NOTE: ALTHOUGH IT’S STILL NOT CLEAR WHETHER AN OPERATOR ERROR OR COMPUTER ERROR WAS TO BLAME, THE 18 JUNE BROADCAST WAS A REPEAT OF 11 JUNE. WE SHOULD BE BACK ON TRACK NOW. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND UNDERSTANDING.
Bob Wills was never one to shy away from musical trends — like, for instance, that infectious, rolling, big-beat music known as boogie woogie. And he was far from the only Western-swing act to give it a shot; a lot of the SWING ON THIS playlists feature a so-called hillbilly boogie, and the style is certainly a big part of Asleep at the Wheel’s repertoire to this day.
The hillbilly-boogie craze started after World War II and peaked around the time the ’50s dawned. That’s where we find the Bob Wills boogie that begins our show this Saturday night, In 1950, it made the Top 10 on BILLBOARD Magazine’s Country & Western chart (which had been, until 1949, called the Hillbilly Hit Parade). It’s a dandy, with that great MGM-years band that featured the likes of Johnny Gimble on mandolin and fiddle, Tiny Moore on mandolin and vocals; Herb Remington on steel, Eldon Shamblin on guitar, and the underrated Doc Lewis on piano. It’s a dandy.
Also on this week’s thrill docket: A Shellacked entry found for us by John Hamill of Hamill Time fame, featuring a Louisiana band founded in 1933 that’s remarkably still around; a couple of nods to the birthplace of western swing from Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies and Michael H. Price; and a pair from the Western side of Western swing, courtesy of Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers, and the Country Cousins Band.
There’s plenty for everybody, so c’m’on along. That’s SWING ON THIS, 7 p.m. Saturday on Tulsa’s NPR affiliate, KWGS, 89.5 FM, and live-streaming everywhere at publicradiotulsa.org
1. “Ida Red Likes the Boogie,” Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys