose and Rolly Polly are the songs I still hum. Don Burgett mentioned in his book "As Eagles Screamed" a man playing San Antonio Rose on his guitar before the D-Day jump.

 

[Burnsie]

If you want to go back even further than Bob Wills, look up the founding fathers of western swing, Milton Brown and his Brownies

Emphatic Yes - Brown and his Brownies all but invented Western Swing!
Wills and Brown recorded together on what is widely acknowledged to be the first Western Swing record as the Fort Worth Doughboys - the stellar "Nancy Jane" b/w "Sunbonnet Sue" - this is widely available on Western Swing and Bob Wills comps - Bob on fiddle, Milton singing, a new genre is born!!!!!!

 

[Talbot]

Worth a visit pardner.....

http://westernswing78.blogspot.com/

 

[freebird]

Lest anyone forget Bob's brother Johnnie Lee Wills, he also had a band, that while not as famous as Bob's, that was quite good. A must have album for the Bob Wills fan is "Bob Wills - For The Last Time", it featured Merle Haggard on a couple of the songs, and is the last album the Playboys made as Bob died either right before it was finished or just after it was finished.

Another one still doing some swing is George Strait. Admittedly, George only does more country tunes than swing.

I've always been a big Western Swing fan. In High School for my trumpet solo at State I played a rendition of Faded Love, which the judges disliked, said it wasn't a trumpet tune, but the kids that were standing outside the door absolutely loved it. I scored a 2 on it, which wasn't bad (1 was the best).

 

[KittyT]

New WS band I just found out about - JWW and the Prospectors, playing regularly in Austin, TX. Fantastic stuff!

http://www.myspace.com/jwwandtheprospectors