The Best of Merle Travis

1. Cincinnati Lou

2. No Vacancy

3. Divorce Me C.O.D.

4. Sweet Temptation

5. So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed

6. Three Times Seven

7. Steel Guitar Rag

8. Sixteen Tons

9. Dark as a Dungeon

10. I Am a Pilgrim

11. Lawdy, What a Gal

12. Fat Gal

13. I Like My Chicken Fryin' Size

14. When My Baby Double Talks to Me

15. Trouble, Trouble

16. Kinfolks in Carolina

17. Re-Enlistment Blues

18. Cannonball Rag

The Best of Merle Travis,Merle Travis,Rhino / Wea,Country,Country & Western,Country Boogie,Instrumental Country,Traditional Country

Average customer rating: Good compilation of a Country Giant

The Best of Merle Travis: Sweet Temptation 1946-1953 Merle Travis Manufacturer: Razor & Tie ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Similar Items: Pachuco Boogie Folk Songs of the Hills (Back Home/Songs of the Coal Miners) The Merle Travis Story: 24 Greatest Hits Midniters - Greatest Hits Strictly Guitar ASIN: B00004SBUY Release Date: 2000-04-18

Tracks:

1. Cincinnati Lou
2. No Vacancy
3. Divorce Me C.O.D.
4. So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed
5. Sixteen Tons
6. Steel Guitar Rag
7. Blue Yodel No. 1 (T For Texas)
8. Any Old Time
9. Three Times Seven
10. Kentucky Means Paradise
11. Sweet Temptation
12. Fat Gal
13. Dry Bread
14. Cannon Ball Rag
15. Lawdy, What A Gal
16. Guitar Rag
17. Deep South
18. Re-Enlistment Blues
19. Kinfolks In Carolina
20. I'll See You In My Dreams

Amazon.com

Merle Travis made everything he did sound so effortless that it's easy to overlook his considerable gifts. Travis is best remembered today for the distinctive finger-picking-guitar style that often bears his name: "Travis picking," learned initially from the home folks in Kentucky, allows players to accompany their lead lines (picked with the index finger) with their own bass support (provided by the thumb). And while Travis certainly impressed with this technique, he was also a droll and resourceful songwriter and an easy-going and appealing singer. The combination of his talents resulted in a spry musical style that fused appealing pop melodies with touches of jazz improvisation and early honky-tonk. Travis had a hand in writing 15 of the 20 tracks here (exceptions include two Jimmie Rodgers covers, the traditional blues "Dry Bread," and a guitar showcase on the standard "I'll See You in My Dreams"), and most of the originals conform to this jovial formula, often featuring trumpet and accordion. He's supported along the way by many of Southern California's finest players of the day such as steel guitarists Speedy West, Joaquin Murphey, and Noel Boggs, and six-stringers Joe Maphis, Roy Lanham, and Johnny Weis. His most famous composition, however, remains the coal-miner's lament "Sixteen Tons," a tune that many assume is a traditional folk song but is in fact a Travis creation, heard here in a solo-acoustic performance. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews:

Good compilation of a Country Giant.......2000-05-26

"Travis-pickin" is what is was called and it was a style of guitarplaying that Merle Travis popularized that influenced every Country picker from Chet Atkins to Scotty Moore and even Jerry Reed. This fine CD spotlights this overlooked giant. It's sad that Merle Travis never gets mentioned with the greats of Country Music but this CD is a sturdy reminder that he was indeed a great one. While it is his guitar playing that often gets Merle Travis mentioned in Country history books he was also a consistent chart topper during the period that this CD covers. His songs had a sense of humor ("Fat Girl"), addressed issues of the day ("No Vacancy" about the lack of housing Veterans faced when they returned from World War II, and he also wrote "Sixteen Tons". This CD is basically a replacement for Rhino's Best of from 1990 which is now out-of-print. While that CD had 18 songs this has 20 (with 13 of Rhino's appearing here, also). But the sound is better on this CD. With one glaring omission: the absence of Merle's classic coal miner anthem: "Dark as a Dungeon" (how could they skip that song!). You can find "Dungeon" on Folk Songs of the Hills, which is in print. If you haven't added Merle Travis to your CD collection this is the one to own. It's a good place to get to know a forgotten Country great.

Average customer rating:

Buddy Can You Spare Me a Dime - The Best of Bluegrass and Early Americana Manufacturer: Black Cat ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD ASIN: B000AQMV74

Product Description

Buddy...Can You Spare A Dime?. the Best of Bluegrass and Early Americana" ****** Black Cat #BCCD 0038 ******* Tracks are: 1. Take Me Back To Tulsa (BOB WILLS & HIS TEXAS PLAYBOYS) ** 2. Yellow Rose Of Texas (ROY ROGERS) ** 3. My Little Lady (JIMMIE RODGERS) ** 4. The Cattle Call (EDDY ARNOLD) ** 5. Nine Pound Hammer (MERLE TRAVIS) ** 6. Freight Train Boogie (DELMORE BROTHERS) ** 7. Mama Tried (MERLE HAGGARD) ** 8. Blue Train (JOHNNY CASH) ** 9. Have I Stayed Away Too Long (TEX RITTER) ** 10. Walking The Floor Over You (ERNEST TUBB) ** 11. Cold Cold Heart (HANK WILLIAMS) ** 12. Red River Valley (GENE AUTRY) ** 13. A Good Year For The Roses (GEORGE JONES) ** 14. Tennessee Waltz (SLIM WHITMAN) ** 15. The Wreck Of The John B (THE WEAVERS)

Average customer rating: Amazon has track listing wrong for the casette

The Best of Merle Travis Merle Travis Manufacturer: Rhino / Wea ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Western Swing | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music Rhino Records | Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music ASIN: B0000032TT Release Date: 1990-07-03

Tracks:

1. Cincinnati Lou
2. No Vacancy
3. Divorce Me C.O.D.
4. Sweet Temptation
5. So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed
6. Three Times Seven
7. Steel Guitar Rag
8. Sixteen Tons
9. Dark as a Dungeon
10. I Am a Pilgrim
11. Lawdy, What a Gal
12. Fat Gal
13. I Like My Chicken Fryin' Size
14. When My Baby Double Talks to Me
15. Trouble, Trouble
16. Kinfolks in Carolina
17. Re-Enlistment Blues
18. Cannonball Rag

Customer Reviews:

Amazon has track listing wrong for the casette.......2007-02-20

The casette has fewer tracks than the CD. The casette skips from "I Like my Chicken Fryin' Size" straight to "Re-enlistment Blues" and does not have Cannonball Rag, either. The cassette is plenty great, though.

Average customer rating: Informative collection of mid-50s live radio recordings

Very Best of Merle Travis Manufacturer: Varese Sarabande ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music ASIN: B00006JKB1 Release Date: 2002-09-17

Customer Reviews:

Informative collection of mid-50s live radio recordings.......2002-11-06

These mid-50s live recordings, taken from appearances on Shasta label-owner (and fellow country-western star) Jimmy Wakely's radio show, provide a good look at Merle Travis as a stage performer. Though these are not the recordings on which Travis' fame was originally minted (collections of his '40s and '50s sides for Capitol, as well as earlier radio transcriptions, are readily available), the picking and singing shows that a good part of Travis' appeal was his relaxed live presentation, the charms of which are fully evident here.

Three instrumentals, "Texas Tornado," "I'll See You in My Dreams," and "Bye, Bye Blues" (the last a 1976 recording) find Travis showing off his legendary guitar picking. Though not as flashy as flatpickers like Joe Maphis, Travis' combination of thumb-picked bass lines and forefinger-picked melodies creates a fullness that is hard to imagine coming from only one pair of hands. Those who grew up on Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, The Everly Brothers, and George Harrison (to name just a very few), will recognize Travis as the headwaters of their style.

There are several Travis originals among the dozen cuts, including "16 Tons," a hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford and "Guitar Rag." The closing medley combines four more, including second tastes of "16 Tons" and "I'll See You in My Dreams," along with "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke" (a hit for Tex Williams), and the post-WWII veteran's lament, "No Vacancy." Fine covers include Smiley Burnette's "Homny Grits" (on the original of which Travis also played), and Bert Williams and Alex Rogers' slyly funny "Nobody" (originally featured by Williams in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1910, though Travis probably picked it up from the 1955 Bob Hope film, "Seven Little Foys").

This is a fine addition to the Travis catalog, capturing his warm personality, fine playing and singing, and providing a fuller view of how audiences (rather than just record buyers) experienced Travis in the mid-50s.

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