Boot Heel Drag: The MGM Years

Amazon.com essential recording
By the late 1940s, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had peaked as a performing unit. Wills's MGM tenure, which ran from late 1947 through 1954, saw fans beginning to stray from the Western swing sound he'd perfected, and the once 18-piece-strong band was scaled back to a dozen or fewer members, with the brass section that powered the group prior to World War II scuttled. Wills's drinking and unreliability led to the departure of popular band vocalist Tommy Duncan in 1948. Still, as this thoroughly annotated two-disc set testifies, the Playboys remained a truly formidable outfit, thanks to their willful leader and the likes of rhythm guitarist-arranger Eldon Shamblin and a revolving cast of crack players that included pianist Skeeter Elkin, fiddlers-mandolinists Tiny Moore and Johnny Gimble, and steel players Bobby Koefer and Billy Bowman. Mostly culled from sessions held in Hollywood and Dallas, the 50-song Boot Heel Drag captures one of the mid-century's powerhouse ensembles when they may have been down a tad, but they were far from out. --Steven Stolder

Boot Heel Drag: The MGM Years,Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys,Mercury Nashville,Country,Country & Western,Country Traditional,Leader,Pop,Songwriter,Traditional Country,Western Swing

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Prime Wills

Great Music, Great Recordings, Great Package Finally

Excellent Reissue of Prime Bob Wills

Boot Heel Drag: The MGM Years
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
Manufacturer: Mercury Nashville
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Country | Styles | Music
Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music
General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music
Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B00005LZT0
Release Date: 2001-07-10

Tracks:

I'll Have Someone Else
Sally Goodin'
Blues For Dixie
The Warm Red Wine
Playboy Chimes
Ida Red Likes The Boogie
Dog House Blues
Papa's Jumpin'
Keeper Of My Heart
Texas Drummer Boy
Pastime Blues
Still Water Runs the Deepest
Thorn In My Heart
Three Little Kittens
Silver Lake Blues
Cotton Patch Blues
I Ain't Got Nobody (And Nobody Cares For Me)
I Betcha My Heart I Love You
Rock-A-Bye Baby Blues
Bob Wills Square Dance No. 2
Trouble, Trouble Blues
I Married The Rose Of San Antone
Boot Heel Drag
The End Of The Line
Twinkle Star

Tracks:

Texas Blues
Cadillac In Model "A"
Sittin' On Top Of The World
My Little Rock Candy Baby
Bob Wills Square Dance No. 1
I'm Tired Of Living This Lie
B. Bowman Hop
Bubbles In My Beer
Mean Woman With Green Eyes
I'm Human, Same As You
Nothing But Trouble
Go Home With The Girls In The Mornin'
Don't Be Ashamed Of Your Age
Faded Love
Tater Pie
Bottle Baby Boogie
Hop, Skip And Jump Over Texas
Nothin' But The Best For My Baby
(Me And My Baby) Doin' The Bunny Hop
A Maiden's Prayer
I Laugh When I Think How I Cried Over You
Snatchin' And Grabbin'
I've Got A New Road Under My Wheels
St. Louis Blues
Hubbin' It

Amazon.com essential recording

By the late 1940s, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had peaked as a performing unit. Wills's MGM tenure, which ran from late 1947 through 1954, saw fans beginning to stray from the Western swing sound he'd perfected, and the once 18-piece-strong band was scaled back to a dozen or fewer members, with the brass section that powered the group prior to World War II scuttled. Wills's drinking and unreliability led to the departure of popular band vocalist Tommy Duncan in 1948. Still, as this thoroughly annotated two-disc set testifies, the Playboys remained a truly formidable outfit, thanks to their willful leader and the likes of rhythm guitarist-arranger Eldon Shamblin and a revolving cast of crack players that included pianist Skeeter Elkin, fiddlers-mandolinists Tiny Moore and Johnny Gimble, and steel players Bobby Koefer and Billy Bowman. Mostly culled from sessions held in Hollywood and Dallas, the 50-song Boot Heel Drag captures one of the mid-century's powerhouse ensembles when they may have been down a tad, but they were far from out. --Steven Stolder

Customer Reviews:

Prime Wills.......2004-06-08

This package is a must! While some feel that these recordings are a step down from the Columbia years of the 30s and early 40s, I feel like the MGM years are actually the realization of everything that came before. It's remarkable how much spirit there was in these recordings, considering Bob's popularity was waning. You'd never know it! Also, while Tommy Duncan was Bob's best loved and known vocalist, I think everyone who fills in for him after 1948 when he left is just as good. It makes it interesting to hear the different vocal styles and adds variety to the classic Wills sound. Get this package. It's probably the best primer for the money if you've never heard Bob, and a great place to go if you already have the Columbia recordings. Enjoy. There'll never be another one like Bob Wills!

Great Music, Great Recordings, Great Package Finally.......2003-04-25

As the previous comments make, those of us who bought the 24 Hits Version of Bob's MGM recordings might have feared to buy this, because 24 Hits was an awful selection, recorded awfully, with next to non existent notes. Surprise!!! This is a well recorded, well documented, fun collection of good music. If you like Western Swing and you don't have this, you need to buy it. If you don't like or know about Western Swing, you will love it after you hear this.

What shines is the band, and the degree to which the guitar-trio (usally an electric guitar, the steel guitar, and an electric mandolin) sound that came out after the war began to be perfected in a different blusier, rockier way by the Will's succession of musicians. The stuff on this record is much hotter and wilder than compared to the way Jimmy Wyble Noel Boggs and Cameron Hill played it with Wills during the War and carried on into the Spade Cooley Orchestra, and established as the dominant style of Western Swing. It's too bad that Wills's great hot guitarist, Lester Bernard Junior, is not on these recordings, because he would have really fit in!

The introduction creates the misconception that these were Will's first small band recordings and that most of Wills's previous work had been done with the various full swing bands with horn sections he led. From the beginning Wills really always did his main business with a small band composed of guitars, fiddles, piano (the standard Texas ranch dance lineup) with perhaps one or two horns. He did carry a full swing band as well most of the time until around 1944, years before he signed with MGM. That band was kept to play dance dates where Wills expected the listeners would want to hear the big swing hits of the day like "In the Mood" for which his band had stock arrangements. None of Wills's big hits except "New San Antonio Rose" were recorded with a big band.

Western Swing blossomed into massive popularity during and right after WW II. Wills outdrew the big swing bands. There wasn't much need for Wills to have a big band to draw people. Moreover, like many band leaders he cut down his band because he could no longer pay musicians depression wages and electric instruments and better house amplification meant he didn't need a big band to play a big auditorium or for thousands on Santa Monica pier.

At any rate, Wills went back to a small band years before he switched to MGM. This collection records that the musicianship didn't slacken in the MGM years. Besides guitar and electric mandolin work, we have some nice hot fiddling from almost the whole Wills stable of fiddlers including Louis Tierney, Jim Joe Holley, Jesse Ashlock, and Johnnie Gimble, as well as some sweet old-time fiddling by Bob Wills himself. There are also several vocals by his women singers, including a never before released cut by the great songwriter Cindy Walker singing with the band.
This is good sweet hot music.

Excellent Reissue of Prime Bob Wills.......2001-07-20

The MGM recordings of Bob Wills finally get a decent and respectful reissue with this 2 CD set. Many of these tracks were previously available on Polydor's 24 Greatest Hits, a shoddy package that featured perhaps the worst sound I've ever encountered on a reissue of studio recordings. Happily, the sound is pretty good on Boot Heel Drag, and it's nice to have these important recordings available again.

Wills, of course, was the legendary creator of Western Swing, an infectious hybrid of country, jazz, and Texas fiddle music. He led his band, the Texas Playboys for almost four decades, and his influence remains enormous even today, with such artists as Willie Nelson, George Strait, Asleep At the Wheel and BR549 all owing a debt to this innovator. In the late Thirties and early Forties, Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys were one of the most popular live acts in the country, outdrawing big names like Artie Shaw and Glen Miller in the southwest and California.

After a long and successful stay at Columbia Records, Wills and his band moved to MGM Records in 1947. Gone was the large horn section of his early `40's bands, with a front-line of fiddles, steel guitar electric mandolin and electric guitar now dominating the music. The songs here are first-rate and, as always, Wills' band features talented musicians and singers including long-time vocalist Tommy Duncan, steel guitarist Herb Remington, mandolinist Tiny Moore and fiddlers Joe Holley and Johnny Gimble. Wills himself offers memorable renditions of several of the fiddle tunes he'd played since his Texas youth. Highlights include such now-classic tunes as "Bubbles In My Beer" and "Faded Love," and Wills also offer new versions of some of his earlier hits lie " A Maiden's Prayer" and "I Ain't Got Nobody."

An excellent essay by Rich Kienzle, a song by song analysis, and some wonderful photographs make this an essential acquisition for fans of Wills and Western Swing.

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