Chippeha!: The Essential Dixie Cowboy (1947-1957)

Amazon.com's Best of 1998
Cowboy music, hillbilly music, Hawaiian music, and some just plain weird music combine on this anthology of tunes by Jenks "Tex" Carman, an offbeat recording artist who straddled the dangerous line between comedic genius and idiot savant. Carman was best known for "Hillbilly Hula," a song whose title pretty much describes his style on these recordings. Covering 1947 to 1953, the cuts include radio spots that feature Carman recruiting listeners into the armed forces. The Beasties were right: You gotta fight for your right to party. Great stuff. --Jason Verlinde

Amazon.com
This is uncommonly strange, anachronistic American music. But unlike the records collected on Harry Smith's celebrated Anthology, this music was weird back during its day, too. Nobody was playing cowboy ballads after World War II, and what's with that Hawaiian-style guitar playing? Collapse Jimi Hendrix's "singing" guitar (well ... actually, Carman could barely stay in tune, but he did have his own unique, expressive style) with Roy Rogers's wandering cowboy shtick, Western swing with hillbilly country, and throw in a thousand lightning-speed allusions to history and daily sounds, then add a couple of tunes in Carman's native Cherokee, and you're beginning to get an idea of how essential, if not always musically "perfect," this collection of weird-school country music is. --Mike McGonigal

Tracks:

4 Star Recordings (1947-51): The Artillery Song
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): Hillbilly Hula
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): Wreck Of The Old 97
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): Mississippi Valley Blues
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): New Waikiki Beach
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): Sunny Tennessee
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): Fire Ball Mail
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): Kahila March
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): End Of The World
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): Old Number 9
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): Stutter Song (Unreleased)
4 Star Recordings (1947-51): Roll On Silver Moon (Unreleased)
Live Tracks - U.S. Air Force 'Country Music Time' (ca. 1957): Dixie Cannonball
Live Tracks - U.S. Air Force 'Country Music Time' (ca. 1957): Hillbilly Hula
Live Tracks - U.S. Air Force 'Country Music Time' (ca. 1957): Cripple Creek
Capitol Recordings (1951-53): Blue Memories (Unreleased)
Capitol Recordings (1951-53): Indian Polka
Capitol Recordings (1951-53): Hilo March
Capitol Recordings (1951-53): Locust Hill Rag
Capitol Recordings (1951-53): Dixie Cannonball
Capitol Recordings (1951-53): Hillbilly Hula
Capitol Recordings (1951-53): The Caissons Go Rolling Along

Amazon.com's Best of 1998

Cowboy music, hillbilly music, Hawaiian music, and some just plain weird music combine on this anthology of tunes by Jenks "Tex" Carman, an offbeat recording artist who straddled the dangerous line between comedic genius and idiot savant. Carman was best known for "Hillbilly Hula," a song whose title pretty much describes his style on these recordings. Covering 1947 to 1953, the cuts include radio spots that feature Carman recruiting listeners into the armed forces. The Beasties were right: You gotta fight for your right to party. Great stuff. --Jason Verlinde

Amazon.com

This is uncommonly strange, anachronistic American music. But unlike the records collected on Harry Smith's celebrated Anthology, this music was weird back during its day, too. Nobody was playing cowboy ballads after World War II, and what's with that Hawaiian-style guitar playing? Collapse Jimi Hendrix's "singing" guitar (well ... actually, Carman could barely stay in tune, but he did have his own unique, expressive style) with Roy Rogers's wandering cowboy shtick, Western swing with hillbilly country, and throw in a thousand lightning-speed allusions to history and daily sounds, then add a couple of tunes in Carman's native Cherokee, and you're beginning to get an idea of how essential, if not always musically "perfect," this collection of weird-school country music is. --Mike McGonigal

Customer Reviews:

A fantastic unearthing of one of Americana's true kooks.......1998-09-02

It appears that history has treated the hillbilly wampum of part-Cherokee Hawaiian slide guitar master Jenks "Tex" Carman with a decidedly cold touch. We read in the liner notes to this terrific collection that Carman, like similar oddball geniuses, had his crazed approach to cowpoke guitar demystified by a conspiracy of squares who deemed Tex too unprofessional and/or unorthodox for true study. Why, it just makes my blood boil. The consummate singing cowboy, but packing a twisted little bag of "extras", Jenks Carman could bend a string and coax a variety of wild sounds from his laptop guitar like few others of his day. "Hillbilly Hula" was his signature number, and in the three versions presented here the man never strays from his vaudeville roots while still making the strings on his guitar dance like a pack of drunken wagoneers. This collection takes a handful of 78s waxed for the 4 Star label in the late 40s and early 50s and pairs them with some later recordings for Capitol, while throwing in a great three-song interlude for the U.S. Air Force's "Country Music Time" radio show from 1957. The latter is a blatant recruitment tool by the oppressor (complete with a long pitch to join the "aerospace team"), but Jenks shows he's nobody's puppet - he just blows the man clean away with a blazing "Dixie Cannonball", "Hillbilly Hula" and "Cripple Creek"! And you'll surely want to check out his until-now unreleased song that makes fun of stutterers. It's another re-opened chapter in American roots music -- alive, vital and raw as hell.

Music Album:

Music Album