category: country / blues / folk

Album review:
"Spanning Merle Travis' most active years, this CD draws on radio transcriptions for the most part, as the title suggests, but there's also an extract from a 1966 onstage reunion of Travis and his guitar mentor, Mose Rager - significant as much for its historical resonances, in a country guitar context, as for the quality of the playing. Without Rager there would have been no Travis guitar style, and without that there would have been no Chet Atkins as we know him...or Scotty Moore, or James Burton, or Jerry Reed!

Several of Travis' great guitar tunes are here - "Cannonball Rag, I'll See You In My Dreams, Bugle Call Rag, Rock-a-Bye Rag" - as well as a selection of his 1940s honky-tonk hits - "No Vacancy, Cincinatti Lou, So Round So Firm So Fully Packed" - and the more celebrated 'folk songs' - "Sixteen Tons, Nine Pound Hammer, John Henry". The sources are as varied as Travis's repertoire: a 1944 transcription cut with Wesley Tuttle & The Coon Hunters, a 1959 Town Hall Party excerpt, the set with Rager (from an outdoor concert at the Smithsonian?), and more radio transciption material from the mid-1960s. Travis was a star on West Coast radio in the 40s and 50s and this sampling is representative of his best years - great songs, spirited singing and magical guitar playing.

This is the fourth Country Routes CD from the Travis radio archive. They say Merle was at his best on the radio and this selection certainly supports that view. The CD liner notes promise even more material and since Travis left us in 1983 that can only be very good news indeed." -- Nick Jones (England)

CD Track Listing

  1. Town Hall Party Intro w/Johnny Bond / Old Joe Clark (traditional) (3:00)
  2. Nine Pound Hammer (M.Travis) (2:14)
  3. Down Yonder (& Gene Autry: vocal) (L.Wolfe Gilbert) (1:46)
  4. The Blues (& Johnny Bond: vocal) (traditional) (2:33)
  5. Rock-A-Bye Rag * (M.Travis) (1:42)
  6. Sugar Hill (& Town Hall gang: vocal quartet) (traditional) (2:01)
  7. Cincinnati Lou (M.Travis) (3:16)
  8. House Of David Blues * (traditional) (2:39)
  9. Memphis Blues * (W.C.Handy) (1:14)
10. Wildwood Flower * (A.P.Carter) (1:28)
11. Midnight Special (traditional) (3:16)
12. Bugle Call Rag * (Blake / Morgan) (2:08)
13. Give Me Your Hand (& Wesley Tuttle: vocal duet) (Delmore Bros.) (2:16)
14. Fireball Mail (& Wesley Tuttle: vocal duet) (Roy Acuff) (2:06)
15. Smoke On The Water (& Wesley Tuttle: vocal) (Nunn / Clements) (2:00)
16. Fox Chase (& Charlie Linville: fiddle) (instrumental) (traditional) (1:35)
17. Turn Your Radio On (& Wesley Tuttle: vocal duet) (traditional) (2:37)
18. Maple On The Hill (& Wesley Tuttle: vocal duet) (Mainer / Morris) (2:24)
19. Tiger Rag (& Mose Rager: guitar duet & vocal) (Sharbarro / Edwards / Ragas / Shields / Larocca / Decosta) (3:08)
20. Mose Merle Rag (& Mose Rager: guitar duet) (instrumental) (Rager / Travis) (2:48)
21. Old Guitar Blues (In A) (& Mose Rager: guitar duet & vocal) (Rager / Travis) (2:53)
22. I'll See You In My Dreams (& Mose Rager: guitar duet) (instrumental) (Kahn / Jones) (1:41)
23. Sixteen Tons (M.Travis) (2:48)
24. Cannonball Rag * (M.Travis) (1:26)
25. John Henry (traditional) (2:43)
26. Rock-A-Bye Rag * (M.Travis) (1:44)
27. Under The Double Eagle * (traditional) (2:01)
28. No Vacancy / So Firm So Round So Fully Packed / Cincinnati Lou (M.Travis) (3:34)
29. Nine Pound Hammer (M.Travis) (2:07)
30. I'll See You In My Dreams * (Kahn / Jones) (1:51)

* full guitar instrumental by Merle

Total timing: 69:16

Label/No: Country Routes 20 (UK import)

Release date: (c)1944-65, 1998 reissue