Molly Ivins was a true Texas hero and a voice of reason in a field that has been a cesspool for a long time. True to form she went down swinging. You’ll be missed Molly!
Month: January 2007
Tom Morrell: 1938-2007
From The Dallas Morning News – Tom Morrell bent steel with his hands. With his agile fingers and wrists, he could coax a steel guitar to cry out a mournful melody and to laugh out a happy phrase.
Mr. Morrell died Monday of emphysema at home in East Dallas. He was 68.
His contemporaries in Western swing and jazz consider him a musical genius, while many mainstream country music listeners don’t know him. But they probably unwittingly hear his session work on recordings by artists such as Willie Nelson (The Sound in Your Mind), Asleep at the Wheel (Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys ) and many others.
“There’s nobody can even touch him,” said Leon Rausch, of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, before Mr. Morrell’s death. “He’s a stone genius.”
The Dallas native, who lived 30 years in Little Elm, left behind his 15-volume Tom Morrell and the Time Warp Top Tophands “How the West Was Swung” series on WR Records.
The collection chronicles his passion for jazz and particularly Western swing. Each CD features a roster of Texas’ best musicians such as guitarists Leon Chambers and Rich O’Brien, fiddlers Randy Elmore and Bobby Boatright, vocalists Leon Rausch, Don Edwards, Chris O’Connell, Buck Reams and Craig Chambers. Mr. Morrell was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 2001.
Mr. Morrell’s next CD, Relaxin‘, is expected to be available next week at Westernswing.net, Amazon.com and some local record stores. The disc is the 15th in the “How the West Was Swung” series.
Mr. Morrell’s sisters Delores “Dodo” Boyd, 65, of Dallas and Jeanne McKinney, 59, of Garland remember their brother as a lifelong musician. Mr. Morrell first picked up a guitar when he and Ms. Boyd were students at St. James Catholic School in Oak Cliff. Ms. Boyd knew her brother was serious about music back then.
“If you lived at our house and saw every minute he spent playing with a band … music was his life, that was it,” Ms. Boyd said.
Other survivors include a son, Jerry Wayne Morrell of Monroe, La.; daughters Cheryl Denise Walker of Monroe and Laura Renée Wagner of Houston; and four grandchildren. Memorial plans are pending. Details will be posted on the guest book at Westernswing .net.
Mr. Morrell lived in Hobbs, N.M., for about a year in the 1950s. Mr. Rausch remembers seeing Mr. Morrell play in Hobbs.
“We all were amazed at him. We saw this pimple-faced kid playing more steel guitar than anybody we knew,” Mr. Rausch said.
Mr. Morrell had an onscreen band part in the 1990 movie Daddy’s Dyin’… Who’s Got the Will? directed by Jack Fisk. Also, his music is featured on the soundtracks of the movies Savannah Smiles and True Stories.
Mr. Morrell was most recently living with his lifelong friend and partner, Jody Balfour. Ms. Balfour says that the couple talked a lot about music and Mr. Morrell’s artwork. “His biggest fear was being forgotten,” says Ms. Balfour.
Bert Winston, owner of WR Records, thinks Mr. Morrell’s legacy will be affirmed by seasoned and up-and-coming musicians.
“He was one of the greatest steel-guitar players that has ever been, really,” Mr. Winston said. “I actually think he is probably more admired now than ever.”
MySpace Showcase Tuesday – Cheech Holler
Cheech Holler is the sound of sin and redemption of another time when such matters were taken as gospel and music was the stories that frightened children and set them on the path to rightousness. Like a ghost hillbilly band you hear playing from the bottem of that long dry water well, you know the one, it’s where that little Jackson girl drowned back in the 40’s. Cheech Holler is both joyous and spooky in their particular brand of lonely gothic Americana. Twang says check ’em out.
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The Snakehandlers Provide Soundtrack to MTV’s Wrestling Society X Team
Los Angeles based and self-proclaimed “world’s loundest country band” – The Snakehandlers – and after hearing ’em they have a damn good fighting chance, will provide the theme music for MTV’s Wrestling Society X, the Trailer Park Boyz tag team. The perfect accompaniment to hopped up rednecks whooping ass on basic cable. Yeee haaaaaaaw!
Music Made a Man Out of Me (mp3)Â
Tom Morrell – Innovator of Steel Guitar – Hospitalized
From the Dallas Morning News – Tom Morrell, a Dallas-based prolific steel guitar player is being treated at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas for emphysema,Mr. Morrell was admitted to the hospital Jan. 21, where he was placed on a ventilator on Tuesday. The ventilator has since been removed.
Mr. Morrell was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, in St. Louis, in 2001. His CD Monkey Bizness is the 13th volume in his “How the West Was Swung” series of Tom Morrell and the Time Warp Tophands albums. For a discography, visit www.westernswing.net.
Leon Rausch, of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, hired Mr. Morrell in 1964 to be part of the reorganized Texas Playboys band, after Mr. Wills had left the band.
Mr. Rausch, who has played with Mr. Morrell in many other groups and gigs over the years, says fellow musicians consider Mr. Morrell a musical genius. “He’s the man to go to for steel guitar,” he says. “He’s the biggest influence that a lot of us have ever had.”
Albert Talley of the Texas Steel Guitar Association says, “Tom has been a premier player and innovator of steel guitar for the last 50 years.”
Mr. Talley, who organizes the annual Texas Steel Guitar Association Jamboree, says that Mr. Morrell had intended to attend this year’s convention but probably not perform as he usually has.
Red Rock West Saloon – New York City
I’ve discovered that no matter how shitty your work week might have been that a hit girl in chaps dancing and blowing whisky-fueled fire on a bar will make it better. And if that bar just happen to be the Red Rock West Saloon in New York City (457 W 17th St – Cross Street: Between 9th Avenue and 10th Avenue). Found in a run down area that appears to be more Wild West than urban gentrification is a seedy roadhouse that will make you forget your in the big city (until you walk out the front door and see the velvet rope line at the chi-chi club next door, that is.)
The music runs from Springsteen to AC/DC to The Charlie Daniels Band and the ladies seem to have a routine planned for every selection (don’t waste you money on the juke box.) The ladies also serve up cold drinks pronto and always remember your poison and your name. Businessmen and bikers coexist in this beautiful hoedown debauchery as though they were kinfolk.
MySpace Showcase Tuesday – Caddle
Caddle (Phillip Hyde, Lead Vocals , Drew Akin, Guitar & Vocals. Eric Watters, Guitar & Vocals , Chris Pottratz, Bass Finney James, Drums & Vocals) are a little Skynyrd. A little Replacements. Haling from Birmingham, Alabama, Caddle’s country roots are tightly woven with melodic punk to pack a powerful punch. Take a listen to this Twang Nation favorite.
Dale Watson To Release “Cradle To The Grave”
Good news Dale Watson fans. Dale is preparing a new release for 2007 and coins yet another frikkin genre description for the music we know and love. Dale provides this post from his website.
SXSW will find us releasing a new record , From The Cradle To The Grave on Hyena Records. It’s a compilation of songs I wrote and recorded at the log cabin that once belonged to Johnny Cash, but now belongs to my friend Johnny Knoxville. The CD is much different from my previous releases in the way that they were written without Honky Tonks in mind. Obvious Cash influence throughout , but I feel the entire vibe came from the cabin. The release will be in late April, but will have an advance release during SXSW in Austin.
Also, we have the European CD Live From Newland, NL as well as the DVD of the same name available at the Truckstop Mall. Also now at the Truckstop Mall are new T-shirts designs. A week in Australia will be a tour called “Seven Year Itch Tour” ( since it’s been 7 years since I’ve toured there) scheduled Febraury 24 thru March 5th. A west coast swing will happen this year as well. Thanks to another actor friend, James Denton, of Desperate Housewives, I’ll perform in LA on a package show with his band and my band. James is a picker himself and has done so much to support my music. He is a welcome ally and a mighty kind soul.
And finally….the name for the Genre……. I’ve been trying to come up with a name the best describes this music that me and folks similar do. When folks ask I hesitate, down right embarrassed really, to say country. I didn’t used to be, but with the change in country, the term doesn’t mean the same as it used to. If you say traditional, or old, or western swing most folks think “retro” and dismiss it without hearing it. I wanted a name that didn’t say country anything and didn’t give anyone a preconceived idea. I came up with ..
Ameripolitan. I even put it in Wikipedia defined as- Original music with “prominent” roots influence.
I hope yall like it. Let me hear from you. Hope to see yall soon.
Thanks for your kindness thru the years.
Dale
George Jones at MSNBC
MSNBC has a nice Willie, Merle and Ray Open for Lucinda Williams
Well, sorta. Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Ray Price with opener Asleep at the Wheel will come to Radio City Music Hall for thier The Last of the Breed show on 3/22 the night before Lucinda Williams plays the same room the night after. This is going to be a great couple of days for country music fans in Gotham.