Music and more with claudecat17 (aka Chris Davlin)!

Most music people are familiar with the name Bob Wills. He may not have invented “western swing” as a genre (it’s debatable), but he certainly became its most famous and legendary band leader, with a career that spanned the early 1930’s through the mid 1960’s. I don’t aim to tell the whole Wills story, as it’s easily researched elsewhere (click his name above). What I do intend here is to enthuse about a very select number of recordings made in 1946-7 in my birthplace, San Francisco, originally intended for syndication to radio stations nationwide via 16″ 33 1/3 rpm discs. The specifics of how or why they were made aren’t really important for our purposes today. You can learn more on that here. All I really want to do here is highlight just how spectacularly great one particular musician was on these loose, laid back, similar to a live gig sessions. That musician was Tiny Moore, playing a bizarre but extremely lovable instrument: the electric mandolin.

Yes, the electric mandolin. I had never even known this beast existed until I got these recordings way back in the mid ‘80s. Turns out that the instrument was actually a buyable thing, at least two different models being sold by Gibson during this era. They seem to have appeared at exactly the same time as the electric guitar models made by Gibson that were popularized by the likes of Charlie Christian. Moore used both the EM-125 and EM-150 models during his tenure with Wills, and later had one custom made for him by Paul Bigsby during the time he played with Bob’s youngest brother Billy Jack Wills’ band in the early ’50s. Tiny played these using just four strings, though they were made with four courses of two strings per course (eight strings), like a standard mandolin. This allowed the instrument to resemble the electric guitar in tone, yet with much higher notes at his fingertips. It gave him some additional fretboard real estate to work with when bending or slurring notes as well. The custom Bigsby was a 5-string monstrosity, and more closely resembles the Fender guitars that are familiar to all even today. Just a truly strange instrument in either form, and Moore is the only one I know that made an impact, albeit an obscure and minor one, making use of it.

Let me step back for a moment and prepare the listener for the music on which Tiny Moore appears here. These “Tiffany Transcriptions”, as they’ve come to be known, were extremely loose sessions, meant to sound like an evening in your local dance hall or dive bar. Bob Wills himself really doesn’t do anything on these recordings aside from friendly (or annoying, depending on your mood or perspective) “awww-hawww”s and other interjections, often announcing the soloists or just saying whatever he feels like saying. It can be a bit much at times, but you can’t really get too mad at the bent joviality on display from ol’ Bob here. His fiddle does make an appearance from time to time on these sides, but we’ll be focusing on the tunes that feature Tiny Moore’s best work, which are free of Bob doing anything but being his nutty self vocally. And you’d probably never know it was electric mandolin if it weren’t for the stratospheric high notes being hit. Tiny can be silly fast at times, quite inventive in a jazzy, flashy way, and his tone is very very cool. He’s often heard playing in harmony with guitarist Eldon Shamblin, himself no slouch, and/or steel guitarist Herb Remington on these tracks. The other soloists (piano, fiddle, and horns mostly – though on the selections below it’s just piano aside from the guitars) aren’t much to speak of musically in my opinion, at least in comparison, so Tiny and the other guitars really stand out. The rhythm section is solid, nothing spectacular, just solid. This is pretty rockin’ stuff at times. Fancy, critically acclaimed jazz this is not. This is “jazz” for the working stiff, finally able to step out and live a little after too many years of war and depression.

Just a note on the songs I’ve selected here. Western swing was/is a real melting pot of a musical form. As heard below it takes in a lot of jazz and boogie-woogie blues elements, but there are other songs that are much more “country” or “hillbilly” sounding, and Wills’ signature tune “San Antonio Rose” even has Mexican tinges. There’s a pretty strong backbeat on a lot of these too, reminding you that Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” was based pretty directly on Wills’ version of the traditional song “Ida Red”. Again, rockin’ stuff. I guess my favorite parts of all in this music, aside from the hot solos themselves, are the multi-part harmony riffs by the guitars that often form the “head” or introductory part of these tunes. It’s a lot like big band swing, just boiled down to more modern instruments played by guys that work for far less money than whole horn sections. We’ll hear exclusively jazz standards below, from Benny Goodman’s “Mission to Moscow” to Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train” to Count Basie’s “Jumpin’ at the Woodside”. If it was a popular tune, these guys would give it a go, often in a far more rockin’ (there’s that word again), or at least wilder and more electrified, manner than the original.

Anyway, without further ado, here are a few of the best tunes out of the over 450 separate tracks recorded at these Tiffany Transcriptions sessions, some of which are still being unearthed. First let’s hear “Mission to Moscow”. Moore’s solo is particularly nice here. Bob will make sure you know which one it is, don’t worry.

Next up is “Take the A Train”…

And finally, here’s “Jumpin’ at the Woodside”, one of my personal favorites from the Count Basie catalog…

As you might have noticed, these tunes are hosted by yours truly. I started that channel mainly to upload another western swing/jazz classic by the ultra-obscure Jimmie Rivers and the Cherokees years ago because nobody else had done it and the music deserves to be heard. It’s a collection of very raw recordings made on a reel to reel tape unit hidden by steel player Vance Terry in the men’s room. Rivers played a double neck with a 12 string, and actually used both necks within single tunes. Did Jimmy Page ever do that? That you could hear? I doubt it. I saw him live with the Firm in the 80s and he was still doing the violin bow trick, something that always seemed dumb and pander-y. He didn’t touch the 12 string neck that I noticed… I really have it in for Page since reading the Pamela Des Barres books long ago. Him and Morrison both came off as predatory AND out of control, not the best combo… Lou Reed always seemed like a dick to me too, but that’s more the bad music’s fault than anything I’ve read. Don’t get me started on Iggy Pop… I have digressed severely!

To return to our subject, Rivers was one of the most fluent improvisors I’ve ever heard, at least within the confines of western music, so I feel pretty good about having made it available for YouTube addicts. I’ve become one myself! I can no longer fully enjoy a meal without watching hilarious cat videos, and if times get really tough I reach for the hard stuff – cats with babies! If you don’t feel better after that you may not be a life form at all – consult your physician, put down some newspapers, drink 8 glasses of water, etc. You’re one of them neutral aliens, ain’tcha… Like Spock! Impervious even to Lifetime movies.

I’ll probably do the Jimmie Rivers post soon, as I’m finding it ridiculously easy to copy and paste posts from the old tumblr blog, even the pictures and links! Soon I’ll make the overall design less terrible and replace the stock images with things I like better. But just because I’m posting a lot doesn’t mean I’m working at it much at all. It’s been almost all reposts so far, and it may be that way for a while, at least until the good ones from years ago have all been recycled. I posted every single day for a long time – years, so there’s a lot to get through… I’ll be writing fresh stuff as topics demand attention, but expect mostly retreads for a good while!

I’ll close by once again inviting people to comment. Do you know something I don’t on whatever subject I’m yammering on about? Speak up! Prove it! Or just yell at me for anything! I can take anything after what I’ve been through. More on that too as time goes on… For now however I’ll bid one and all a fond adieu, maybe some fondue, and many happy returns of the day!

I love that phrase despite not understanding it at all. I’ve never received a single return of any day, nor am I sure what might constitute such a “return”. They used to use that phrase a lot in Charlie Brown comics. That and “good grief”.

I’ve been forced by circumstance to live for decades with someone that says “good grief” quite often, along with “dadgummit”, and my personal favorite, a wistful, put-upon, the world is too much for me to bear “oh, me…”, usually used in place of the grunts or groans normal citizens might utter when rising from a chair for instance. This is not the most upbeat person, to put it mildly. It has not been groovy. Complete bummer, but almost over. Yay.

See y’all next time!