#merle travis

[rockincountryblues]

Merle Travis and Cliffie Stone

[mywifeleftme]

273: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band // Will the Circle Be Unbroken

Will the Circle Be Unbroken The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band 1972, United Artists

Who can endure a sentimentalist music critic? Still, this morning anyway, my heart’s fit to weep over a one-hundred-and-ten minutes of exultant roots music and a beautiful idea executed to perfection. The notion behind Will the Circle Be Unbroken was to use the Dirt Band, a crew of talented longhairs from California, as a bridge between the trendy country rock of the day and the genre’s pantheon of avuncularly voiced pioneers. (And I guess in Maybelle Carter’s case ‘aunticularly voiced.’) Many of these sorts of intergenerational tribute projects give me queasy tasting notes of hapless arts council funding or the rap number from Walk Hard, but somehow this triple LP from the heart of rock’s imperial phase manages to be both reverent of traditional country and bluegrass history and present these genres as living organisms.

The Dirt Band are joined by a Field of Dreams cast of legends, plus an adjunct wing of ace players like fiddle genius Vassar Clements, and while the Dirties sneak in one original the focus is squarely on the standards. None of these takes supplant the originals, but the recording fidelity, superlative playing, and warm communal energy make for lovely alternatives. Merle Travis’s “Dark as a Dungeon,” one of the greatest folk and country songs of the century, has never sounded more lovely or doomed; Doc Watson gives Jimmie Driftwood’s “Tennessee Stud” a broad-shouldered boisterousness; Earl Scruggs and the Dirt Band’s John McEuen present the classic fiddle reel “Soldier’s Joy” as an infectious banjo duel. 

Many of the songs include snatches of studio chatter between the band and their guests: Mother Maybelle sounds like the sweetest old thing imaginable; Roy Acuff comes off like as much of a pompous Haven Hamilton-type as I’d always heard he was; Jimmy Martin gives elderly prospector cricket. The tapes are even rolling for the first meeting of guitar legends Travis and Watson, who have an adorably awkward little chat before declaring themselves “buddies.” These peeks into the process are part of Circle’s artifice, but it feels like an honest attempt to capture the historic nature of the summit. The album rounds off with nods to the deep past in the form of a number of Carter family cuts, an homage to bluegrass father “Uncle” Dave Macon, and a group singalong of the spiritual “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” But then, right there at the end, we get 17-year-old Randy Scruggs performing a solo instrumental take on Joni Mitchell’s 1968 “Both Sides, Now.” The symbolism of the teenaged son of Earl Scruggs playing such a recent (and aptly-named) tune is clear, quietly closing the circle between past and present, a pact sealed.

273/365

[giant1956]

Montgomery Clift, Merle Travis, and Burt Lancaster singing on the set of From Here to Eternity, 1953.

[kuiperoid]

They say that a man is made out of mud. A poor man's made out of muscle and blood.

[diet-poison]

Cyberfolkpunk, which is mostly listening to Sixteen Tons and imagining Merle Travis with a cybernetic arm and robo eye

[upperswampmonkey]

Dark As A Dungeon - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band , Merle Travis

[nugothrhythms]

Are there any goth covers of "Sixteen Tons?" I don't care what subgenre (darkwave, gothic rock, trad post-punk, etc); I just want one. If it doesn't exist yet, I give all the musicians following me full permission to rip off this idea.

[countryhixes]

Merle Travis - Too Much Sugar For A Dime

https://youtu.be/DvkppduB5d0 '1951 "Soundie" of Merle Travis & His Westerners featuring Merle on Bigsby guitar with Judy Hayden (vocals), Speedy West (steel guitar) Eddie Kirk (guitar), Jack Rogers (bass), Harold Hensley (fiddle), and Alex Brashear or Danny Auguire (trumpet).'

[fard-rock-blog]

La chitarra elettrica

Con la nascita delle prime orchestre jazz, all’inizio degli anni ’20 del secolo scorso, nacque l’esigenza di aumentare la potenza dell’amplificazione. In particolare il problema si poneva per le chitarre che erano difficilissime da amplificare con dei normali microfoni che, a causa della cassa armonica, tendevano a innescare (effetto larsen). I costruttori iniziarono così a produrre chitarre con…

[jazzdailyblog]

Lenny Breau: The Virtuoso Guitarist Who Redefined Jazz

Introduction: In the realm of jazz guitar, few musicians have left as profound an impact as Lenny Breau. Born eighty-two years ago today on August 5, 1941, in Auburn, Maine, and later moving to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Breau’s musical journey encompassed a wide array of genres, from jazz and country to classical and flamenco. His mastery of the guitar and innovative fingerstyle techniques not only…

[rockincountryblues]

Merle Travis, Hollywood, California, 1946

[mywifeleftme]

241: Merle Travis // The Best of Merle Travis

The Best of Merle Travis Merle Travis 1967, Capitol

Like his contemporary Les Paul, Merle Travis’s influence as a guitar player tends to overshadow his recording career (he’s one of the few alongside Maybelle Carter and Elizabeth Cotten with a style of picking that bears his name), but The Best of Merle Travis makes a fine case for rediscovering his catalogue. His 1947 Folk Songs of the Hills is generally considered to be the first “concept album” in country music, and it remains the natural non-compilation starting point for his music: four traditional songs and four Travis originals depicting Kentucky working life hammering railroad spikes and delving for coal. There weren’t many guitarists in the country world with the kind of dash and sizzle Travis shows off on his version of “John Henry,” while his bluesy “Nine Pound Hammer” highlights his amiable voice, one of the least affected (and thereby least aggressively dated) of his era.

Folk Songs of the Hills’ replay value is a little dinged by the choice to have Travis provide a spoken introduction to each song, and said intros are preserved on the five of its songs found here, but the repetition’s broken up a little by interspersing them with other cuts from his late ‘40s hey day. For those who’ve only listened to Merle’s folk side, the songs may come as a surprise, as they are perky ragtime/Western swing of the sort that once dominated the charts, but is now predominantly sung by nerd women on the lindy hop side of the swing/burlesque binary. They’re lightweight fluff, but fun fluff nonetheless, particularly “Sweet Temptation” and “Steel Guitar Rag.”

The Best of Merle Travis omits the many excellent songs he recorded after 1950, and interested listeners shouldn’t stop here. Still, the songs you’ll find yourself returning to most are those working man’s folk tunes that made his legend. There simply isn’t a better country song than his astonishing original “Dark as a Dungeon,” an instant standard as elemental as the black rock that shortened so many lives in his native Muhlenberg County, nor a better rendition out of thousands than his take on the standard “I Am a Pilgrim.”

241/365

[allmusic]

AllMusic Staff Pick: Merle Travis Merle Travis Guitar

A superb collection of Travis picking from the master himself. At times soothing and wistful, and at other times blisteringly fast and fiery, the guitar work on this series of instrumentals is a showcase of technique, restraint, and just plain showing off. Every track is terrific but the whip-cracking "Bugle Call Rag" and "Walkin' the Strings" stand out as highlights. - Zac Johnson

[one-cd-at-a-time]

Merle Travis (The Merle Travis Guitar / Walkin’ The Strings...Plus)

The Sheik of Araby

This was a LOT of Merle Travis to do in one listen - but I did! It was a long drive - his guitar picking and playing is impressive for sure but I’d recommend one small CD at a time. 

[sonicandvisualsurprises]

1971

After yesterday's quadruple dose of Moliendo Café, here's a triple dose of Sixteen Tons!

While exploring through @beatgoeson's audio archive, I found this fantastic brazilian cover by Noriel Vilela. 16 Toneladas is raw, soulful, and irresistibly catchy.

Chinese pop pioneer Chang Loo (靜心等) had covered it before, in

1956

The song was first recorded by Merle Travis in 1946, but here's a live version from

1958

Noriel Vilela - 16 Toneladas (1971) BRAZIL 45’’ #3