The Last Music Podcast
The Last Music Podcast
The Hot Club of Cowtown's Elana James and Whit Smith talk about the making of "What Makes Bob Holler," Side 1.
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Perhaps the first thing one notices when listening to the Hot Club of Cowtown is its lack of irony, self-consciousness and forced hipness in embracing a style of music that so easily lends itself to such things…Stylistically, the band steps out from the shadow of its influences to become more than a faithful retro band that likes to raise its tempo every now and then. It’s writing more of its own songs and varying its delivery… conscious always that above all else, the music is for dancing and an old-fashioned good time. ~ Neil Strauss, New York Times
In this podcast, Elana James and Whit Smith talk about the making of What Makes Bob Holler back in 2010, while listening to it for the first time on vinyl. The Hot Club of Cowtown celebrates 25 years in 2022.
Check out "Side 2" here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/605989/9854621
To order or stream "What Makes Bob Holler," click here: https://smarturl.it/bobholler
For more information, visit https://www.lastmusic.co.uk
You can find The Hot Club of Cowtown's upcoming tour dates and other news at http://www.hotclubofcowtown.com.
Brought to you by The Last Music Company, an old school haven for fine music in this mad world.
Come visit us at https://www.lastmusic.co.uk to see what we're up to.
Hey, this is Malcolm Mills, welcoming you to another podcast from the Larks Music Company. Here's one from my old friends, the Hot Club of Counttown, recorded while the world was still in the grip of lockdown. I started releasing their albums through Proper Records after their deal with High Tone ended. Back in 2010, I suggested that while they were on tour in the UK, they came into our studio to cut some tracks as a tribute to one of their prime influences, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Paul Riley engineered the session, which was done entirely live, vocals and all, just gathered around a microphone. We got a fabulous performance. It perfectly showcased the jubilant energy and musicianship of this sensational trio. No overdubs, no edits. Once we all heard the results, we knew that it was what makes Bob holler, and so that had to be the album title. Fast forward to 2020, and I'd been talking to Witt and Alana about releasing a new album as they were due to tour again opening for Bob Dylan. Then the damned bug bit the world and the wheels came off the live music business. With the new record on ice, I suggested that we reissue what makes Bob Holler and make it available on vinyl for the first time too. So once I sent in the test pressing, Ilana and Witt managed to grab some time together to reminisce about the making of the record while listening to it for the first time on vinyl. So here they are talking about side one.
SPEAKER_09Well, hello there, Alana James.
SPEAKER_04Hello, Mitt Smith.
SPEAKER_09We are the hot club of Cowtown, and this is our first podcast, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04Yes, it is. It's extremely exciting. We're live from my kitchen here in Austin, Texas.
SPEAKER_09How about that? And it's uh it's not blazing hot out yet, but it's getting there. Um we are very excited because uh not only is it our first podcast, but we uh have in our possession an LP record, the Hot Club of Cowtown's first LP record in the South.
SPEAKER_04It's so beautiful, yes it is. Yep.
SPEAKER_09And this is a uh basically it's a reissue. It's called uh What Makes Bob Holler. And we made this in what year was that? 2010. 2010. And where did we make it?
SPEAKER_04We made it in London. At that proper the new version of it is out on Last Music Company, which is uh Malcolm's Malcolm who started Proper started his own label now called The Last Music Company. But at the time we recorded this in London at the Proper Studio, which is ironic, because this is the first fully Western recording that we did because usually everything was like a mixture between jazzy swingy stuff and western, and then of course, ironically, the the pure western swing record we made in London in like three days, I think, right? In the winter.
SPEAKER_09You know, uh it it's they that's it just is appropriate at the time. Uh Paul Riley engineered it. Paul was wonderful. We we recorded it in the proper music studio, and uh I'm checking out all these tunes on here.
SPEAKER_04Um we still play most of them.
SPEAKER_09She's killing me, it's all your fault. Yeah. So uh you wanna you want to crack this? You want to put this on the turntable?
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna open it and then you put it on the actual thing because I don't you're more of the uh audio file. Oh nice kind of black sleeve, black jacket.
SPEAKER_09I don't know what took us so long to make an LP record. I mean, I my whole discovery with this music was on LP records.
SPEAKER_04Well I have to say, like, I I I used to have records growing up, but then of course I don't know what happened to them all. But when I did first put this on, it was like our band, people have been saying this for years. Like, I see vinyl. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But uh seriously, like it's true that our band, unbeknownst to me, we are so suited to vinyl. I I finally understand like the tactile physicality. It's incredible. Okay.
SPEAKER_09And well, I was surprised because this is available on CD, but it it really did sound, um it's unfair to say better. It's just different, but boy, it just sounded right.
SPEAKER_04It just sounds more it's like three-dimensional. Plus, we're playing it on like uh this is like a $38.
SPEAKER_09Oh, the turntable?
SPEAKER_04It's a Victrola that I got. Yeah, the record players, yeah, we're not gonna get too excited about that, except we're not playing it on a state-of-the-art stereo system, but it still sounds amazing.
SPEAKER_09Right. And actually, the uh the music in the podcast, which you will hear, you might be spared the uh audio transfer. I'm gonna drop the needle.
SPEAKER_04You're supposed to lift it in. I'm just doing it the way I used to do it when I was 15. Okay, do it.
SPEAKER_09That's the way we did it in old days.
SPEAKER_04Is it the volume up?
SPEAKER_09Drop it on, here comes the volume. Go ahead. What do you think? What's I love having side one?
SPEAKER_01Song one.
SPEAKER_08I went to see my sweet last night. Star for the shining part. I guess I went through skates. I went fighting this for the family. Lord of me, that gal, she's killing me, she's killing me. She's killing me, oh killing me, killing me. Lord, lord, the galamine, that baby. She's killing me, she's killing me. She's killing me, oh killing me, all killing me. Every time I see that gal of mine, oh lord, she's killing me, now kill me.
SPEAKER_04I'm so glad that we went in and did that, you know what I mean? Yeah. It does sound pretty cool. But also, you know, what it is always saying about how we do try to sound like a band that we're not like we're not trying to sound exactly like a band that predated us, but we try to sound like a band that was also around at the same time, and I do think it accomplishes that actually in a weird way.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, it's a bold thing to say, so you have to realize that we're we're we're not out of our minds with our you know, egomaniacs or something, but it that was the ambition, right? Is to you you learn from you learn you find something you like, you learn as much about it, and then you recreate it your own way. But you if you you try to s aesthetically belong to it.
SPEAKER_04I mean it sounds like to me, it sounds fiery and also and also organic and flawed, but not that flawed. It's that the flaws are really what make you like sincere and authentic.
SPEAKER_09So yeah, with any with no, you might have even got a gig in the Bob Woods band with that. Is that your demo? I'd like to hope so.
SPEAKER_04All right, do you want to listen to another one?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, let's listen to another one. What are these chips we're eating here?
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, I got those yesterday at the Indian grocery because they're spicy. They're from they're Indian snacks. They call it, you know, mixture. I used to eat that all the time when I was studying music in India. Mixjah.
SPEAKER_09You studied music in India?
SPEAKER_04Yes, and it's uh been extremely helpful in what we've been doing for the last many years.
SPEAKER_09I think you told me that one time. All right, well, let's drop the name.
SPEAKER_04So we're having we're having what's having a Pacifico, and so am I, and then we're eating mixcha, and we're listening to what makes Bob Holler.
SPEAKER_09Alrighty.
SPEAKER_04Um, do you want to play the next one?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, let's just drop the name.
SPEAKER_04Wait, can I just say something? What is the next one?
SPEAKER_09It's all your fault, the Cindy Walker song.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. I think this one I learned because in Austin, many years ago when we first moved here, there was a tribute to Cindy Walker who wrote It's All Your Fault. She also wrote a lot ton of other Western Swing songs, like Well, uh, Devil Ain't Lazy, we do that.
SPEAKER_09You ain't you don't I think so. You don't know me.
SPEAKER_04Oh, she wrote You Don't Know Me, yeah. That's probably her most famous song, but I don't know. It was said that she was kind of also sort of like I don't know if this is true, but like that she sort of like was in love with Bob Wills and stuff, but maybe it never happened for them together as a couple, but that she wrote a lot of songs that Bob then did, and um that has actually nothing to do with anything, but um perhaps him with a lot of success. It inspired also her, possibly to write some of the songs that she did, but this is a song that she wrote. So when there was this tribute to her in Austin many, many years ago, I got to participate in it, and they asked um me to do It's All Your Fault. And of course, I had originally heard the version that Wade Ray did, who I love so much, Wade Ray from Wade Ray is worth looking up if you're not familiar with him.
SPEAKER_09The early 50s, especially.
SPEAKER_04Chet Atkins produced it and uh Incredible, incredible band leader, and like he played in the Cherokee Cowboys, but like he has a totally distinctive style where it's just he's one of my very favorite fiddle players. But anyway, I had heard Wade Ray's version of Isaiah Fall, and then gradually heard other ones. But since it was a Cindy Walker tune and the Wills band did it, we we put it on this collection. So um, should we hear it?
SPEAKER_09Let's drop the needle. Here we go. All right, hang on to your socks.
SPEAKER_04It's not as bad as I read that every day. I mean, the main thing is that I do think it has like the thing is when you record steps and it's under duress or whatever you listen to later, like, you know, it was better than you thought it was. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It does have that spirit.
SPEAKER_09I'd say every time, and that that doesn't mean you didn't like it before, or or even if that's based on any fact that it was bad or anything, it's irrelevant. It's just you're you're you're just so into it, and you're imagining, I guess it's because you're thinking of what you'd want it to sound like or you think it's gonna sound, and inevitably it doesn't sound exactly like that, and you just that's a hurdle to get over that the everyone else doesn't have to deal with. They hear it for what it is.
SPEAKER_04That's true. Also, you know, when I was thinking about comping, you know, some of the songs on this record, well, I did comp on a couple of them. I mean, comping, you know, means when like the vocalist sings and then you play something kind of to answer it instrumentally. And um, my biggest comping lesson, I I think about it every single day. I'm sure I've told you this before, but but when I um when we were on our Bob Dylan tour, and I used to get invited to sit in with his band several times during that tour, and then later I went to go join his band for a little while, and literally the first thing he said to me when I we were all in the studio and we were all like getting ready to like rehearse and jam, and he goes, Hey, uh, you know, we were uh songs and tour, and uh and he was like he was like, you know, you know how every time I would go to sing, you would play? And I was like, Yeah, and he was like, don't do that. Well I mean it's the hardest, it's the hardest thing as a fiddle player because it's like you're up there or wherever you are, especially in our trio, it's like because you hear the vocal, you're like, oh, yeah, that's the melody, and then you want to play along, like say, like say you sing a little bit of a song or whatever. The fiddle wants to, the fiddle wants to play that melody, but it's the hardest thing to just either do nothing or to just simply answer in the empty space and then get out of the way, you know.
SPEAKER_09Well, I would actually that's funny you talking about that because while you were doing that to this record today, now uh you took off playing right over the vocal. And and I I'm that's not a criticism, I'm just saying I noticed it because I just recently watched some documentary on Keith Moon, the drummer of the band The Who, and uh Roger Dalty was saying that that all of his fills he'd be playing, he'd be playing the melody basically on the drums, and then like when Roger would start singing, Keith would just lay out. Like it would have got him, you know, but hey, but they made it work, so that's alright.
SPEAKER_04It's funny, I mean, I think every every ensemble or band, you know, it's like it's like the give and take between that, you know, because truly less is more in a lot of these situations, but you get excited or you love the song. The song's like three minutes and thirty seconds long, so it's like when are you gonna get in there to do your thing, you know?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, no, and you get excited. And I think in a live performance, and this is hard to know. I mean, there's some there's some beautiful recordings of the Wills band, Bob Wills band live, uh, in the 40s especially, but he he encouraged that. And too, you know, they were when they're making records and stuff, they have this time constriction, so it's like, okay, you take half a stole or whatever, but apparently he just let people go, and and he wanted you to just give it your all all the time. Everyone's just playing. That's why I think that's what attracted you probably to this music. Oh, was that the guys were stoling on their fiddle? Well, there's a singer up there working away, and the fiddle players aren't gonna stop.
SPEAKER_04I think you know, you've seen pictures of like those studios, and like the the the comping fiddle players like eight or ten feet away from the vocalist mic, so it's like they're standing on that second, like low riser of whatever the studio, and then you hear Joe Holly, who's like one of my very, very favorite fiddle players of all time, he's like singing and dancing, you know, his violin is singing and dancing through the back of the vocal, but it doesn't interfere with with the vocal because A, he's a genius, but B, the vocal is closer to the mic, so he's kind of like a background chirping, you know, yeah echo of what's going on.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay, let's hear another one.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, let's hear another one. What's next? Number three, it's going around in a circle. I can't even tell.
SPEAKER_04Time changes everything.
SPEAKER_09Okay, so this is a crack at uh an early early version of us trying to sing duets.
SPEAKER_04It's good. I like it when we sing together.
SPEAKER_09All right, well, here we go.
SPEAKER_05And we sang our friends. Our hearts be as long as we had fun, but time changes everything. When you left me.
SPEAKER_04I love time changes everything, and you know when I first met Wit, we used to do this. We we first met like in New York in 1994 through an Out in the Village Voice, which I played, thank you very much. And uh, we started this band, and Wit Wit was the band leader, and we had these Western swing songs that we'd be doing, and so it would be we used to do this one, like San Antonio this, and I didn't know, like I had never been in an improvising band, or I you know, I didn't know what was going on, and so I used to hear this song, and then people would take all these solos, and I was like, I could never I would just like count the measures, count the measures, okay, and like I'd be like counting like measure 123, and like okay, that's when the fiddles come back in. And it's like I did not and nobody ever nobody knew that I didn't know what was going on. So a song like this, which is basically just like you know, in an AABA form, eight bars, a bars.
SPEAKER_09Is it even is it either?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then it goes back and then it goes to the bridge and it goes, you know, and then it I think there's no bridge, it just goes. There's not even a bridge, and but like I used to hear this song, and I'd be like, okay, I think the fiddles come back in. I'm like, okay, bar 123, and then it'd count and count and count and count. That was like the drama. But like just put the melody for a second.
SPEAKER_01F F one, two, and yeah.
SPEAKER_04That was the entire song. It's that's the whole song. It's 16 bars, it's so awesome.
SPEAKER_09You just play it as many times as you can stand.
SPEAKER_04Right, and then once someone told me that, I was like, what?
SPEAKER_09Not possible. Well you you you you have other other strengths.
SPEAKER_04Well, hopefully, but but you know, it was like so liberating once I realized that that I didn't have to count that far. Same thing like when a bass when the bass would take a solo. And then you know the whole band stands around. It was a big band, like 11 people.
SPEAKER_09Oh, oh the the hot jazz caravan. No, the West your nearby, which is just for the record, it was the Tex Williams band was a Western caravan.
SPEAKER_04So this was Whit Smith's Western Carabin.
SPEAKER_09Western Caravan. Because this was the early 90s, and yeah, it was okay.
SPEAKER_04No one knew about like the bass Steve Alcott, who was the bass player back then, or I think it usually was Steve, and like, you know, it's like okay, the bass, and then the whole band stands around, and you know, the band stands in sound till the band and then like the whole band knew when to come back in.
SPEAKER_09You thought that was magic?
SPEAKER_04How do they know when to come back in? I could not, I could not believe it. And so when someday someone once told me what was really going on, I was like, oh my god. Okay, let's hear another song.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, that's gone. Uh let's go to uh let me see here.
SPEAKER_04Oh, made in prayer.
SPEAKER_09Maiden's prayer.
SPEAKER_04You want to listen to it first? Sure. I also had no idea how to improvise when I started playing, you know. Well, not really. I mean, not in this style. And I thought, you know, I could just be the kind of viol little violinist player or fiddle player. I don't need to improvise. I'll just be the person in the van who just always plays the melody. So it was like, so I had this sort of like collection of songs that I could, you know, maybe sit in on. And this one when I first moved to Texas, I remember like Dave Alexander or like Bob Lower or even the Texas Playboys when they were like, honey, you know, why don't you come up here and do a song with us? And I'd be like, okay, you guys, how we can make it for them, you know. But like I I could never take a solo on it, but it has such a beautiful melody that I I felt confident coming up there with these sweet guys and doing a because it doesn't really require a hot solo, or everybody else takes a solo, and then you just play the melody out.
SPEAKER_09No, right.
SPEAKER_04But anyway, this was a song that I felt people were so nice when I first started playing this kind of music because as a fiddle player, nobody else can play the melody to Maiden's Prayer like the fiddle. I don't think, you know, it's kind of it was created as a a Bob Wills.
SPEAKER_09He's like, he probably he probably wrote it. It probably comes in from one of those melodies that his grandfather or his father played or something.
SPEAKER_04I think actually it it was like he it had a lot of different origins, and I actually read about it. Did you know they used this melody of Maiden's Prayer when they collect the trash like in um Hong Kong? The trash trucks play a version of Maiden's Prayer. I'm not kidding.
SPEAKER_09That is far out.
SPEAKER_04I think it's an old melody that's been around. It's like originally European and it was in Mexico and stuff, and he definitely like took it from one of its natural habitats.
SPEAKER_09Wow. Well, he transformed it.
SPEAKER_04It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_09He owns it.
SPEAKER_04And also, when we play the song down here, I mean if we ever play a show and not enough people are dancing, we either play this or faded love, and it's like, oh my god, they're it's like they just flood in from the sides of the room, and it's it's the most beautiful thing to have people dance to that.
SPEAKER_09It's true. It's true. I love I love trying to solo on it, but you don't really it's very difficult to add anything that's not already there in that kind of song. You just do your best to be pretty and you know stay out of the way, don't show out.
SPEAKER_04You do those big, big, beautiful George Barnes kind of like they're each each like note is kind of like a water drop, like you know, that a you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_09Uh no, but I like that description. I'll certainly try.
SPEAKER_04If you don't take technical solos on it, usually you tend to take solos that are like, they're all about tone. Like each note is like a tone, like a drop of tone.
SPEAKER_09Well, and like you said, the melody. You know, the melody is so strong and that and so pretty. What, you know. Um, I I yeah, there's just no that's it. There's no point in going from there. What else does this lovely LP record have in store for us?
SPEAKER_04Um it's turning so it's hard to read it as it's going at 33. Uh Oklahoma Hills. Oh, okay. Oh my god, I love this song. Frankly, I love every single song on this, and you know, we still do all these songs. I don't think there's anything. No, I don't know.
SPEAKER_09That's right. There are a lot of our records. We made songs that we never played. And it's it's partly, I think it's because when we would make a record, we'd often write the record, and like we'd take time off, and then we would go make the record. Um So we you know, you I'm sorry, we take time off, you'd write the record, and you'd rehearse the you'd rehearse those songs, and then you'd go record the record. And sometimes, you know, I mean it's just either you didn't like it or it just never made it into a show, never felt right, and just never developed. Listening back, you're like, well, what's wrong with that song?
SPEAKER_04We have a ton of songs like that. Of course, I think a lot of people when it requested that song, we're like, oh yeah, I don't know. We don't know, we haven't worked it out.
SPEAKER_09So these songs were all in the set. Right. We were we'd been playing these songs for years at this point. So um should we pause it? We can pause it. We can pause. Pause for the cause. It's okay.
SPEAKER_04We're recording. Sorry.
SPEAKER_09Will it does it have a pause?
SPEAKER_04Actually, we'll just edit this part out.
SPEAKER_09Okay, we'll just edit it.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_09What's shaking? You you can get in on this if you want. Guests, guess the podcast. Okay, well, let's listen to this next one then. You wanna do it? Yeah. Alright, the Hills of Oklahoma. On uh Oklahoma Hills, Jack Guthrie. Okay. We're doing this now in our 1945 finest hour tour.
SPEAKER_04Our World War II tour. You know, I I I hate to sound like a broken record.
SPEAKER_09Oh well, don't say that around this guy.
SPEAKER_04But I'm just saying I love this song. I ever I love the song. We first heard Jack Guthrie's version of it, his fiddle player that used to play along with him. In fact, we might have to just play a little tiny bit of it.
SPEAKER_09Well, you know, and then you play a little bit of the first time we ever recorded this song.
SPEAKER_04Oh, from uh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09We used to play it quite a bit brighter.
SPEAKER_04But like I uh Jack Guthrie's collection of cowboy songs in 1945, like he played them all out, I guess.
SPEAKER_09Well that that's got uh Bloom is on the sage and um has a bunch of songs like that.
SPEAKER_04I my dream in life is to play like this guy. Here's the beginning of like that song.
SPEAKER_09Does it does it say who is it?
SPEAKER_04I don't know who this guy is.
SPEAKER_09Well that's a capital record, and I betcha I don't remember the the name of that player either at the moment.
SPEAKER_04I wish I knew I looked it up. I I I just never have known who he was, but all the all those sessions, I just one of my projects in life would be to just transcribe every solo he took that day. You know? Anyway.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, that the large body of that music that he recorded is is only a few days. I mean, it's bans a bunch of records, but they pretty much did them all hot live, and that's what it is. Okay, we're gonna drop the needle here on the Hot Club of Cowtowns, Oklahoma Hills, from 2010 on the brand new release LP Record. Here it comes. Oh, the feeling of dropping the needle.
SPEAKER_03In those Oklahoma Hills where I was born. Many a page of lobster, many a lesson I learned. Well, feel like in those hills I still belong.
SPEAKER_09Let's see, we have two more songs on this man. These are fast, short little songs.
SPEAKER_04Okay, that's good. Oh my god, Big Balls and Catchman.
SPEAKER_09Love this song. What do you what do you know about Big Balls and Cow Tech?
SPEAKER_04Well, well, Nyx wrote it, and we know Jody Nix, because Jody Nix is still around in Texas. Touring is an incredible dance band. They play up constantly, and he's an amazing, incredible fiddle player. I love to like sit in with them whenever we see them.
SPEAKER_09He does have an excellent, excellent player.
SPEAKER_04Even sitting in with him, just watching him play.
SPEAKER_09Greenville, Texas, last year or two ago when we played that thing with him.
SPEAKER_04And he also has a guy playing fiddle with him. Um, I can't remember who it was, but he's incredible, he's got a great band. And also, he truly has Jody Nix has like the old school, like West Texas, like fiddle stage presence, that that kind of like beautiful posture, like magnetic, you know, and then his little like the look in his eye has been.
SPEAKER_09It comes from the older generation. They really did it's not that people don't take it seriously, but it was very important, and and just think of that, like if you come from nothing, you're living in farmland, you know, 80 years ago, and now you're like a celebrity, you know, you don't you don't just fool around, man. You take it real seriously. But anyway, like I love this tune because it starts with haters working on the railroad, sleeping on the salty crackers, tens and balls and cattle down, we'll go down, it balls and cattle down and so down. Well, and it goes on and goes on like that. But you know, I'm glad you did that because um it'll be one I want to see like how fast we play it on the record.
SPEAKER_04Also, I don't remember if this is one that You did, you moved it, you changed the key to D, I'm pretty sure. Changed the key.
SPEAKER_09Oh, that's a chore, really? Oh, that would be a good one.
SPEAKER_04Let's see what key it's in.
SPEAKER_09Well, just think of all the generations that will play it in D now. One thing I I'll point out too, like part of uh, you know, Hot Club of Cowtown is a three-piece band. And Bob Wills, even though Bob Wills, if you're really into it, he started as a three-piece band, but very soon, four or five pieces, and then seven, and upwards of eighteen by the late 30s, and then back down to about five to seven from then on. But um those songs, and this was what's attracted me, I think, to a lot of this Western swing, and when Alana and I would get together early days and play just fiddle tunes for an afternoon. And I I don't know, I mean, because you were interested in in the Western style as opposed to bluegrass style or even Appalachian style, you'll like you didn't know or didn't care or whatever. I could move those chords around. So, right now, when we did that, I mean you could you can sit there and go, we're gonna pretty much solid graphs and sit. Or even more more likely it would be just But in uh Eldon Chamblin who played with Bob Wills and Big who was a big fan of Eddie Lang, who was in you know bands in the 20s, died in the early 30s, but and the and the swing-era guitar players, Alan Roos, Freddie Green, they would move the chords around, and this music invites that so much. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean it's a matter of taste a little, but I get to go like it makes it also makes the fiddle so much more, it's like jumping on a trampoline instead of jumping on cement, you know. It's like the fiddle, look, can I what is that? Does the fiddle just play over to this one?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, it's so neat. It gives it a lot of animation, which is which is what we've we always just we dug. That was our bag, right?
SPEAKER_04And also like like like you said, uh I love the early fiery incarnation of the Wills band, sort of before it got really huge. I'll I like all iterations, but the the kind of like crazy fiery era is one of my favorite things about it, and I feel like this kind of the plane really represents what I love most about it.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, and I I would say and yeah, and it's it's kind of what that element too, it's a we're being a little abstract, but but you know, the moving chords and the swing feel that changes in in the in even by in the 50s, really. The electric bass changes it for one, it doesn't have that percussive bounce. Um the guitar players start playing electric guitar, which doesn't really invite them so much, you know. And so technology changes and rock and roll comes along and things just it just morphed into other things. You know, they invented honky tonk and stuff, which is great too, but it's just different, right? So yeah, this music really invite in invites that swing approach, but you wanna hear it? Uh let's see, let's move on to the next tune. Yeah. Okay, so that's the difference. Yeah, yeah, that's not what I meant, though. Yeah, we have to.
SPEAKER_04Can you put the meal down though? Because I can't, I don't know if I have to.
SPEAKER_09All you have to do is take this little lever, lever, and uh we'll drop it down right on the middle of this. We we got going already. We're in D. Big Balls in Cowtown.
SPEAKER_08Working on the railroad, sleeping on the ground, each salting crackers, ten cents a pound. Big balls and cowtown will all go down. Big balls and cowtown will dance around.
SPEAKER_04I I didn't think that it sounded that old when we made it, but now that I think there is an aspect of putting on the vinyl, it does make something, it gives it this sort of gravitas, it gives it like a physical, it's like a date stamp in time, you know. It's like sending, it's like sending a a written letter instead of an email. It's it has a tactile quality that you can hear anyway.
SPEAKER_09Well, there's something something, and this is not-I mean, it's great to have this turntable, and my turntable is exactly the same. It's it's not not fancier at all. It's like a something I bought online for 40 bucks or something. And uh, and I just did it because I used to have a big old stereo and took up a lot of room, and I didn't, you know, I just wanted something to listen to the records that I still had. And then in particular, when Malcolm said he was gonna put this out, I won't I was like, I gotta get a turntable. So, you know, this record player won't give a brand name or anything, but it's cheap.
SPEAKER_04And we did, I already said it's a it's a Victorula.
SPEAKER_09Well, maybe they can send us some money. No, uh, but the point being that these speakers and the modern technology is not helping at all, but just the format seems to make it work anyway. It sounds fine, because um the last record player I had was one of those gray heavy-duty squares that you would have in grade school, right? And I bought one in a in a antique, I think under the sun when they were over there. I bought one of those uh antique store um in Austin. And um, yeah, you just the speaker was six inches big, no bigger. And it sounded it still sounded great. Yeah, and it just has this three-dimensional quality, and even this one is managing with its all digitally kind of little tiny bitty-bitty you know parts, is still managing to give that quality. It's interesting. It's amazing, yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's it's super neat. I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_09And you know, okay, something I really love about LP Records is the fact that there's two sides, and that you know, the artist has to think, the band has to come up with what side starts at the beginning and what's you know, what's the closer before the the intermission, the liquor mission, as we like to say. And uh this one is keeper of my heart. Oh, we're gonna chill.
SPEAKER_04I do love this one.
SPEAKER_09Send them out on a on a on a relaxed note to the uh so yeah.
SPEAKER_04This is when this is when the I did get to overdub. I remember we recorded it and then I was like, I just wanted to do these fills because one of my favorite parts about this song is the fills, because the the vocal prizes so sure it's like if if if what is it in F mood? Oh B flat. If again you were just mine, and then dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, bee-dee-dee-dee-da-da. Sign for me, what always? Dee-de-dee-dee, boo-dee-dee, bla da da. To me, it's like if you don't have the fills, it's like this endless expansive, empty space, which is can't be fine it. So then I was like, can I please, can I please go back in there and do some fills? So I got to go do some fills, but I do find the fills a little hot. However, they're nice that they're in there.
SPEAKER_09So uh let's let's drop this.
SPEAKER_04Also, this song only has two chords for fiddle players playing out there, you know. It's just it's just that um we play the melody in F. I want to modulate.
SPEAKER_09Jesse Ashlock wrote this song, is that right?
SPEAKER_04I don't know, I'd have to look it up.
SPEAKER_09I think so, and he's the he's a jazzy fiddle player, but he knew how to write a pretty little Western vocal.
SPEAKER_04But it goes uh F and B flat, and then uh and then the vocal modulates to the B flat.
SPEAKER_09Will's recorded this more than once. A lot of the bands still play it today. Well, the Western bands, here we go. Let's see.
SPEAKER_03The sun for me would always shine.
SPEAKER_04It's like it typifies one of my favorite things about this whole style, which is that it goes from like fiery and rambunctious and you know virtuosic or whatever, but it also has this like unabashed romantic sweetness that that is so beautiful to me. It's like I think there's sometimes when people approach this music, it becomes like you know, tongue-in-cheek or like ironic, or you know, even over the years, people have like talked about our band and they're like, it's as if we're you know, with a like a sly wink or something. It's like nobody in this band has a sly wink.
SPEAKER_09No, people read that into it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that like actually I feel like it is I do think one thing that unites this trio is that it's an approach to these songs that's like completely on the song's and in terms there is not there's never an intention to have like an ironic approach or a you know, and so a song like this to me does really typify just like it's so simple and romantic and beautiful, and to just perform it on its own terms is like the the best that you can give it, you know, and it's like like away that's the idea. It's like it reminds me of that quote by Chief Joseph. It's something like uh Chief Joseph? Yeah, it's like it doesn't take uh many words to speak the truth. You know, and this song is like an exact uh really illustrates that kind of an idea. And there's a lot of that in Western swing where you just let the melody play itself, and it's just it's so satisfying.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. Yeah, on the other side, on that on the other side of that same coin is the technical technique aspect. Just because you can play a lot of them doesn't mean you have to. You know, I mean there are beautiful things that are. No, well no, and I'm not I'm not pointing any fingers or anything, but I'm just saying it's w that's the other thing, you just be besides the people tend to do things of irony or like they're self-conscious that it's old or old-fashioned or pretty. Being pretty is kind of like being naked. It's like the hardest thing to do, honestly, is to play pretty. And you know, less is less makes it even harder because it you can't hide behind a chord change. You know a song like I wonder where my baby is tonight, great song. But right away, if you got if you played two notes per chord, you would sound like you were, you know, playing Paganini. You know, I mean you're already off to a great start, technically.
SPEAKER_04Because there's so many changes, so much going on. Right.
SPEAKER_09This song is just sitting there going, What do you got for me? Because I'm just gonna play two chords. You know.
SPEAKER_04That's right. I totally agree.
SPEAKER_09Well, come on, uh, this is really fun. That and uh it's time to flip the platter over. Okay, let's flip it. Flip the platter and uh relieve the bladder and go get a beer, and uh we'll start. You'll see you're back here for side two.
SPEAKER_00What an insight that was. You can hear Laran and Witt talking about side two of this great vinyl release on the second and final part of this podcast.