"On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair, warm smell of colitis rising up through the air."

As an avid cyclist that rides 10 miles daily on my trusty steed, I take great pleasure listening to my all time favorite “rock and roll” band from the `70s on my MP3 player, that being the Eagles!



Here were four young musicians gathered together in a studio in LA in 1971 to support one of America’s great young Divas of the time, Linda Ronstadt.
Don Henley would be the Lead vocalist, who played drums and provided percussion, Glenn Frey played the 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar and provided backing vocals. Don Felder played Lead guitar, the 12-string electric guitar and also provided backing vocals, and Bernie Leadon a multi-instrumentalist (guitar, banjo, mandolin, steel guitar, dobro) coming from a bluegrass background. He introduced elements of this music to a mainstream audience during his tenure with the Eagles.

As the band finely evolved Joe Walsh joined the group who also played Lead guitar, the organ and also provided backing vocals, and of course Randy Meisner who played Bass guitar and also provided backing vocals. These were the young men who would “Rock” the music world with their introduction with their gigantic hit
“Take it Easy”



As I was listening to their hit song "Hotel California” this morning while I was riding and thinking about my next blog entry, the first lines of the song seemed to yell at me, "On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair, warm smell of colitis rising up through the air." “Just what does "colitis" mean”? I said to myself! I remembered back when the song was first released as a single in early 1977, what a controversy that was stirred up about what the term was all about! So I decided it was time to address the subject! Starting with the song itself;


Hotel California – “The Eagles” live in concert April 25-26,1994 in Moline,IN.

"Hotel California" topped the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for one week in May 1977. Three months after its release, the single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America representing 1,000,000 records shipped. The Eagles also won the 1977 Grammy Award for Record of the Year for "Hotel California" at the 20th Annual Grammy Awards in 1978.


The Hotel California in the late 40's

For years there has been a lot of discussion about the many theories behind the writing of Hotel California some of the more common theories was that The Hotel California is a real hotel located in Baja California on the coastal highway between Cabo San Lucas and La Paz others say it is near Santa Barbara.

Then there are those that claim The Hotel California is a mental hospital! "Camarillo State Hospital” in Ventura County between LA and Santa Barbara. Glenn Frey, one of the coauthors of the song said it is a metaphor for cocaine addiction. "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave."

But back to the question of what “colitas” really meant? According to Eagles management honcho Irving Azoff: "In response to your [recent] memo, in 1976, during the writing of the song 'Hotel California' by Messrs. Henley and Frey, the word `colitas' was translated for them by their Mexican-American road manager as 'little buds.' You have obviously already done the necessary extrapolation. Thank you for your inquiry." [1]

So as it turns out "Colitas is little tails, or 'colas,' the tip of a marijuana branch, where it is more potent and with more sap (said to be the best part of the leaves)."

With an instant shock of certainty that this was the correct interpretation, The Eagles, with the prescience given only to true artists, were touting the virtues of high-quality industrial hemp!

And to think some people thought this song was about drugs.

With that thought in mind I felt that maybe everyone had been a little too rash so I decided that perhaps a little reprieve was due and decided to express my thoughts about the subject with this little song of theirs;



As I was returning home from my daily journey on my 29er I had this feeling come over me as I realized how much fun I was really having riding my bike and enjoying the music of my youth!

The Eagles - Peaceful Easy Feeling


So in the morning as I am cursing down the road trying to loosen my load, I’ll think about how much fun I was having smelling the sweet smell of colitas so I could enjoy that peaceful easy feeling before I jumped into the fast lane to get to work on time! I wonder why my wife asked me about that song I was humming before I left for my ride. Was it Witchy Woman? or Desperado I think it was!




Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Dallas, Texas
Email Me

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel California

"Eight to the Bar"

Clickity Clack, Clickity Clack down the railroad line they went! As dawn broke over 20th century America, a new style of piano-based blues was to become very popular well into the late 1930s and early 1940s. What had evolved was extended from the piano, to three pianos at once, to the guitar, the big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. It was “Boogie-woogie” an early art form mainly associated with dancing. Early lyrics of one of the very earliest of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie", consist entirely of instructions to dancers: “Now, when I tell you to hold it, I don't want you to move a thing.” “And when I tell you to get it, I want you to Boogie Woogie!”

The precise origin of boogie-woogie piano is uncertain; it was no doubt influenced by early rough music played in honky tonks in the Southern United States. W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton both mentioned hearing pianists playing this style before 1910. According to Clarence Williams, the style was started by Texas pianist George W. Thomas. Thomas published one of the earliest pieces of sheet music with the boogie-woogie bassline, "New Orleans Hop Scop Blues" in 1916, although Williams recalled hearing him play the number before 1911. The term "boogie" itself was in use very early, as in Wilbur Sweatman's "Boogie Rag" recorded in April, 1917.


"Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" by Pinetop Smith recorded in 1928

The first boogie woogie hit was "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" by Pinetop Smith (1928 in music) recorded in 1928 and first released in 1929. Pinetop's record was the first boogie-woogie recording to be a commercial hit, and helped establish boogie-woogie as the name of the style. It was closely followed by another example of pure boogie-woogie, "Honky Tonk Train Blues" by Meade Lux Lewis, recorded by Paramount Records; 1927 in music, first released in March of 1930.

Meade Lux Lewis

Boogie-woogie gained further public attention in 1938 and 1939, thanks to the “From Spirituals to Swing” concerts in Carnegie Hall promoted by record producer John Hammond. The concerts featured Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson performing Turner's tribute to Johnson, "Roll 'Em Pete", as well as Meade Lux Lewis performing "Honky Tonk Train Blues" and Albert Ammons playing "Swanee River Boogie'.

"Roll 'Em Pete" is now considered to be an early rock and roll song. After the Carnegie Hall concerts, it was only natural for swing bands to incorporate the boogie woogie beat into some of their music. One of the first to do this was the Will Bradley orchestra, starting in 1939, which got them a string of boogie hits such as the original versions of "Beat Me Daddy (Eight To The Bar)" and "Down The Road A-Piece," both 1940, and "Scrub Me Mamma With A Boogie Beat," in 1941.

The Andrews Sisters sang some boogies, and Tommy Dorsey's band had a hit with an updated version of Pine Top's Boogie Woogie in 1938, which was the swing era's second best seller, only second to Glenn Miller's "In the Mood". After the floodgates were open, it was expected that every big band should have one or two boogie numbers in their repertoire, as the dancers were learning to jitterbug and do the Lindy Hop, which required the boogie woogie beat.

Tommy Dorsey – Woogie Boogie

In 1939 country artists began playing boogie woogie when Johnny Barfield recorded "Boogie Woogie". But it was "Cow Cow Boogie" that was written for, but not used in, the 1942 movie "Ride 'em Cowboy" where Boogie Woogie crossed over the line. This song by Benny Carter, Gene DePaul, and Don Raye successfully combined Boogie Woogie and Western, or Cowboy music. The lyrics leave no doubt that it was a Western boogie woogie. It sold over a million records in its original release, and has now been recorded many times.

Brooks and Dunn - "Boot Scooting Boogie"

The boogie beat continued in country music through the end of the 20th century. The Charlie Daniels Band (whose earlier tune "The South's Gonna Do It Again" uses boogie-woogie influences) released "Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues" in 1988, and three years later in 1991 Brooks & Dunn had a huge hit with "Boot Scootin' Boogie". More representative examples can be found in some of the songs of Western swing pioneer Bob Wills, and subsequent tradition-minded country artists such as Asleep at the Wheel, Merle Haggard, and even George Strait.

The popularity of the Carnegie Hall concerts meant work for many of the fellow boogie players and also led to the adaptation of boogie-woogie sounds to many other forms of music. Tommy Dorsey's band had a hit with "T.D.'s Boogie Woogie" as arranged by Sy Oliver and soon there were boogie-woogie songs, recorded and printed, of many different stripes. Most famously, in the big-band genre, the ubiquitous "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," which was revamped recently by Christina Aguilera as her 2006 hit, "Candyman."

See Article: http://thepalomar.blogspot.com/2009/12/candyman.html

The boogie-woogie fad lasted from the late 1930s into the early fifties,and made a major contribution to the development of jump blues and ultimately to rock and roll, epitomized by Jerry Lee Lewis. Boogie woogie is still to be heard in clubs and on records throughout Europe and North America.

One of my all-time favorites that parallels and is considered part of this genre which exudes confidence in the music is another great song that exemplifies this type of music Americana!

Willie Nelson – City of New Orleans




Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Dallas, Texas
Email Me

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogie Woogie

Grand Old Opry - 28/April/1956

A Boy Named Sue

Sue Kerr Hicks

On May 5th, 1925, John Scopes, a Tennessee high school teacher intentionally violated the Butler Act which made it unlawful "to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals” the male attorney Sue K. Hicks of Madisonville, Tennessee, a friend of John Scopes who agreed to be a prosecutor in what was to become known as the Scopes Monkey Trial. Sue was named after his mother who died after giving birth to him.[1]


Shel Silverstien

Shel Silverstein, famous poet, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author of children's books who sometimes styled himself as Uncle Shelby, especially for his early children's books, and a close friend conspired late in 1968 on a new song which developed the story about the trials and tribulations of a boy growing up in the early thirties with a first name of Sue.

Shel’s story tells the preposterous yet moving tale of a young man's quest for revenge on an absent father whose only contribution to his entire life was naming him Sue, commonly a feminine name. The name was the cause of endless ridicule as the young man was growing up. As the years went on, Sue grew big, strong and fearsome from all the fights he got into with bullies.

At the climax of the song, Sue finds and confronts his father, and the two get into a vicious brawl. After the two have beaten each other almost senseless, Sue's father admits that the name was given to him as an act of love: because he knew he would not be there for his son, Sue's father gave him that name to make sure that he grew up strong. Learning this, Sue forgives his father and they have an emotional reconciliation.

With his lesson learned, Sue closes the song with an announcement: "And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him . . . Bill or George, any damn thing but Sue! I still hate that name!"
On February 24, 1969 Johnny Cash who was at the height of his popularity when he recorded this song live at San Quentin State Prison in California. The song became Cash's biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, spending three weeks at #2 in 1969; it also topped the country music and adult contemporary charts that same year.[1]



In his autobiography Cash wrote that he had just received the song and only read over it a couple of times and it was his wife June Carter Cash who encouraged her husband to perform the song which was included in that concert to try it out; he didn't know the words and on the filmed recording, he can be seen regularly referring to a piece of paper. Cash was surprised at how well the song went over with the audience – the rough, spontaneous performance with sparse accompaniment was included in the Johnny Cash At San Quentin album, ultimately becoming one of Cash's biggest hits.

I prepared this article at the request of George Spink the moderator of the Palomar big band blog and webmaster of the Tuxedo Junction big band website who had asked me to do a piece about this song as it is one of his favorite Country music pieces. So this is dedicated to George Spink who has just returned home after a three week stay in the hospital for a heart bypass operation as a welcome home piece! Thanks George it was fun!




Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Dallas, Texas
Email Me

[1]Wikipedia

"The Mother Church of Country Music"

As with all music genres they have a birthplace or point of origin from which they evolve, take hold, grow and expand either locally, regionally or in some cases eventually nationwide if and when it gains the respect and acceptance of enough people.

In the case of Dixieland Jazz that place was Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1897 through 1917 with such greats as King Oliver, Kid Ory’s Original Creole Jazz Band and the fabulous Louis Armstrong just to name a few.

As this music caught on locally it began to expand along the Mississippi river to cities such as Memphis and St. Louis and nightclubs, bars and honky tonks in places such as Beale Street which is considered by many as eventually becoming the birthplace of what we know as the blues.

As the American music experience expanded and grew more and more it became influenced by other ethnic groups and morphed into other sub-genres with different instrumental influences and to the tastes of other ethnic groups. By 1935 Big Bands had developed and with the advent of radio the music spread nationwide and eventually burst wide open with Benny Goodman taking the country by storm at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angles with his nationwide broadcast which many say was the beginning of an era that would last until the end of World War II.



With the advent of radio being the prime mover of the music, many others genres quickly developed such as country music and with radio shows such Louisiana Hayride broadcast out of the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Shreveport, LA. Inspired by and modeled on such seminal "barn dance" radio programs as the WLS Barn Dance out of Chicago, the Hayride evolved into a true phenomenon. But the most famous of all was the Grand Ole Opry from Nashville, TN., and the “Opry” is the oldest continuous radio program in the United States, having been broadcast on WSM since October 5, 1925.



From the very inception of the Opry audiences to the live show increased, the National Life & Accident Insurance's radio venue became too small to accommodate the hordes of fans. They built a larger studio, but it was still not large enough. After several months of no audiences, National Life decided to allow the Opry to move outside its home offices. The Opry moved, in October, 1934, into then-suburban Hillsboro Theatre (now the Belcourt), and then on June 13, 1936, to the Dixie Tabernacle in East Nashville. The Opry then moved to the War Memorial Auditorium, a downtown venue adjacent to the State Capitol. A 25-cent admission was charged in an effort to curb the large crowds, but to no avail. On June 5, 1943, the Opry moved to the Ryman Auditorium.



The Ryman Auditorium is a 2,362-seat live performance venue located at 116 Fifth Avenue North in Nashville. The auditorium first opened as the Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892. It was built by Thomas Ryman (1843–1904), a riverboat captain and Nashville businessman who owned several saloons. Ryman conceived of the auditorium as a tabernacle for the influential revivalist Sam Jones. After Ryman's death, the Tabernacle was renamed Ryman Auditorium in his honor.



It was used for Grand Ole Opry broadcasts from 1943 until 1974, when the Opry built a larger venue just outside Nashville at the Opryland USA theme park. The Ryman then sat mostly vacant and fell into disrepair until 1992 when Emmylou Harris and her band, the Nash Ramblers, performed a series of concerts there (the results of which appeared on her album “At the Ryman”). The Harris concerts renewed interest in restoring the Ryman, and it was reopened as an intimate performance venue and museum in 1994. Audiences at the Ryman find themselves sitting in pews, the 1994 renovation notwithstanding. The seating is a reminder of the auditorium's origins as a house of worship, hence giving it the nickname "The Mother Church of Country Music".



The ultimate experience for every C&W musician is being invited to perform at the Opry. There have been so many country music greats that have performed at the Ryman since its inception including the legendary Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Jim Reeves, Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Garth Brooks, Patsy Cline, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Emmylou Harris, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Glen Campbell, Reba McEntire, Conway Twitty, Dolly Parton, Marty Robbins, Ernest Tubb, Dottie West, Crystal Gayle, Gretchen Wilson, Willie Nelson, The Judds and list goes on and on!

The Ryman Auditorium was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and was further designated a National Historic Landmark in 2001.

As we kick off our forum I felt it only appropriate that a few words needed to be said about its namesake. I wanted to use a newspaper type banner as the name so we decided on the Observer and of course a name for the blog that all Country and Western music fans would readily recognize, thus Opry Observer.

The Blog is an open forum for those who wish to write about their favorite stars and to share their photos and videos. To become a contributor please sign up or send us an e-mail for more information on how to submit your articles.





Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Moderator
Dallas, Texas
Email Me
http://www.ryman.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryman_Auditorium
http://www.opry.com/

Bob Wills - The King of Country Swing

When I was growing up in the southern Appalachian mountains of Tennessee during the late forties and the early fifties, my mother was one of the hippest swingers of the time (not the same as “swingers” of today!). She could really bop to Benny Goodman and was as good as they came when it came to dancing to swing. Mom also liked country music because that was the music she grew up with.

My dad was a dyed-in-the-wool country and western music lover. When he wasn’t driving a coal truck delivering coal to the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) or running moonshine to Atlanta or Augusta, Georgia, he spent his time working part-time at the local radio station playing the latest country music hits of the time. Now don’t let me mislead you here. Radio stations in rural Tennessee during that period would let just about anyone with the nerve get on the radio and be a DJ.

What he loved about that job was getting to meet those that were out on the road promoting their own songs by delivering their own records to the radio stations personally and asking the DJ on the air to play their records. One of his proudest moments was when Hank Williams came to his little station and asked my dad to play his music. He still has a picture of Hank and him in front of that little radio station holding Hank's new hit record with their arms over each others shoulders.

Dad was a pretty good guitar player and singer in his own right at the time and spent many weekends at the local Juke Joints playing and singing with his little four-piece band. But I think his most favorite music, that of which mom liked the most, was playing the music of his all time favorite Bob Wills. That was the “Swing” that my dad enjoyed.



James Robert (Bob) Wills (1905-1975) was born in Kosse, Texas in 1905 and was considered to be the father of what we all know as “Country Swing”. Bob’s father and grandfather taught young Bob to play the fiddle and the mandolin at a very young age. Bob spent much of his youth picking cotton and listening to cotton picker’s songs.

During the 1920’s, "Jim Rob," as he was called at the time, became a barber as his trade, married, and moved first to Roy, New Mexico then to Turkey, Texas ( can you imagine living in a place called Turkey?). Soon Jim Bob grew restless and moved to Fort Worth to pursue a career in music. It was while performing in a medicine show in Fort Worth that he learned comic timing and some of the famous "patter" he later delivered on his records.

Wills made his professional debut as a blackface singer along the lines of Al Jolson who was also a big hit during this time. Bob was a big fan of Bessie Smith and once rode 50 miles on horseback just to see her perform live.

Wills formed The Wills Fiddle Band in 1930 when Milton Brown joined his group as lead vocalist. Brown brought a sense of innovation and experimentation to the band. They became the “Light Crust Doughboys” sponsored by the makers of Light Crust Flour. Bob was despised by his superiors at the flour company because they considered his music as "hillbilly music."



Wills and his best friend, Tommy Duncan, his then lead singer, left the Doughboys in 1933 after Wills had missed one show too many due to his sporadic drinking, which finely lead to his death in 1975.

Bob Wills continued throughout the years adding to his band the music of the times and of the south where he played. I could go on with page after page about the music and the man. However, you can read up on the life of Bob Wills at Wikipedia and other internet sites about his life.

My dad, now in his early 80’s, lives in Denver with his wife, Rosemary, whose brother was a songwriter in Nashville. He wrote a couple of songs for Buck Owens during the 1960’s. They still talk about Buck when he was rising to fame in Phoenix and the many friends that they knew over the years in country music like Chet Adkins and Ernest Tubb. Dad and Rosemary were friends with other country music greats like Merle Haggard and Wayland Jennings who they also met in the 1960’s in Phoenix through Buck.

When I was growing up my old man often had his friends over to play their music, drink and sing their songs. To me, they were just a bunch of country singers trying to make it big in the country music business. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but as the years have passed by, I’ve looked back at the time they spent out on the patio and wish I had paid more attention to who they all were.

The one thing they all seemed to say back then was that the greatest of them all, when it came to showmanship, was the king himself, Bob Wills. How I wish we could have known him!

I want to thank my dad for those great memories and for the love of country music that he instilled in me.




Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Dallas, Texas
Email Me

From the 1974 album Fathers and Sons featuring songs by both Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and Asleep at the Wheel:

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys


San Antonio Rose
Trouble in Mind
Miss Molly
Time Changes Everything
Big Beaver
Can't Go On This Way
The Convict and The Rose
Roly-Poly
Back to Tulsa
New San Antonio Rose

Asleep at the Wheel


Choo Choo Ch'boogie
Jumpin' at the Woodside
Miss Molly
Blood-Shot Eyes
Dead Man
Don't Ask Me Why (I'm Going to Texas)
The Kind of Love I Can't Forget
Last Letter
Our Names Aren't Mentioned (Together Anymore)
You and Me Instead

 

The Wild Side of Life

Shortly after World War II a young Navy radioman returned to Waco TX after studying electrical engineering at Princeton University before being discharged. He had intended to continue those studies on the GI Bill following his discharge but decided to continue his lifelong love of music instead. Like many country stars, Henry William “Hank” Thompson took an early interest in music as a result of his adoration of his cowboy movie idol Gene Autry. [1]



Hank Thompson and his Brazos Valley Boys musical style was characterized as honky tonk Western swing, with a mixture of fiddles, electric guitar and steel guitar that featured his distinctive, smooth baritone vocals. He wanted The Brazos Valley Boys to play a "light" version of the Western swing, a sound that Bob Wills and others had made famous, emphasizing the dance beat and meticulous arrangements. [2]

1952 brought his first #1 disc, "The Wild Side of Life," which contained the memorable line "I didn't know God made honky-tonk angels"

Hank Thompson


Hank and his Boys were voted the top Country Western Band for 14 years in a row by Billboard with record sales well over 60 million internationally, Hank Thompson's career has spanned an unbelievable seven decades (from the '40's into the 21st century) of recorded music history. Thompson was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1997. [1] [2]

On November 1, 2007, Thompson canceled the rest of his 2007 "Sunset Tour" and retired from singing. Thompson's last performance had been on October 8, 2007 in Waco, Texas, his birthplace. He died a month later from lung cancer. [1]



Shortly after Hank released his smash hit “The Wild side of Life”, Paul Cohen, an executive at Decca Records, approached a relatively unknown pioneer female country vocalist by the name of Kitty Wells about doing an answer song to Hank’s smash hit. Wells was disenchanted with her career prospects and was considering retirement when Cohen approached her about doing the song "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels". She agreed to the session (at Owen Bradley’s studio on May 3, 1952) because of the $125 union scale recording payment. "I wasn't expecting to make a hit," said Wells later. "I just thought it was another song". It became the first hit single for a female vocalist in Country music history. [3]

The record's message was controversial at the time, and was banned by many radio stations. It was also temporarily banned from the Grand Ole Opry. Nevertheless, audiences couldn’t get enough of it. The single took off during the summer of 1952, and sold more than 800,000 copies in its initial release.

Kitty Wells


Wells was born Ellen Muriel Deason in 1919 in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the few country singers born in Nashville. She began singing as a child, learning guitar from her father. [4]

Wells’ success in the 1950s and 1960s was so enormous that she still ranks as the sixth most successful female vocalist in the history of the Billboard country charts behind Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Reba McEntire, Tammy Wynette, and Tanya Tucker. [3]

Wells was the third country music artist, after Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991, as well as being the eighth woman and first Caucasian woman to receive the honor. In 1976, she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She is as of 2009 — at age 90 — the oldest living member of the C&W Hall of Fame. Wells' accomplishments earned her the moniker The Queen of Country Music. [3]

I realize this is somewhat out of the realm of Swing and Big Band music; however for those who love the sound of “Country Swing” these were two of the greats of the era. Next to big band and swing, this music is the closest to my heart!

Hope you enjoyed “The Wild Side of Life”!




Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Dallas, Texas
Email Me


[1] http://www.hankthompson.com/index.htm
[2] http://www.hankthompson.com/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Wells
[4] http://www.kittywells.com/