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Ed Miller & The Louisiana Playboys on Playboys 100
Ed Miller & The Louisiana Playboys - I Had Someone Else / Ed Miller Blues (Playboys 100)This group and single were unknown to me until 2013, when the Hillbilly Researcher (Al Turner) posted sound...
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Donald Adkins on Random 60
Donald Adkins - Narco County Jail/I'm Still in Love With You (Random 60)For a record collector, there is nothing more disheartening than rummaging through thousands of records and finding only generic,...
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Rusty McDonald with Cliff Bruner on Ayo 105
Rusty McDonald in the late 1930s/early 1940s.Rusty McDonald, vocal with Cliff Bruner and his Texas Wanderers - Ouch/You Took Advantage of a Broken Heart (Ayo 105)"Ouch"Rusty McDonald's second record,...
View ArticleSound Files Restored (and Other Renovations)
When our former file hosting site (DivShare) went kaput in March, 2015, all the sound files on this blog disappeared into the ether. Discouraged, I moved on to other things, but the voices unfairly...
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Peggy Little on Pathfinder 16111/16112
Peggy Little - If I Had Wheels / Hardest Easy Thing (Pathfinder 16111/16112)Although most associated with the 1950s, Jack Rhodes continued to produce records, discover artists, and work on songwriting...
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On the Road with Blackie Crawford & the Western Cherokees: The Bobby Black...
The Western Cherokees are invariably remembered today because of their association with Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, and Ray Price, obscuring the fact that the group existed as a discrete unit for...
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Rex Rinehart (Lonnie Lillie?) on Yucca 117
Rex Rinehart - Poor Wanderin' Boy (Rinehart) / What a Shame (Rinehart) (Yucca 117)"Poor Wanderin' Boy""What a Shame"Rex Rinehart and Lonnie Lillie are two hopelessly lost ciphers of the Texas vinyl...
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Guitar Picker: Spud Goodall
Spud Goodall with Gibson Super 400, San Antonio, 1950s or early '60s.One of the more shocking and disappointing aspects of record collecting is the discovery that many of the best musicians never...
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The Phantom Rider Trio on K-PEP 256
The Phantom Rider Trio - "I'm Telling Everybody (It's Great to be in Love)"b/w "Peekin' Thru the Window"(K-PEP 256)The Phantom Rider Trio were a vocal group based in San Angelo, Texas. Bill Moore was...
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Harry Choates's 1942 Draft Registration Card
Click on images to enlarge.On Tuesday, June 30, 1942, a slight young man walked down the stairs and into the basement of the Lake Charles City Hall, sat down, and waited for a clerk to call his name....
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Leon Payne on Hacienda 008
Leon Payne at WOAI in San Antonio, circa mid-1950s. Cry Baby Cry b/w Lot's Wife Looked Back (Hacienda 008)One of two singles Leon Payne made for the San Antonio-based Hacienda label around 1961 (the...
View ArticleThe Cherokee Cowboys - Little Liza Jane (live in San Antonio 1965)
The Cherokee Cowboys - Little Liza Jane (unissued live in San Antonio 1965)In April or May, 1965, Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys returned to play San Antonio -- possibly at the Farmer's Daughter --...
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Charlie Harris and the Cherokee Cowboys - (My Friends are Gonna Be) Strangers...
Charlie Harris and the Cherokee Cowboys - (My Friends are Gonna Be) Strangers (unissued live in San Antonio 1965)Another song from the Cal Berry tape, this captures Charlie Harris handling the lead...
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Frankie Miller on Hilltop 15
Frankie Miller - I Can't Run Away / I Won't Forget (Hilltop 15)Definitely the most unusual release in the Frankie Miller discography, "I Can't Run Away" and "I Won't Forget" must have sounded archaic...
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Marsha Carlile with Paul Buskirk Band on B&B 333
Marsha Carlile with Paul Buskirk Band - Nite Life / He Gave Us a Heart (B&B 333)Between Willie Nelson's original version in 1960 (which sold no copies), and the Ray Price hit version in 1963, "Nite...
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Durwood Haddock on Caprock 108
Durwood Daly (Haddock) - That's the Way It Goes b/w I'm a Lonesome Old Boy (Caprock 108)Four long years elapsed between Durwood Haddock's debut single (the original version of his song "There She...
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Jessie Martin with Jack Floyd and Band on Pearl 712
Jessie Martin (with) Jack Floyd and Band - Blues of New Orleans b/w Star Dust (Pearl 712)Late 1957Late one night after a gig in 1957, Moon Mullican and a pick-up band decide to drop the "hillbilly"...
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The Death of Homer Zeke Clemons
Shreveport Times, August 14, 1961. Click to enlarge. We've ventured into the world of Homer Zeke Clemons many times on this blog. First, we explored his rare Swing release. Then, we shifted gears into...
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Robey's Bluff, or the Curious Case of Peacock 1506
The emergence of Don Robey’s Peacock label was a minor item of interest in the December 24, 1949 issue of the trade publication weekly Billboard. “The label, which sells for 79 cents a copy, is...
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Floyd Tillman: His Final Interview
Floyd Tillman and wife Marge in Houston, early 1940s. (Leon Selph Collection)On September 1, 2002, I interviewed Floyd Tillman at his home in Bacliff, Texas. This was in anticipation of a...
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