PEE WEE KING and his Golden West Cowboys

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Well folks, I'm back. I apologize for the delay between posting here, but I had some computer troubles that hung me up for over a week. Torn hair and a windows re-install later, here I am, back in blogscape.
Here we have an oop bootleg cd that actually belongs to my friend Chris of the Mayville Brothers (he's got my Moon Mullican, we've been meaning to trade back for a few years now...). Chris and his brother J. P. have a fine band out of the Windsor, Ontario area called the Silvertones.

Click here for more about the Silvertones!

When not onstage, the boys run an excellent music store in Tecumseh, Ontario, called, appropriately enough, the "Tecumseh Music Centre".

Click here for more about the Tecumseh Music Centre!

Back in the day, these boys, along with Gary Smyth, now of Kelowna, BC, were the most faithful of jammers at my regular Tuesday night shindig at Windsor's Bridge Tavern. A regular highlight of the evening was always their cover of Pee Wee's "Catty Town", the first track on this album.

The great Pee Wee King and his famous vocalist Redd Stewart (who was to Pee Wee what Tommy Duncan was to Bob Wills) were huge stars of the 1940's and into the early '50's. With a story that beautifully contradicts the stereotypical country music biography, Pee Wee King was a Polish polka musician from Wisconsin who became a leading Western Swing bandleader in the not so Western (or at the time, swinging) city of Nashville. His band launched the careers of folks like Eddy Arnold and Cowboy Copas, and he and Stewart wrote and first recorded the Tennessee state song, "Tennessee Waltz".

Click here for more about Pee Wee King

Click here for more about Redd Stewart

The first 30 tracks are from the cd, and as a bonus I have added three tracks from some vintage 1950's 45rpm singles in my collection. These are the great instrumentals "Seven Come Eleven", "Farewell Blues" and the vocal track "You Won't Need My Love Any More". The cd seems to eschew waltzes, but these were a huge part of the Golden West Cowboy's repetoire, so I have also included "The Nashville Waltz" from an old RCA Camden LP.

Tracks:

1. Catty Town
2. Plantation Boogie
3. I Don't Mind
4. Blue Suede Shoes
5. Steel Guitar Rag
6. Railroad Boogie
7. Rootie Tootie
8. Half A Dozen Boogie
9. Ballroom Baby
10. Ten Gallon Boogie
11. Hoot Scoot
12. Chew Tobacco Rag
13. Forty Nine Women
14. Indian Giver
15. Bull Fiddle Boogie
16. Tweedle Dee
17. You Can't Hardly Get Them No More
18. Beauty Is As Beauty Does
19. Rag Mop
20. Birmingham Bounce
21. Say Good Morning, Nellie
22. Going Back To A.L.A.
23. Tennesse Central Number Nine
24. Texas Toni Lee
25. Keep Them Icy Cold Fingers Off Me
26. Quit Honkin' That Horn
27. New York To New Orleans
28. I Hear You Knocking
29. Oh Monah
30. Mop Rag Boogie
31. Seven Come Eleven
32. Farewell Blues
33. You Won't Need My Love Any More
34. The Nashville Waltz

*download here*