Western Swing

[Greentone]

Western Swing...strings

It all depends upon how authentic you want to sound. The "hot" guitarists of Southern California who were tearing it up in the late-40s and the 50s, when Western Swing was really "goin' on," were using guitars like Paul Bigsby solid bodies, Gibson Super 400, and L-5 guitars with pickups added. They all made the switch to solid body guitars made by Leo Fender, and custom guitars by Semie Moseley during the 1950s. The common denominator, early on, was pretty heavy strings. A little later on, flatwound strings showed up--which eliminated noise in recordings. The strings were still pretty heavy. By the mid-50s and later, some of the hot shots were buying sets of guitar strings, moving each string over one, and adding a banjo string for the first string. This was what James Burton was doing in Ricky Nelson's band.

Remember, though, that most of the hot swing guitarists were, at heart, jazz guys--in their own conception of things. They wanted to get away with as much jazz as they could--in a country context. Even Chet Atkins was basically up to this, over in Nashville--Hank Garland, too. As such, these guys were trying to carve out tones that Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, and Les Paul would have approved of. They were just trying to insert it into country/swing bands.

So, if you want to cop authentic Western Swing tone, get yourself some sort of Bigsby (or Bigsby reproduction) guitar, a Standel 25L15 amp, some .12-.50 strings, and a patch chord and you're off to the races. A double-neck Moseley-made guitar will do nicely if a Bigsby is unavailable. Otherwise, a Telecaster, .11-.50 flats, and a tweed Fender Pro amp (the steel player should use this, too), and you are in high cotton.

[neatomic]

phil baugh is playing a fender bass vi in that clip with glen campbell....phil baugh was absolutely astounding player..campbell was good, but he's just shuckin those fast runs..why he's turnin away from phil..they're just goofin..but phil b really had the goods


check this..on an early mosrite doubleneck

i love that whole bakersfield/town hall party hot rod guitar bit..mosrites and joe maphis, collins kids, burton with ricky, jimmy bryant and speedy, nokie edwards, etc etc

cheers

[campusfive]

It all depends upon how authentic you want to sound

It also depends on one's definition of "Western Swing". The joke in the "Blues Brothers" aside, "Western" was, at one point, distinctly different from "Country". I think there's some Country stuff making it in to the thread here.

Give me some Bob Wills, Spade Cooley, Billy Jack Wills, and the like, and leave the telewacker stuff for another thread.

[MarkRhodes]

It also depends on one's definition of "Western Swing". The joke in the "Blues Brothers" aside, "Western" was, at one point, distinctly different from "Country". I think there's some Country stuff making it in to the thread here.

Give me some Bob Wills, Spade Cooley, Billy Jack Wills, and the like, and leave the telewacker stuff for another thread.

I agree that Western was once different from Country, but since the advent of Country & Western music, there's been an overlap. Willie Nelson makes country albums, standards albums, and Western Swing albums (and records that are a mix of styles.)

Here's a great old clip of a fairly young (and beardless) Willie doing "My Window Faces the South" with some hot guitar picking from Leon Rhodes (-no relation to me).
Willie's an interesting case. He didn't like the sound Chet Atkins gave the records he (Willie) recorded in Nashville, and Willie wound up leaving, but he didn't go back to conventional Western Swing but did what a lot of people nowadays do---make a style of their varied influences.

[stringmaster]

My new favorite contemporary artist is Carolyn Martin--I knew her a little from the Time Jumpers, but was fortunate to see her in an intimate setting last week--just her and her husband on bass (who did all of the soloing). She's a fantastic singer and great guitar player too. Liked it so much I bought all of her 6 CD's--there's a lot of variety in them--mostly Western Swing/Swing, and some "torchy" stuff too. She uses top flight musicians mostly from Nashville on the recordings. I'm blown away and was inspired to work more on my rhythm playing after seeing her. He's a vid of a show--Rory Hoffman is ridiculous. If you don't want to watch the whole thing skip to 39:00 for a jazz instrumental that Rory does.

[monk]

One of my favorite recordings is a CD by The Country All-Stars titled Jazz from the Hills which is a rerelease of the 1953 RCA album Stringdustin' by Chet Atkins, Homer Haynes, Jethro Burns and several other country players with the addition of unreleased cuts from 1956 that also featured George Barnes.

Here's a cut of Royal Garden Blues that features Barnes throughout with short solos by either Bob Davis or Marty Rubenstrin on piano, Jethro on mandolin, then Chet, after which Barnes returns to take it home. There are also short tags in Barnes' solos that feature Barnes, Jethro and Chet in that order.

[MarkRhodes]

My new favorite contemporary artist is Carolyn Martin-- If you don't want to watch the whole thing skip to 39:00 for a jazz instrumental that Rory does.

Rory's so good it's scary. Just scary. I enjoyed hearing Carolyn---thanks for the intro!

[neatomic]

some interesting things goin' on in this one-

johnny tyler- devil's hot rod

cheers

[MarkRhodes]

A "six-pack" of George Strait

[neatomic]

reviving this thread with a great vid from tavo v of nocturne amps...he's building the cc era gibby inspired moonshine 39 amps- Nocturne Moonshine'39

deke dickerson & tommy harkenrider have a little play and chat..great stuff

dekes killer texas playboys epi emperor!!

+ tommy h's grez guitar is there as is tavo's moonshine' 39 amp...top gear...and all three forum members!!

nice

cheers

[MarkRhodes]

Yowza! Thanks for posting this.

[Grez]

Tommy's clinics are something special. You get a couple of hours of music theory, licks, jamming, cool gear, great players and conversations and storytelling.........for less than the price of one guitar lesson.