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[This message was edited by Jim Cohen on 17 May 2000 at 04:58 AM.]

BTW, I have never knowingly heard a recording of Bob Dunn playing an electrfied steel. But, frankly, I never have listened to alot of his work, knowingly.

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kd...and the beat goes on...

[This message was edited by Kenny Dail on 17 May 2000 at 06:25 PM.]

quote:

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Unfortunently anyone who could tell it like it was would be almost 90 years old

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far as i know, the term "western swing" was not used at the time (early to mid 30s)--in fact maybe not even till the 40s. first time i can vouch for it is in a spade cooley movie short in which spade is billed as "the king of western swing". i think it is from 1944 and featured twin bass fiddles. saw it twenty years ago, tex williams singing.

brown's earliest solo stuff--recorded for bluebird--doesn't have steel. dunn did not join until milton switched labels to decca, and gave the band a whole new sound.

brown's career output is available on a box set of i think 5 cds on the the "texas rose" label, released maybe 5 years ago. 120 songs.

essential for any western swing or steel fan. dunn was amazing, playing horn lines on an acoustic martin fitted with a primitive pickup.

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kd...and the beat goes on...

Having said that, there were a lot of hot and innovative sides by Wills and the Texas Playboys.
If you look at the early 'swing' groups in the 1933-1939 period, there were more offshoots from the Brownies and more groups did songs that Milton andvarious Brownies wrote, or recorded before any other of the Swing bands.
I would have to say that there is a good case for Milton Brown's early dominance in the field while Bob was still building up his first Texs Playboys, which tended to follow Milton's Brownies group structure. Bob built on this as much as Milton built on the structure of the Light Crust Doughboys.
Bob Wills did take it to another place, and then some!

Still, the first time I heard Milton sing ..wow.
These cats invented Alterna-Country almost 60 years before anyone knew what it was.

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kd...and the beat goes on...

Lets not forget that Barney Kessel was part of the Oklahoma scene in the late 1930's, bot as a picker, but as a fan watching jazz and western groups.

And on an interesting note, more than a few of the 1930's swing groups had two fiddlers, and it wasn't unusual to have one that was a jazz fan, or classicly trained alongside a breakdown dance fiddler.
And the piano players too, Papa Calhoun of the Brownies was a great jazz ivory tickler.
I couldn't believe how hot and bluesy some of the Brownies sides were when I heard them recently, in fact I'm going to look for some web sites just now!

I think one of the interesting things about comparisons between Bob Wills and Milton Browns respective bands is that we will never know how Milton's music would have evolved. Certainly with the arrival of the "swing age" a lot of the rough edges were chipped off the Western Swing sound (for better or worse) and the songs became more arranged, but we have no way of knowing whether Milton would have led that movement, or whether Bob would have become a secondary figure in Western Swing hiding in Milton's shadow.

[This message was edited by Steve England on 19 May 2000 at 09:30 AM.]

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kd...and the beat goes on...

Regarding what the Brownies could have gone on to, who knows. It's a real interesting thought though.
I suppose in a lot of ways he might have been challenged just like Bob with the West Coast sound and the possibility of moving to Northern or Southern Califorinia to play one of the big dancehalls there.
Has anyone read Gerald Haslam's book:
'Workin Man Blues' {1999} Uni of Cal. Press.

It has a great section of the WW2 defence industry boom and migration and it's effect on the music scenes growth with all the big dancehalls and groups.
Great stuff!
Of course that same boom also helped create the blues boom and jazz scene in LA and California as well, with all the workers coming in from the Delta and the Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas,etc regions.
And in the 1940's they were actually welcome as there was more work.
Anyway, Gerald writes about the groups and the social-economic conditions that helped the Venice Pier scene and other ballrooms growth in the 1940's.
Imagine the Brownies on the West Coast..wow!

Hey Steve I remember a couple of things that weren't 100% here and there, but nothing that didn'tdetract frm his great notes on the dancehall era.

I'm looking forward to someone writing a book on Western Swing and the big bands, going around to all the surviving bi band cats and writing a book about the 1940's boom.
It's amazing that while a lot of the big pop bands were falling apart, {although the most famous thrived},the Western Swing groups, mainly in California just kept growing, but that of course was due to the growth in industry and patrons due to the WW2 defence plant jobs, etc and the proximity of all the record labels and film industry after the war.
Of course it all started to wind down after the war, but what a time.