Search - Bob Wills :: Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 9: 1946-47

Sentimental Journey is worth the price! This is the real dea

Tony Thomas | SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA | 07/13/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Incidentally, if you like the Hot Club of Cowtown, this is the period of Bob Wills music that most of their Western Swing tunes seek to replicate. Elana really has studied the great fiddling of Jim Joe Holly and Louis Tierny on these records, and Whit has really listened to the electric mandolin playing of Tiny Moore as well as the guitar playing of Junior Bernard and Eldon Shamblin. The Tiffanies are extra special. I can remember in the 1970s, when a friend of a friend of a friend who had some of the original transcriptions made some copies for me, and I carried them around like precious family heirlooms when I moved, never packed but always in my coat pockets. The transcriptions were made to be played on radio stations, at a time when Radio Stations didn't normally play regular records. They were all done quickly whenever the band was in the Oakland-San Fransisco area over the years of the mid 1940s. People I know who heard the Texas Playboys live in the 1940s and 1950s say these recordings come closer to what the band actually sounded like compared to their releases on Columbia and later MGM. For one thing, they weren't forced to record mostly original songs, but could sample a broad repertoire. One of the good things about the Tiffanies, is that Will recorded all of his old recordings and you get to hear them with new personnel. Wills' Playboys stay hot and heavy. There is none of the sweet swing, "businessman's bounce" that the Hollywood based Western swing contingent of the 1940s typified by Spade Cooley and Hank Penny. This is all down and dirty, bluesy, jazzy, music played hard with the combined abandon of Dixieland Jazz, West Texas Ranch Dance, and swing blues. For my money, the version of Sentimental Journey here is 100,000 miles away from the then current original version by Dinah Shore with Les Brown's Band of Renown. Somehow with Tommy Duncan's singing being blow over into the blues by the tremendous blues guitar playing of Lester Barnard Junior, the song becomes a funky western blues. All the blues on this album are especially dirty, funky, and hot in a way they were not on the commercial recordings. This is due to a lot of combinations that were not recorded in the band. This is especially true for the innovative, hard core electric guitar player, Lester Barnard Jr. He was a moody and impulsive guy much like the great Joacquim Murphy who played with Spade Cooley. Jr. would play with the band and then go off somewhere in Central California like Bakersfield or Fresno, join another band, or set up his own band, get tired of that and come back and join Bob Wills, go off and come back again. When he came he would either join Eldon on the guitar, or Eldon would just manage the band and work on the arrangements. When Junior played he was the star of the show. "Rough it up Blonde tiger, That's my man, our little floor show," Wills was won't shout when Junior's bluesy solos would rock the band. This and all the other Tiffanies are so great, you need them all!
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More From the King of Western Swing...

Michael P. Higgins | New Orleans, LA | 09/27/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've never heard a bad Bob Wills collection, though some are better than others. While this might not be the album with which to start your Western Swing collection, it can serve as a great addition. In particular, I think the versions of "In the Mood," "Texas Playboy Rag," and "St. Louis Blues" give the casual Western Swing listener a good idea of the origins of the syle. For the newbie, try Vol 2 of the Tiffany Transcriptions."