Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

The second article in the history of country music covered the trends and artists of the depression and pre-war years, 1930-41. Here we’ll look at some of the songs of the era. The photo on the cover comes from a superb series of colour photos from the US in the 1930s and ’40s.

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Rock & roll grew out of R&B and various shades of country, especially rockabilly, a sub-genre that peaked in the 1950s. But what is widely regarded as the first rockabilly number dates back to 1939, Buddy Jones’ Rockin’ Rollin’ Mama. It”s a futile exercise to identify “the first-ever rock & roll record”, but any list of contenders must include Rockin’ Rollin’ Mama.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll” features shockingly few early country songs. One that is included is Jimmie Rodgers Blue Yodel No. 9, recorded in 1930 with Louis Armstrong, marking the first instance of a white country singer collaborating with a black musician. As the title suggests, the collaboration with Satchmo was preceded by eight blue yodels, which introduced an Alpine musical form into the crazy stew that also included influences as diverse as Hawaiian sounds and 18^th-century folk ballads from England. By collaborating with Armstrong, Rodgers also helped to introduce jazz to the mix, which would find fuller expression with the rise of western swing.

While Blue Yodel starts our 2-CD set, Red Foley’s Old Shep of 1941 almost bookends it. The maudlin ballad about a child’s dying dog is not really very good (and the sound quality here isn’t great), but it also merits consideration in the development of rock & roll for helping to inspire a pre-pubescent Elvis Presley of Tupelo, Mississippi to take up music. In fact, Old Shep was the first song Elvis ever sang in public, at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show in Tupelo in October 1945 (he placed fifth in the talent show). After becoming a rock & roll sensation, Elvis paid tribute to the song he once was obsessed with by recording it.

The terribly arbitrary and incomplete Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list also includes Roy Acuff’s Wabash Cannonball — one of the many train songs in country. A folk song from the late 19^th century originally recorded by the Carter Family in 1929, it was Acuff’s breakthrough hit, launching a career that spanned four decades. In 1948 he reluctantly ran for governor of Tennessee on a Republican ticket (the idea initially was a publicity stunt), but lost to two-time governor Gordon Browning, who won 67% of the vote.

One country singer who did become a governor was Jimmie Davis, who governed Louisiana as a Democrat for two non-consecutive stints (1944-48, 1960-64). Davies’ signature tune, You Are My Sunshine, now is Louisiana’s state song. He even claimed to have written it as a school boy, but that is untrue (imagine that, a politician who tells lies). It was written by the Rice Brothers Gang of Shreveport, Louisiana but first recorded on 22 August 1939 by the Pine Ridge Boys of Atlanta. Davies, who recorded his version in 1940, put his co-composer credit on the song after buying the rights to it from the Rice brothers. At campaign rallies, Davies would sing the song while riding a horse called, of course, Sunshine.

Bob Wills had been co-inventing western swing for a few years before he scored his first national hit with New San Antonio Rose, a reworking of his 1938 instrumental song (his use of drums and horns when performing his hit at the Grand Ole Opry caused quite a bit of a stir in Nashville). Arguably the more influential Wills song, however, was 1936’s Steel Guitar Rag, written by Leon McAuliffe, which was pivotal in popularising the steel guitar, which gives country the Hawaiian sound (the steel refers to the slide held in the hand that holds the frets).

Roy Rogers is among Hollywood’s singing cowboys of the movies featured here (though songs by the original singing movie cowboy, Ken Maynard, are quite difficult to find). Rogers was a founder in 1933 of the Sons of the Pioneers. The original pioneers are long gone, but new generations of pioneers are keeping the name alive even now, led by Luther Nallie, who joined the group in 1968. But back in the ’30s, Rogers soon left for the big screen while the Sons of the Pioneers became both country staples and performers on the big screen, including the 1942 movie with Rogers named after the band. They recorded the first version of Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds — written by bandmember Bob Nolan, who first named it Tumbling Tumble Leaves — before Gene Autry made it famous. For his part, Autry was the first to record the standard That Silver-Haired Daddy Of Mine in 1931. A later compilation will feature the Sons’ other great original, 1946’s Cool Water (also written by Nolan).

Woody Guthrie (pictured) was regarded as a country singer before folk music went its own way. Guthrie of course influenced generations of folk singers; indeed, he spearheaded the folk movement with acolytes such as Pete Seeger. It arguably reached its zenith with the output of Bob Dylan in the 1960s. Dylan also owed a lot to the repository of blues and country. Other than Guthrie, it is evident that Dylan listened much to the original Carter Family. Their rendition of a traditional hymn, Can The Circle Be Unbroken, was covered by Dylan and many others (Carl Perkins also borrowed the chorus for his Daddy Sang Bass, later covered by Johnny Cash with the help of June Carter). Dylan adopted several traditional folk songs, including the Appalachian ballad Pretty Polly for Ballad Of Hollis Brown.

Lastly, Gid Tannen and his Skillet Lickers might have been the first disco musicians: in the introduction to Soldier’s Joy Breakdown, Tannen makes reference to shakin’ booties before his band launches into a remix of the song they first recorded in 1929.

TRACKLISTING
1. Uncle Dave Macon – All In Down And Out Blues
2. Wade Mainer & Zeke Morris – Train Carry My Gal Back Home
3. Arthur Smith Trio – Indian Creek
4. Lee O’Daniel and his Hillbilly Boys – Mellow Mountain Moon
5. Hackberry Ramblers – Cajun Crawl
6. Hoosier Hot Shots – Breezin’ Along With The Breeze
7. Roy Rogers – Hi Ho Silver
8. Bill Boyd and his Cowboy Ramblers – Jig
9. Coon Creek Girls – Banjo Pickin’ Girl
10. Hank Penny’s Radio Cowboys – Cowboy’s Swing
11. The Tune Wranglers – Dixie Moon
12. Patsy Montana with the Prairie Ramblers – Big Moon
13. Light Crust Doughboys – Gin Mill Blues
14. Roy Acuff and the Crazy Tennesseans – Wabash Cannonball
15. Buddy Jones – Rockin’ Rollin’ Mama
16. Swift Jewel Cowboys – Willie The Weeper
17. Cliff Bruner’s Texas Wanderers – Waiting At The End Of The Road
18. The Pine Ridge Boys – You Are My Sunshine
19. Jimmie Davis – Born To Be Blue
20. Delmore Brothers – Wabash Blues
21. Roy Acuff – Old Age Pension Check
22. Louise Massey and the Westerners – Put Your Little Foot Right Out
23. Bob Wills and his Texan Cowboys – New San Antonio Rose
24. Carter Family – My Home Among The Hills
25. Woody Guthrie – Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues
26. Blue Sky Boys – Brown Eyes
27. Tex Ritter – Good-Bye My Little Cherokee
28. Red Foley – Old Shep
29. Texas Jim Lewis – Old Fashioned Hoedown

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The titles of posts in this series may be a bit confusing. They will refer to the timespan covered in the mixes. But this post looks at the era from about 1930 to about 1941. The next post will include the 1937-41 mix, but the text will be a sidebar to this article, also referring to 1930-41. I hope that makes sense…

Record sales collapsed dramatically with the Depression, with sales dropping from 104 million in 1927 to just 6 million in 1932. Some records still sold prodigiously, of course. Gene Autry’s That Silver-Haired Daddy Of Mine (released in 1931 but becoming a mega-hit a couple of years later, it is sometimes considered the first honky tonk record, a decade before hat sub-genre really took hold) sold a million copies, as did Patsy Montana’s 1935 hit I Want To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart.

The 1930s saw the rise of the singing cowboys, combining the motion pictures with records. There had been singing cowboys before, like Carl Sprague, and the frontier ballads (lovingly collected in the 1910s by John Lomax) contributed to the country repertoire. The breakthrough, however, came with the movie cowboys. The first was Ken Maynard, but more successful were Autry, Tex Ritter (father of the late actor John Ritter) and Roy Rogers, perhaps the most commercially savvy of the lot. Various other country stars made cameos in Hollywood, including Patsy Montana, Pee Wee King, Red Foley, Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb and Jimmie Davis. The movie cowboy imagery had an enduring influence, especially in the Stetson hats that periodically become obligatory country uniform and the garish rhinestoned outfits taken to a ludicrous extreme in the 1960s by Porter Wagoner. The genre produced non-film hits as well, such as The Sons of the Pioneers’ Tumbling Tumbleweeds. The genre has made periodic comebacks, led by the likes of Marty Robbins in the 1950s and Willie Nelson in the ’70s. Apart from Patsy Montana (from Bill Clinton’s hometown of Hope, Arkansas), there were singing cowgirls too, such as Louise Massey and Kitty Lee.

The era was a good time for harmonising sibling acts such as the Monroe Brothers (future bluegrass legend Bill and brother Charlie), the Allen Brothers, The Blue Sky Boys, the Delmore Brothers, and the Coon Creek Girls (three of whose five members were the Ledford sisters).

A massively influential form of country that infused the genre with jazz, blues and pop had its origins in the 1930s: western swing, a term that would be coined only in 1944. Its progenitor was Milton Brown. Brown had just found success when he was killed in a car crash in 1936 at the age of 33. Bob Wills, a member in Brown’s previous band, took the baton and popularised western swing. The charismatic fiddler (who adds the cartoonish falsetto asides in the records) and his Texas Playboys — with their country string and swing horn sections — had enduring success, but had their biggest hit early: 1940’s New San Antonio Rose, with Tommy Duncan on vocals. 1940s country legend Merle Travis defined western swing this way: “Western Swing is nothing more than a group of talented country boys, unschooled in music, but playing the music they feel, beating a solid two-four rhythm to the harmonies that buzz around their brains. When it escapes in all it musical glory, my friend, you have western swing.” When rock & roll broke big in the 1950s, Wills caustically remarked that he and his likes had been playing that already in the 1930s. Arguably, Uncle Dave Macon (born in 1870!) was the first rock ‘n’ roller; he was the first country singer to feature the word “rock” in a songtitle, back in 1927.

The Depression gave rise to a series of songs with socialist undertones (though nobody would call it that), and not only by Woody Guthrie. Socially critical songs preceded the Depression, of course. Bob Miller, a collaborator with Irving Berlin, wrote Eleven Cent Cotton and Forty Cent Meat in 1928, for example. In 1932 he called people to come out and vote in the election that brought Franklin D Roosevelt into the White House, with the promise that “the poor forgotten man” is “gonna cause a change”. Bob Miller also predicted the 1937 assassination of Louisiana’s wealth redistributing governor Huey Long in his 1935 song The Death Of Huey P Long.

TRACKLISTING
1. Jimmie Rodgers & Louis Armstrong – Blue Yodel No 9 (2:39)
2. Allen Brothers – New Chattanooga Blues (3:04)
3. Charlie Poole – It’s Movin’ Day (3:26)
4. Bud Billings & Carson Robison – When Your Hair Has Turned To Silver (3:45)
5. Ken Maynard – The Lone Star Trail (3:12)
6. Cowboy Ed Crane – Starving To Death On A Government Claim (2:58)
7. Three Tobacco Tags – Aint Gonna Do It No More (2:54)
8. Gene Autry & Jimmy Long – That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine (2:46)
9. Glen Rice and his Beverly Hill Billies – Ridge Runnin’ Roan (3:12)
10. Jimmie Rodgers – I’m Free (3:05)
11. Delmore Brothers – Brown’s Ferry Blues (2:33)
12. Ernest V. Stoneman – All I Got’s Gone (2:54)
13. Sons Of The Pioneers – Way Out There (3:20)
14. Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers – Soldier’s Joy Breakdown (2:54)
15. Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies – Garbage Man Blues (2:42)
16. Shelton Brothers – Ridin’ On A Humpback Mule (2:37)
17. Patsy Montana and the Prairie Ramblers – I Wanna Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart (3:07)
18. Carter Family – Can The Circle Be Unbroken (Bye And Bye) (3:10)
19. Coon Creek Girls – Pretty Polly (2:52)
20. Blue Sky Boys – I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail (2:54)
21. Milton Brown and his Brownies – Yes Sir (Just Because) (2:41)
22. Bob Wills – Steel Guitar Rag (2:46)
23. Hartman’s Heartbreakers – No Hugging Or Kissing (2:40)
24. Jimmie Davis – Mama’s Getting Hot And Papa’s Getting Cold (2:54)
25. Monroe Brothers – Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms (2:28)
26. Hartman’s Heartbreakers with Betty Lou – Feels Good (2:33)
27. Sons Of The Pioneers – Tumbling Tumbleweeds (2:35)

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After the first instalment of the country history series, it was suggested that I should have at least two compilations for each article. When I floated the idea on this blog’s Facebook page, a number of people approved of the idea. So here’s a second disc for the Pioneer Years – 1920s selection.

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In the first part of the history, we noted the first ever country recording: Sally Gooden by Eck Robertson, put to record on 30 June 1922 in New York. Ragtime Annie comes from the same session, recorded the following day, this time without the civil war veteran Henry C Gilliland, who played on Sally Gooden.

We also noted that a year later, Fiddlin’ John Carson scored the first country hit song with Little Old Cabin In The Lane. Carson features here again, and so does his daughter, Moonshine Kate (right), who had been touring with Carson since she was 15. It is a bit of a disappointment to report that Mr Carson was not some kind of proto hippie: Moonshine Kate was a stage name for Rosa Lee Carson, born in 1909. She died in 1992.

Samantha Bumgarner (one suspects a bureaucrat’s carelessness to be responsible for that name) probably was the first woman to record a country record. Her Shout Lou was recorded in 1924. Bumgarner, who was born in 1878, performed on the country and folk circuit until shortly before her death in 1961.

The first mix featured Uncle Jimmy Thompson, who in the mid-1920s already was in his 70s. Likewise, the fiddler Mellie Dunham started his recording career as a septuagenarian. Dunham was born in 1853 in Maine — not a traditional centre for Old Time Music (or any music, for that matter). He must have been at least faintly conscious of the Civil War, and probably was in his 50s when he saw the first automobiles (country fan Henry Ford later invited Dunham to his residence for a performance). That alone is intriguing, I think. Better still, by profession Dunham was a maker of snowshoes, and as part of that vocation he manufactured 60 pairs of snowshoes for Peary”s Arctic expedition.

Prince Albert Hunt is credited with having been the progenitor of Western Swing. He was not the only one, nor perhaps the first, to infuse jazz and blues into his Old Time Music sound, but as a Texan he might have had more influence than the others on Bob Wills, the king of western swing and leader of the Texas Playboys. Blues In The Bottle was recorded in 1928 in San Antonio (whence I presume Wills’ San Antone Rose hailed). Hunt was shot dead, apparently by a jealous husband outside a bar in Dallas in 1931. He was just 31.

Dan Hornsby , a music producer as well a singer-songwriter who frequently collaborated with Gid Tannen and his Skillet Lickers, gives a contemporary account of a minor disaster that made the news in the US in August 1928 after a building in Shelby, North Carolina collapsed, killing six and injuring 12.

This compilation features what may well be the first in the car songs genre. Oscar Ford‘s song about his namesake’s Model A car preceded Frank Hutchison‘s The Chevrolet Six — a few months (Ford recorded his song on 11 April 1929; Hutchison his on July 9). Both preceded the Beach Boys by three decades and Springsteen by almost four decades.

And sensitive vegetarians might want to stay away from Gid Tannen‘s Hog Killing Day, amusing though it is.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Eck Robertson – Ragtime Annie
2. Wendell Hall – It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’
3. Fiddlin’ John Carson feat. the Virginia Reelers – Arkansas Traveller
4. Samantha Bumgarner – Shout Lou
5. Kelly Harrell – I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again
6. Ernest Thompson – Are You From Dixie?
7. Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers – The Highway Man
8. Mellie Dunham and his Orchestra – Mountain Rangers
9. Harry McClintock – Hallelujah! I’m A Bum
10. Aiken County String Band – High Sheriff
11. Arthur Tanner and his Corn Shuckers – Knoxville Girl
12. Uncle Dave Macon – Rabbit In The Pea Patch
13. Jimmie Rodgers – Ben Dewberry’s Final Run
14. Prince Albert Hunt – Blues In The Bottle
15. Deford Bailey – John Henry
16. Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers – Hog Killing Day Pt 2
17. Uncle Eck Dunford – Old Shoes & Leggins
18. Dan Hornsby – The Shelby Disaster
19. John Dilleshaw – Farmer’s Blues
20. Carter Family – I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes
21. Tom Darby & Jimmie Tarlton – I Left Her At The River
22. Roy Harper & Earl Shirkey – The Bootleggers Dream Of Home
23. Oscar Ford – Henry Ford’s Model A
24. Frank Hutchison – The Chevrolet Six
25. Vernon Dalhart – Farm Relief Song
26. Moonshine Kate – My Man’s A Jolly Railroad Man

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This is the first of a series aimed at providing a brief history of country music (all accompanied by an appropriate CD-sized mix). I hope it will not only inform those who have an interest in the genre, but also persuade those who resist becoming acquainted with country music to give it a chance, perhaps weakening resistance and preconceived notions which might be reduced to the stereoptypes of Confederation flags and the jargons of Hicksville. Of course it is very possible to dislike the sound of the steel guitar, the banjo, the fiddle or the yodel.

But is country all that? I would propose that country is so broad a genre that it is nearly impossible to claim to hate all of it. I hope the mixes I have prepared for each chapter will illustrate the range of country music; perhaps even help convert some sceptics. I also hope that the country fan will find things to enjoy in these mixes, even though I have tried to concentrate on music that would be representative of the era covered in the text. Even so, some of the older recordings are fairly difficult to find, I think.

I have consulted many sources, but I should single out two: the exquisitely compiled and illustrated book Country Music: The Complete Visual History, edited by Paul Kingsbury & Alannah Nash, and Roughstock’s History of Country Music. The Roughstock takes a different approach to the one I take here, so the histories are, I hope, complementary. Where I commit errors, I apologise. Where I emphasise one fact and omit another, feel free to share your insights in the comments section (and, of course, everybody who reads this is urged to leave a comment; even if it is a three-word feedback). And so to part 1, covering the early years before the Great Depression hit. 

For the first few decades of its recorded history, country music was not even called that. Alternately, it was called things like Old Familiar Music, Hillbilly or folk, but the term country did not find any currency until the late 1940s. Whatever it was called and however one may define it, country music has its roots in the rural Southern Appalachian folk songs the so-called broadside ballads, which geographical isolation had preserved for decades and even centuries and in the minstrel shows which brought black music to white folks through the visual medium of blackface. It has its roots in the Christian revivalism of Billy Sunday (read up his story; it s quite amazing) and Dwight Moody, in Calvinist church music, and in the gospel of the cotton fields. It has its roots in the French square dance, the quadrilles. It has its roots in the songs sung by cowboys, whose mobile lifestyle encouraged the use of small musical instruments, such as the mouth harmonica and the fiddle. And it has its roots in the popular music produced in urban New York s Tin Pan Alley, whose songs travelled south via vaudeville shows. (For a fine series on country’s early roots, visit the River’s Invitation blog)

From the start, country was located in the South, with its socially inflexible but culturally promiscuous racial barriers. The fiddle and banjo, for example, were initially instruments of black music, though the banjo, an African instrument brought to America by slaves, was innovated on by whites to give it its present five-string form. The blues had a profound effect on country (in the 1920s and 30s, many country songs incorporated the term blues in their titles). That, of course, did not inhibit the occasional incidence of coarse racism in country music. So it was not peculiar that the hugely popular and very influential string band Gid Tannen and the Skillet Lickers should release songs with regrettable titles like Run Nigger Run.

Still, forgotten black blues musicians such as Arnold Shultz and Rufus Payne had a huge influence on the development of country. Shultz, a fiddler and guitarist taught the future bluegrass legend Bill Monroe (I ve heard rumours of Shultz recordings existing; but it seems that these are just a myth) and influenced the famous finger-picking guitar style of Merle Travis, while Hank Williams perhaps country s most pivotal figure learned to play guitar from Payne. Bob Wills, another country pioneer with his Western Swing, incorporated the blues and jazz sounds he loved into his music. Uncle Dave Macon, meanwhile, claimed to have learned his song Rock About My Saro Jane from black stevedores along the Cumberland river in the 1880s.

The advent of accessible radio in the early 1920s was crucial in the rise of popular music, country included, as record companies started to seek new sounds. Indeed, radio was crucial in the long-term, with Nashville s WSM Radio s wide reach broadcasting the Grand Ole Opry shows from the city s Ryman Auditorium almost nationwide from 1927, turning many country artists into household names even before the Opry s syndication.

The first-ever country record was recorded on 30 July 1922 not in a random southern location, but in New York City, at the Victor Talking Machine Company on West 38th Street. The 35-year old Texan fiddler Eck Robertson put on record several tracks, accompanied on some by Henry C Gilliland, a 70-year old Civil War veteran. After a few months, Victor chose to release Robertson s signature song, Sally Gooden. It made no impact whatsoever, nor did the fiddler s four follow-up releases.

The first country hit came soon after, and it was recorded in the South. In March 1922, an Atlanta radio station, WSB, invited local fiddlers and other folk string musicians (pickers) to perform in its studio. The experiment proved popular, and the star performer was Fiddlin’ John Carson. He was heard by a visiting A&R man, Ralph Peer, who three years earlier had released one of the first blues records, Mamie Smith’s Crazy Blues. Peer, a key person in the development of country music, signed up Carson for the Okeh label. On 14 June 1923, in a make-shift studio on Atlanta’s Nassau Street, Carson recorded Little Old Cabin In The Lane, a minstrel song from the 1870s written by Will S Hays. Peer thought Carson”s vocals were nothing like anything he had heard before, and not in a good way. Yet, what Peer thought was “pluperfect awful” singing would provide a template for generations of country singers. The recording was a hit.

A year later, classically-trained tenor Vernon Dalhart’s The Wreck Of The Old “97, backed with The Prisoner’s Song, became country’s first million seller. Country music was now a commercial proposition, and Dalhart was its first superstar. New stars now popped up. Uncle Jimmy Thompson, already 78 in 1925; Uncle Dave Macon, a trucker in his 50s (whose 1924 Hill Billie Blues gave the genre one of its names); Carl T Sprague, a genuine cowboy singing genuine western music; North Carolina’s Charlie Poole (country’s first celebrity death, in 1931 at 39); Riley Puckett, who was country”s first yodeller; Gid Tannen and his Skillet Lickers (of which the blind Puckett and his fiddling collaborator Clayton McMichen were also members) . And then, in 1929, the Carter Family — A.P., his wife Sara and her cousin Maybelle (a later incarnation, after Sara and A.P. divorced, included wider family members, including Maybelle’s daughters June and Anita) — broke through with the lovely Wildwood Flower. Along with Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills, the Carter Family would define the sound of country music.

If Dalhart was country’s first superstar, then Jimmie Rodgers was the genre’s first megastar. Discovered and signed to the Victor label by Ralph Peer (on 1 August 1927, the same day Peer signed the Carter Family), Rodgers first recorded in 1927, and found success with the Blue Yodel, which set a theme of yodelling sequels until his death at 35 in 1933. One of these yodel songs marked the first interracial country recording, 1930’s Blue Yodel No.9 with Louis Armstrong. And there was even a black country star, the harmonica, guitar and banjo virtuoso DeFord Bailey, who regularly appeared on the Opry until 1941 when he was abruptly dismissed, but whose recording career, like that of many others (including Eck Robertson) ended with the onset of the Great Depression.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Eck Robertson – Sallie Gooden
2. Fiddlin’ John Carson – Little Old Cabin In The Lane
3. Ernest Stoneman – The Titanic
4. Vernon Dalhart – Wreck Of The Old 97
5. Charlie Poole – The Girl I Left In Sunny Tennessee
6. Carl T. Sprague – O Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie
7. Uncle Jimmie Thompson – Lynchburg
8. Charlie Poole – There’ll Come A Time
9. Uncle Dave Macon & His Fruit Jar Drinkers – Rock About My Saro Jane
10. Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers – Bully Of The Town
11. Vernon Dalhart – The Dying Girl
12. Ted Chesnut – He’s Only A Miner Killed In The Ground
13. Bradley Kincaid – Barbara Allen
14. Riley Puckett & Clayton McMichen – Old Molly Hare
15. Harry McClintock – Goodbye Old Paint
16. DeFord Bailey – Davidson County Blues
17. Jimmie Rodgers – Brakeman’s Blues (Blue Yodel No.2)
18. The Carter Family – Wildwood Flower
19. Tom Darby & Jimmie Tarlton – Lonesome Railroad
20. Uncle Dave Macon – Buddy, Won’t You Roll Down The Line
21. Wendell Hall – In The Big Rock Candy Mountain
22. Jimmie Rodgers – Hobo Bill’s Last Ride
23. Bentley Boys – Down On Penny’s Farm
24. Blind Alfred Reed – How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live
25. Clarence ‘Tom’ Ashley – The House Carpenter

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The first Christmas in Black & White retro mix was quite popular (if not so much in numbers of comments than in numbers of downloads). So here is a second volume, as promised. The oldest song here is Paul Whiteman’s Christmas Night In Harlem from 1934 (more of which shortly), followed closely by Tommy Dorsey’s early cover of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, from 1935. The youngest track on the mix is Dean Martin’s A Marshmallow World, which even in 1966 must have sounded a little dated. The best song must be Art Carney’s Santa And The Doodle-li-boop.

Whiteman”s Christmas Night In Harlem is a bit dodgy. It includes some racial stereotyping we would rightly object to today. Louis Armstrong in the “50s recorded a cleaned-up version of it later, as did Ramsey Lewis. So let it be clearly noted that I do not endorse racial stereotyping, even if it was unremarkable in the 1930s. Even so, it is a song of historical value. Whiteman was one of the big bandleaders of the time, but is rather forgotten now. And yet, Duke Ellington described Whiteman as “The king of Jazz”, a title Ellington has some claim to himself (provided we crown Armstrng the emperor). Singing with Whiteman”s band here are Johnny Mercer, the great Tin Pan Alley alumnus, and trombonist and singer Jack Teagarden. It includes an early usage of the word “dog” (today spelled “dawg”, I believe) as a form of address.

Another remarkable jazz record is Slam Stewart’s take on Jingle Bells; the annoying old chestnut becomes a rather good tune in Stewart’s bass-playing hands.

Fans of originals will appreciate Spike Jones’ 1948 recording of All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth), with the vocals by his band’s trumpeter, George Rock, then 29. The song had been written in 1944 by second-grade music teacher Donald Yetter Gardner after surveying the dental state of his pupils.

The collection ends on a note of bah humbug, with Paddy Roberts voicing some misgivings in 1962 which give lie to the notion that the crass commercialism of Christmas is a recent phenomenon. Of course it isn’t. As we saw on the first mix, Red Foley demanded already in 1953 that Christ be put back into Christmas.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and I have banged together another front and back cover, with Norman Rockwell art, for those who have use for them (does anybody though?).

TRACKLISTING:
1. Andy Williams – Happy Holiday/The Holiday Season (1963)
2. Frank Sinatra – The Christmas Waltz (1957)
3. Dean Martin – A Marshmallow World (1966)
4. Gene Autry – Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (1949)
5. Art Carney – Santa And The Doodle-li-boop (1954)
6. Nat ‘King’ Cole – Caroling, Caroling (1963)
7. Margaret Whiting & Jimmy Wakely – Silver Bells (1950)
8. Doris Day – I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1964)
9. Bing Crosby – God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (1942)
10. Slam Stewart Quartet – Jingle Bells (1945)
11. Frankie Laine – You’re All I Want For Christmas (1948)
12. Eddie Cantor – The Only Thing I Want For Christmas (1939)
13. Louis Prima & his New Orleans Gang – What Will Santa Claus Say (1936)
14. Tommy Dorsey & his Orchestra – Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (1935)
15. Andrews Sisters with Guy Lombardo – Christmas Island (1948)
16. Louis Armstrong – Christmas In New Orleans (1955)
17. Leadbelly – Christmas Is A-Comin’ (Chicken Crows At Midnight) (1941)
18. Elvis Presley – Blue Christmas (1957)
19. Hank Snow – Reindeer Boogie (1953)
20. The Youngsters – Christmas In Jail (1955)
21. Paul Whiteman & his Orchestra – Christmas Night In Harlem (1934)
22. Michel Warlop with Django Reinhardt – Christmas Swing (1937)
23. The Paris Sisters – Christmas In My Hometown (1954)
24. Gayla Peevey – I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas (1958)
25. Spike Jones – All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) (1948)
26. Art Mooney – Santa Claus Looks Just Like Daddy (1955)
27. Red Foley and the Little Foleys – Frosty The Snowman (1951)
28. Vince Guaraldi Trio – Christmas Time Is Here (1965)
29. Paddy Roberts – Merry X-Mas You Suckers (And A Happy New Year) (1962)

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More Christmas Mixes
Any Major Christmas Favourites
Any Major 1980s Christmas
Any Major 1970s Christmas
Any Major 1960s Christmas Vol. 1
Any Major 1960s Christmas Vol. 2
Any Major 1950s Christmas
Any Major 1940s Christmas
Christmas Mix, Not For Mother
Any Major X-Mas Mix
Any Major Christmas Pop Vol. 1
Any Major Christmas Pop Vol. 2
Any Major Santa Claus Vol. 1
The Originals: Christmas Edition
Any Major Christmas Carols (in pop)
Any Major Christmas Bells
Any Major Smooth Christmas Vol. 1
Any Major Smooth Christmas Vol. 2
Any Major Smooth Christmas Vol. 3
Any Major Christmas Soul Vol. 1
Any Major Christmas Soul Vol. 2
Any Major Christmas Soul Vol. 3
Any Major Doo Wop Christmas
Any Major Rhythm & Blues Christmas
Any Major X-Mas Blues
Any Major Country Christmas Vol. 1
Any Major Country Christmas Vol. 2
Any Major Acoustic Christmas
Christmas In Black & White Vol. 1
Christmas In Black & White Vol. 2
Christmas In Black & White Vol. 3
Any Major Christmas ABC
Any Major Gals’ Christmas
Any Major Polygot Christmas
Any Major New Year’s
Song Swarm: Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

Or all in one place

After offering a “Christmas mix, not for Mother“ last year, I feel obliged to make amends to your Mom by creating a mix she might like. Yes, it’s all gloriously retro this year. The youngest of the songs, as far as I can tell, is Jim Nabor’s version of Sleigh Ride from 1968; the oldest, Eddie Duchin’s (Don’t Wait Till) The Night Before Christmas, is 30 years older. Most of the songs here come from the 1940s and ’50s. A hurriedly put-together front and back CD cover is included, and as always the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, which might sort out the Christmas prezzie for some relatives. If this mix is popular enough, I’ll do a second volume. Let me know what you think in the comments section (you do know that bloggers really like to receive comments, so don”t be shy).

Fans of The Originals series will appreciate the first version of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus by Jimmy Boyd, then 13, which was released in 1952. Boyd died in Mach this year at the age of 70.

TRACKLISTING
1. Sammy Davis, Jr – Christmas Time All Over The World
2. Burl Ives – A Holly Jolly Christmas
3. Billy May – Do You Believe In Santa Claus
4. Dean Martin – Rudolph, The Red-nosed Reindeer
5. Lena Horne – Santa Claus Is Comin To Town
6. Nat “˜King” Cole – Mrs. Santa Claus
7. Gene Autry – Here Comes Santa Claus
8. Andrews Sisters – Winter Wonderland
9. Connee Boswell – Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
10. Dinah Washington – Ole Santa
11. Fontane Sisters – Nuttin’ For Christmas
12. Frank Sinatra – Jingle Bells
13. Brenda Lee – Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
14. Ernest Tubb – Blue Christmas
15. Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys – Santa’s On His Way
16. Jogi Jorgensen – I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas
17. DeCastro Sisters – Snowbound For Christmas
18. Jim Nabors – Sleigh Ride
19. Perry Como – Silver Bells
20. Bing Crosby – Frosty The Snowman
21. Jimmy Boyd – I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
22. Louis Armstrong – Zat You, Santa Claus?
23. Lionel Hampton & his Orchestra – Boogie Woogie Santa Claus
24. Judy Garland – Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
25. Ella Fitzgerald – The Secret Of Christmas
26. Eddy Duchin Orchestra – (Don’t Wait Till) The Night Before Christmas
27. Gordon Jenkins Orchestra – White Christmas
28. Les Brown Orchestra feat Doris Day – The Christmas Song
29. Red Foley – Put Christ Back Into Christmas
30. Rosemary Clooney – Happy Christmas, Little Friend

GET IT (PW in comments)

More Christmas Mixes
Any Major Christmas Favourites
Any Major 1980s Christmas
Any Major 1970s Christmas
Any Major 1960s Christmas Vol. 1
Any Major 1960s Christmas Vol. 2
Any Major 1950s Christmas
Any Major 1940s Christmas
Christmas Mix, Not For Mother
Any Major X-Mas Mix
Any Major Christmas Pop Vol. 1
Any Major Christmas Pop Vol. 2
Any Major Santa Claus Vol. 1
The Originals: Christmas Edition
Any Major Christmas Carols (in pop)
Any Major Christmas Bells
Any Major Smooth Christmas Vol. 1
Any Major Smooth Christmas Vol. 2
Any Major Smooth Christmas Vol. 3
Any Major Christmas Soul Vol. 1
Any Major Christmas Soul Vol. 2
Any Major Christmas Soul Vol. 3
Any Major Doo Wop Christmas
Any Major Rhythm & Blues Christmas
Any Major X-Mas Blues
Any Major Country Christmas Vol. 1
Any Major Country Christmas Vol. 2
Any Major Acoustic Christmas
Christmas In Black & White Vol. 1
Christmas In Black & White Vol. 2
Christmas In Black & White Vol. 3
Any Major Christmas ABC
Any Major Gals’ Christmas
Any Major Polygot Christmas
Any Major New Year’s
Song Swarm: Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

Or all in one place