Re: [Harp-L] Re: country/western/McCoy
I don't have Don Les' stuff, but I've been meaning to get around to it. The stuff is available on CD now, I think.
As for 'Country & Western', I'd call Bob Wills 'Western', as well as the East Texas Serenaders, Milton Brown, Moon Mullican etc. etc.
The big difference between South Eastern rural music & South Western (in particular Texas) seems to me to be that the SW stuff was more open to current influences, and because of a different culture that seemed more open to couple-dancing (and beer- possibly thanks to the Germans down that way) the music was more inclined towards jazz, blues and ragtime, with hot 'take-off' solos etc.
The SE stuff is more for square dancing, clogging etc or just for listening to.
Seems to me that after WWII that shook up social conditions as well as the economy, you got more of these influences east of Texas/Louisiana, with Ernie Tubb and Hank using 'hot' soloists and the whole music taking on a different character with the 'livin' high & wide' attitude coming in; honky-tonks, booz, 'slippin'around', D-I-V-O-R-C-E etc.
Now that's 'Country' AND 'Western'. Willie Nelson is classic C&W in my book 'cause of his sophisticated jazziness. He sure as hell ain't Roy Acuff.
You might think I'm just an Aussie upstart commenting on US culcher like this, but just remember it was an Aussie who was first to really document US Country: John Edwards, the Sydney boy after whom the John Edwards Memorial Foundation is named.
So there!
Cheers,
RD
>>> Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx> 17/07/2008 10:32 >>>
On Jul 16, 2008, at 4:59 PM, Philharpn@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> Doesn't anybody remember Don Les? Don Les (1914-94) was perhaps
> best known for playing bass harmonica in the original Harmonicats.
> The group that had the big hit with Peg O My Heart.
>
> But Don also liked to play the diatonic. His theory was that if he
> tried to play both the diatonic and the chromatic one would suffer.
> So he stuck with the diatonic. But he didn't play blues. He made
> some cassette tapes toward the end of his career that were sold at
> SPAH. I'm not sure whether he was playing cross harp or straight
> harp. He was playing melodies using bent notes and overblows to
> play big band type tunes.
I do most of Don's stuff. He was big on 1st position but would do 2nd
when the need arose. 'Just the Nearness of You', 'Around the World',
'Sunny Side of the Street', 'Waiting for the Sunrise', 'Dream the
Impossible Dream', Charade, all done in first position.
>
> And if Don Les was playing melodies, I'm sure other people were, too.
That's all I ever played. I didn't do riffs, runs, fills.
> All you have to do is look at all the people who played the Marine
> Band and won contests in the 30s. You don[t get a few million
> people playing Marine Bands without a few dozen figuring out how to
> USE the bent notes for something other than train songs and fox hunts.
Especially when some players didn't have any idea what a fox hunt WAS.
>
> ***
> The vocal technique that seems to mystify some people is called
> melisma. Instead of singing a separate note for each syllable,
> melisma will use several or a series of notes for one syllable.
> It's a vocal technique that dates back to the Torah chanting in the
> 7th and 8th centuries and the Gregorian chant (circa 900). In
> modern times (1900 forward) it has appeared in the black gospel
> church.
>
> Ray Charles, Sam Cook and Aretha Franklin brought melisma out of
> the black gospel church setting into pop music and from there it
> took off. Now it's common in virtually all popular music.
>
> ***
> I always thought there was a difference between County AND Western
> music -- even thought Billboard had to have a category after
> getting rid of Hillbilly..
I always believed there WAS a difference. Riders in The Sky is
western. San Antonio Rose? western. You Don't Have to Call me Darlin,
Hello Walls, He Stopped Loving Her Today? Country.
smo-joe
>
> What's the difference between Country & Western music
>
> Country uses a major 7th chord and Western uses a 7th chord
> (dominant 7th chord).
>
> Phil Lloyd
>
>
>
>
> In a message dated 7/16/08 1:52:05 PM, leone@xxxxxxxx writes:
>
>
>>
>> On Jul 16, 2008, at 1:49 AM, Rick Dempster wrote:
>>
>> > "> He really turned it into a 'voice', and really made me think
>> very
>> >> differently about the instrument.
>> >
>> > I ALWAYS thought about it that way. I suppose listening to
>> Neopolitan
>> > love songs, gave me an idea of where I wanted to go.
>> > "
>> > ..........If you started out on chromatic Joe, I can understand
>> > that. But I'm not aware of anyone prior to McCoy who combined the
>> > blues-born technique of pitch-bending with a European concept of
>> > melody, on the diatonic.
>> >
>> > RD
>> >
>> Ok, the key word here was 'voice'. If you watch American Idol or Show
>> Time at the Apollo, you will notice that singers no longer 'stay' on
>> notes. They will do something I like to call 'dance around the
>> notes' (if I'm in a good mood), OR 'warble around till they find a
>> note that fits' (if I'm in a naughty mood).
>>
>> In other words, instead of singing "Oh say can you see", we get "o-o-
>> oo-o-ah, sa-a-a-ay Can you-o-oo-o-oo-o Se-eeeee". Now imagine that
>> while you are mouthing these words, the musical notes are all OVER
>> the treble staff. Sometimes the singer doesn't even hit the CRUCIAL
>> note, and they don't always stay true to the chords. Usually placing
>> anywhere from 6 to 9 notes into the warble, its still important to
>> land on the crucial mandatory note.
>>
>> Ok, you don't get this garbage with Neopolitan ballads. The singers
>> are in the alto range (not tenor) and they add more like 3 to 6 notes
>> (not 9), and they aren't warbling around in an effort to impress
>> everyone that they have soul. The HAVE it........ naturally. If I
>> were to play a tune, I would study the singer who made the tune MOST
>> popular. Chances are that there was a reason that that singer had a
>> hit. Example: If you're going to do Alfie, do it like Dion Warwick.
>>
>> Now, while I'm sure he wasn't THE first, the first time I recall
>> noticing 'dancing voice' coming from an American was Stevie Wonder. I
>> don't know why, maybe the high pitch attracted my notice. He is one
>> of the few where it fits. Most singers turn it into a scream-fest.
>>
>> The same thing happens with some harmonica players. Some will go into
>> orbit and forget where the space station is. Then they're lost in
>> space and can't find their way back. So, after they run out of fuel,
>> they drift around. The idea is to 'turn' the chords but stay true to
>> them. In other words, work around but DO wind up where you're
>> supposed to be, or everything sounds like trype.
>>
>> a... Good example of going into orbit and NOT getting
>> lost..............Mike Turk
>> b... Good example of someone hitting strange note
>> combinations...Toots
>>
>> When I was a youngster and spent my first 18 years pretty evenly
>> divided into 2 year stints between New York City and (mostly) Italy ,
>> there were 3 kinds of musics one could listen to. They were:
>> 1... Local Italian...nice stuff but an awful lot of mandolins
>> 2... Armed Forces radio out of Heidelberg...30s & 40s American big
>> band geared to the senior officers and non coms who were left behind
>> after the war.
>> 3... Radios Wien, Praha, Buda-Pesht, Bucharesti. You had to have a
>> short wave. We had a Telefunkin.
>>
>> So, my early influences were these. And it was a time when musicians
>> were musicians. Not noise makers. Eventually I played at the Sea
>> Garden. It was a cafe/bistro/restaurant/night club that was in the
>> park on the waterfront in Mergelina Naples. We did tunes like 'La
>> Stella di Napoli', Maruzella, Quando si Bella Roma. That's why I
>> played chromo first. The drifts from majors to minors and key changes
>> were not conducive to diatonic.
>>
>> smo-joe
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