Today I attended the funeral of , in the Rose Chapel at Boston Avenue Methodist Church. Doris passed away on Tuesday at the age of 76. Doris was an alto and a charter member of Coventry Chorale, and my wife and I sang with her in that group for many years.

She always had a smile and a friendly word for us. Doris also sang in Boston Avenue's choir, taught vocal music in the Tulsa Public Schools, and was very active in Sigma Alpha Iota music fraternity. (Here's a that appeared in the Tulsa World yesterday.

)
The presiding minister, Bill Tankersley, shared a funny anecdote. Doris grew up in Inola in the '30s and '40s. She learned to play piano at an early age and was good enough that she wound up playing at a few of the churches in town.

The churches staggered their service times so that she could play the opening hymns at one church, slip out the door, walk to the next church, play their opening hymns, and so on, until it was time to play the closing hymn at the first church and start over with the rotation.
As part of the service, we read the 23rd Psalm responsively, but sitting there with nine other members of Coventry Chorale, there to honor a departed member of the Chorale, it seemed wrong not to be singing . (To hear a lo-fi version of it, scroll down to the bottom of that page and click the link with the text "The Lord Is My Shepherd.

") I'm sure the others felt the pull, too.
This is beside the point, but..

. the first hymn we sang was "Praise My Soul the King of Heaven." We sang out of the current edition of the Methodist Hymnal, and it was hard not to laugh out loud at the lengths to which the editors went to avoid any use of the masculine pronoun in this version of the hymn.

Most of the time it was a simple substitution of "God" for "him" and "God's" for "his." But "to his feet thy tribute bring" becomes "to the throne thy tribute bring." "In his hand he gently bears us," becomes "Motherlike, God gently bears us," to balance out the word "Fatherlike" at the beginning of the third verse.

(Here are , and here is the .) There was nothing on the page to indicate an alteration. I don't like it any better when the editors monkey with the lyrics to eliminate a suspected Arminian overtone, and I will stubbornly sing the original lyrics anyway*, but at least they note when a verse was altered by the editors.

I tried to stick to the lyrics as printed, but I found myself singing the familiar original lyrics instead. Knowing Doris, I think she would have understood, and probably even approved.
* I don't do this when I'm leading singing, however.

Posted on January 5, 2007 11:05 PM Twelve Days of Christmas, arranged by John Rutter
Sleigh Ride, arranged by Hawley Ades
"Jesus Christ the Apple Tree," is a beautiful, simple a capella folk tune that opens the concert as the boys process from the back of Trinity's Gothic Revival sanctuary.
The older boys -- altos, tenors, and basses -- beautifully rendered the lush harmonies of Biebl's "Ave Maria." (Here's performed by the .

)
My favorite piece may have been "Midwinter," a pretty new setting of Christina Rossetti's " ":
Our God, heaven cannot hold him
the Lord God incarnate,
Jesus Christ.
What can I give him,
poor as I am?
if I were a wise man,
give my heart.

The audience is invited to sing along on three carols at the end of the first part of the program, and again in the second half on "Winter Wonderland."
Admission is free, but donations are gratefully accepted and will help fund their planned Summer 2007 performance tour of Britain. A reception with savory and sweet treats follows the concert.

Posted on December 16, 2006 2:18 PM I just received a CD called . The CD was issued in 2005 by Tomato Records. I was excited when I first spotted this online because this appeared to be a radio broadcast of the Texas Playboys, complete with the opening and closing themes.

While the CD is not exactly what I expected, it's still well worth having for any fan of the Texas Playboys. Here's the review I just posted to amazon.com:
Like the Tiffany Transcriptions series, these tracks, recorded for or from radio, capture Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys at their loosest and swingingest, the way you might have heard them at a dance hall.

While this disc is set up to flow as if it were a single broadcast, in fact it's a combination of a transcription done around 1945 (tracks 1-15, 28-29) and a broadcast from 1953 (tracks 16-27). It's almost seamless, but Wills scholars will notice differences in the names that Bob calls out for solos.
The 1945 section features Tommy Duncan on vocals, Bob Wills, Louis Tierney, and Joe Holley on fiddle, Alex Brashear on trumpet, Millard Kelso on piano, and Junior Barnard on standard guitar, with announcer Ross Franklin.

You'll get to hear Tommy Duncan sing the opening Playboys theme, as well as "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "Empty Chair at the Table," "Take Me Back to Tulsa," and a duet with Bob on the blues call-and-response "I'm Talkin' about You." Les Anderson provides vocals on "Stardust." Nearly everyone takes a solo on instrumentals "Lone Star Rag" and "Liberty," including a couple of Junior Barnard's proto-rock'n'roll guitar solos.

Junior is also featured on "I'm Talkin' about You" and "Take Me Back to Tulsa."
The 1953 tracks seem to have the same tracklist as an LP called "Rare 1953 California Radio Broadcasts Volume 2." Jack Lloyd and Bill Choate take the vocal duties, and you'll hear Skeeter Elkin on piano, Keith Coleman on fiddle, Billy Bowman on steel guitar, and Eldon Shamblin on standard guitar, with announcer Lou Stevens.

There's mention between songs of the band playing dances at Harmony Park Ballroom in Anaheim and Bob doing a transcription for Armed Forces Radio with Carolina Cotton. "Tuxedo Junction" features some fine solos from Skeeter Elkin and Billy Bowman. Louise Rowe and Keith Coleman sing a duet on "Got You on My Mind.

"
Beyond the great music, the between-songs banter makes this a disc worth having just to get the sense of what it was like to tune in to the daily broadcasts.
It's that banter that sets this recording apart from the Tiffany Transcriptions. (Presumably, the original Tiffany Transcription discs included introductions and banter, but that hasn't been included on the compilations that Rhino issued.

)
I still dream of hearing a radio broadcast from the band's heyday at KVOO in Tulsa, but I suspect those shows are only extant in the Celestial Archive.
Posted on December 3, 2006 12:37 AM Previously mentioned, but here's some shaky video of Mick Jagger, last month in Austin, singing "Bob Wills Is Still the King" by Waylon Jennings.
That's the Rolling Stones' Ron Wood on pedal steel guitar.

Posted on November 4, 2006 1:21 PM Tonight in Tulsa you have the chance to hear some excellent chamber music.
The concert, which starts at 6 pm, will feature works by 19th 20th century composers (such as Dvorak, Bartok, Saint-Saens) and flamenco music. It's at , on 51st St between Lewis and Harvard.

The concert is to benefit an upcoming mission trip to Uganda.
Posted on August 20, 2006 12:45 PM Found , in praise of Bend Studio, "Dallas' gem of a listening venue", via Technorati:
[J. Paul] Slavens own comedy troupe, the , won The Dallas Observer Best of Award for best comedy troupe 1999.

More recently, Mr Slavens has garnered a loyal follwing for his radio program 90.1 @ Night on KERA-FM 90.1 in Dallas, one of the top five Public Radio stations in the US.

Heard Sunday nights from 7 to 10 pm, Slavens plays an eclectic mix to say the least, a typical night will find Bob Wills next to Devo next to Nina Simone and on and on. next to ? Sounds like my kind of show!

The has "90.1 at Night with Paul Slavens" from 8 to 10 on Sunday evenings. There's no podcast for the show, but you can .

Posted on July 20, 2006 12:21 PM A new entry on YouTube -- the Texas Playboys performing "New San Antonio Rose" on Austin City Limits in 1976. The ensemble included Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, Leon Rausch singing, Eldon Shamblin on standard guitar (you can see him off to the left in the wide shots). The poster thinks that the fiddle player, who is doing his best impression of Bob Wills' stage mannerisms, is Keith Coleman.

(The audio's a bit warbly.)
Another recent YouTube addition: A 1951 Snader Transcription -- music video -- of with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. That's Joe Holley playing fiddle left-handed and a headless Bobby Koefer on steel guitar.

(Here's a website devoted to the late .)
Meanwhile, from a perusal of the , I learn:
Herb Remington, a legendary steel guitar player who was with the Playboys from 1946 to 1950 (you'll hear him on a lot of the Tiffany Transcriptions and some of the early material recorded for MGM), is still performing in the Houston area. He's with the , who have a couple of gigs scheduled each month through the end of the year.

And he plays 2nd Sunday of each month with the (that's a Cosmo's in Houston, NOT the one in Tulsa). And Herb has a company, , that custom-builds non-pedal steel guitars. That website has some of his CDs on sale, too.

There's a Live365 radio station that plays a lot of Western Swing. It's called : "We're playing all your Western Swing favorites by Milton Brown His Musical Brownies, Bob Wills His Texas Playboys, Hank Penny His Radio Cowboys, Tex Williams His Western Caravan, Spade Cooley, Hi-Flyers, Sons of the Pioneers and many, many others. CAUTION: This stuff 'gets your heart to jumpin' and it gets so hot it burns a hole in your undershirt!

'" Right now, I'm listening to "Hometown Stomp," a 1947 instrumental that spotlights Herb Remington.
Leon Rausch and Tommy Allsup lead the current incarnation of the Texas Playboys, and they brought in some big country names -- e.g.

, George Jones, Porter Waggoner, Tanya Tucker, Charlie Daniels -- to sing and play on a . Rausch, Allsup, and the Playboys played New York City at the end of June -- I would love to hear from someone who was there.
This month's Internet radio show is a tribute to songwriter Cindy Walker, who passed away earlier this year.

There are on their way from Collectables Records. One is a -- Wills' last album with Liberty and, for the first time on CD, Capitol's "In Concert" LP. There are some tracks here that haven't been available on CD other than the ultra-comprehensive and expensive Bear Family compilations.

Just out last week, but less exciting, is , a collection of ten of his most popular songs. No indication which era or eras the songs were taken from.
On Amazon, I note a planned September release for .

Early this year, a . This one is on my acquisition list.
Posted on July 15, 2006 10:35 PM Looking for trenchant political analysis or deep thoughts?

Then scroll past this entry.
My favorite band in high school and college was Devo -- nerd music par excellence. I was thinking about Devo tonight and went looking for Devo videos on YouTube.

Weird Al Yankovic's song "Dare to Be Stupid" is the ultimate parody of Devo's music. It isn't a parody of a specific song, but it captures the Devo sound and amps up the trademark weirdness of their lyrics by stringing together in random order twisted versions of proverbs and slogans. The video "Dare to Be Stupid" borrows from a dozen or so Devo music videos from their heyday.

If you're a Devo fan, you'll laugh with recognition.
OK, one more favorite Weird Al video -- -- complete with Art Fleming, Don Pardo, the original Jeopardy set, and a cameo by Dr. Demento.

Posted on July 15, 2006 2:20 AM This draft was started a couple of days after Father's Day, but I never got around to finishing it. In lieu of something more substantive tonight, here it is:
We celebrated Father's Day by taking my dad and mom to lunch at at Main and Brady downtown. It's one of our favorite Mexican places; Mom and Dad had never been there.

Great salsa (sort of halfway in texture and heat between Chimi's salsa fresca and salsa picante) and some delicious non-traditional Mexican dishes.
My wife and I had the Stuffed Carne Asada. At $13.

95, it's one of the most expensive things on the menu, and we always consider getting something else (the Shrimp Acapulco is very tasty too), but we can't stand not to have this: "Fajita Steak stuffed with Melted Jack Cheese, Mushrooms, and Onions. Topped with Saut e ed Pico de Gallo, Bacon and Mushrooms. Served with Rice, Borracho Beans and Saut?

ed Vegetables." It's big enough and rich enough we always have enough to bring home for another meal. The saut e ed vegetables (carrots, yellow squash, and zucchini) were nicely spicy and just crisp enough.

The waitress, Heather, deserves special praise. She managed to be both attentive and inobtrusive. Instead of interrupting conversation every five minutes to ask, "Everything OK?

" she passed by regularly, noticed if anything needed refilling, and just took care of it. When she noticed one of us dabbing at a bit of salsa that had landed on a shirt, she brought out some club soda and some extra napkins.
I gave my dad a new sports shirt and a Johnny Cash CD.

is a collection of traditional hymns and gospel songs, sung with only a guitar for accompaniment. Cash recorded it in the few months between his wife's death and his own. I had come across it in the CD return shelf in the library, checked it out, and loved it.

These are songs that we sang in the little Southern Baptist church I grew up in, but don't hear much in our PCA congregation: I'm Bound For The Promised Land, Softly and Tenderly, Just As I Am, When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder.
(I've found all sorts of gems on the library's CD return shelf, things I probably wouldn't have sought out on purpose: Spike Jones' Greatest Hits; Sam Cooke: The Man Who Invented Soul, a four-disc set; a two-disc set of everything Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recorded together.)
The kids gave me a Louis Armstrong CD, a Patsy Cline CD, and the original version of , along with a new clock radio that synchronizes itself to the atomic clock via shortwave.

I already had a version of this disc -- the , which has a black cover. I bought it as motivation/reward when I refinished the kids' wood floors last summer, and I liked it, but some of the tracks (five of them, to be precise) seemed unnecessarily tarted up -- as if some producer didn't think classic Western Swing was good enough to get people out on the dance floor. On "Big Ball's in Cowtown," the dance version is almost double the length of the original, padded out with backup singers singing "Cowtown, Cowtown, we're all goin' to Cowtown" over and over and over again.

Then there's the bizarre addition of the same two measures of "Yearning," digitally transposed into three different keys for the intro to the song -- somehow that made it a dance version. Similar weirdness is inflicted upon "Hubbin' It," "Corrine, Corrina," and "Old Fashioned Love." At least they left 13 of the songs alone.

I had heard the unadulterated versions of a couple of the tracks from the white-covered original edition, and put it on my wish list, a wish my wife and kids were kind enough to fulfill.
The album features famous modern country artists (e.g.

, George Strait, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks -- Huey Lewis, too) singing or playing Bob Wills tunes alongside Asleep at the Wheel and some of the original Texas Playboys -- Eldon Shamblin, Johnny Gimble, and Herb Remington.
"Yearning," sung on this album by Vince Gill, has become a favorite of mine. It was a Tin Pan Alley tune, published in 1925 by Benny Davis and Joe Burke.

(Davis and Burke also wrote "Carolina Moon." Burke also wrote "Tiptoe through the Tulips" and "Rambling Rose." Davis also wrote "Baby Face.

") Somehow this sweet little tune found its way into both the standards and Western Swing repertoires -- Nat King Cole, Tommy Dorsey, and Frank Sinatra, Spade Cooley and Bob Wills all recorded it. Merle Haggard sang it on the final album with Bob Wills (For the Last Time), but I like Gill's version a little better, if only because it includes both verses.
The songbird yearns to sing a love song.

The roses yearn just for the dew.
The whole world's yearning for the sunshine.
I have a yearning too.

I hope that you yearn, too.
When shadows fall and stars are beaming,
'Tis then I miss you most of all.
I fall asleep and start a-dreaming.

That's all I do, my dear.
Learning why I'm blue,
I wish that you were here.
Smiles have turned to tears,
Days have turned to years.

Yearning just for you,
I hope that you yearn, too.
I've enjoyed the gifts from my children, but the greatest Father's Day gifts of all are the children themselves.
Posted on July 6, 2006 11:01 PM This Friday and Saturday, June 2 and 3, the will perform their spring concert.

The program includes classical selections, such as Mozart's Laudate Dominum, and more modern pieces, including several songs from the musical Camelot.
The concert on both nights begins at 7:30, at Trinity Episcopal Church, 501 S. Cincinnati, in downtown Tulsa.

Admission is FREE, but donations are gratefully accepted, and CDs of the Tulsa Boy Singers will be on sale.
My son started singing with the group in the fall, and he has enjoyed it completely. It has been a great learning experience for him, not only for vocal skill and musical knowledge, but for self-discipline.

TBS always puts on a great concert -- it's well worth your time this Friday and Saturday evening.
Posted on May 31, 2006 12:28 AM sponsors a chapter of Reformed University Fellowship at the University of Tulsa, and as a result we've had an influx of college age, young singles, and young married couples into our congregation. (RUF is the collegiate ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America, a conservative evangelical denomination.

)
Along with the new people, the RUF connection has brought new songs into our worship service, or, more accurately, new tunes to old hymns by writers like Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, John Newton, and Augustus Toplady.
The tunes can be found in the . The RUF Hymnbook Online Hymn Resource provides PDF lead sheets, guitar chord sheets, lyric-only sheets (for overhead projectors), and brief demos (usually a verse and a chorus) in MP3 format.

Kevin Twit is the composer of many of the new tunes, and the RUF Hymnbook Online Hymn Resource is a part of his website, . Twit has a on the site as well, and one of his recent entries is
Posted on May 30, 2006 10:53 PM This has nothing to do with a Grove, Oklahoma, legislator's plan to get $30 million in state tax credits to redo Shangri-La resort on Grand Lake.
Mary Weiss, lead singer with the '60s girl group group that just coincidentally happened to be entirely staffed by the distaff (don't say "girl group" around Mary) the Shangri-Las, has signed with for her first solo album.

Norton's website has a lengthy and fascinating , who talks about their hits (e.g, Leader of the Pack), recording sessions, the rigors of touring, their fellow musicians (like James Brown and the Zombies), going from obscurity to sudden fame, and how it all dissolved in a mess of lawsuits. Start with that link and follow the links at the bottom of each page to read the whole thing.

(Hat tip: 's 3WC linkblog.)
Posted on May 21, 2006 5:34 PM I am definitely not talking about Tulsa's sales tax vote.
This Tuesday, Merle Haggard's 1971 album, , is being re-released on CD, in tandem with his 1976 release .

Haggard's tribute to Wills is credited with a revival of interest in Western Swing music, and it marked the first reunion of Wills sidemen from the '30s, '40s, and '50s, a chance to hear these virtuosi on modern recording equipment. This album includes Johnnie Lee Wills on banjo, Eldon Shamblin on electric guitar, Johnny Gimble and Joe Holley on fiddle, Alex Brashear on trumpet, and Tiny Moore on the "biggest little instrument in the world" (mandolin -- amplified, of course). The success of this album paved the way for the recording of the legendary album two years later.

Last week, I checked out the library's copy of the earlier CD release, and if you'd been in our house late Friday night, you would have heard me singing along (a bit too loudly), as I worked on finishing the transfer of BatesLine to a new server.
One thing sadly missing from the library's copy were the liner notes by country music historian Rich Kienzle. Kienzle's notes are always interesting reading -- another good reason to pick up a copy of the upcoming re-release.

Posted on May 7, 2006 9:25 PM I don't often do these, but I found this on the and thought it would be fun to try.
Answer the following questions using only the song titles from a chosen musician/band.
Band I chose: Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

Are you male or female? I'm a Ding-Dong Daddy from Dumas. (You oughta see me do my stuff!

)
Describe yourself. I'm Human, Same As You
How do some people feel about you? Nothing But Trouble
How do you feel about yourself?

Too Busy
What would you ask for if you had just one wish? Tater Pie
Now say goodbye: When You Leave Amarillo, Turn Out the Lights
Here's my contribution to the meme: Ask and answer your own question with song titles.
Q: Will There Be Any Yodeling in Heaven?

A: There'll Be No Disappointment in Heaven.
I'm not tagging anyone as such, but it would be fun to see what could do with this.
Well, I'm not going to get time tonight to complete my blog tribute to recently departed songwriting great Cindy Walker, and I may do a series of posts rather than one long one, but for now, here's a great find on (of course) .

Although Walker made songwriting the focus of her life, all the way to the end, she was also a heckuva singer and could dance a bit, too. Here are . (If you can't see the video image below, click .

) The first one is rather topical:

Ti-Yi-Yippee-Ay, with the Red River Boys and Girls

Election Day used to be a lot more exciting.
UPDATE: These little films are called , which were made in the early '40s. They were short 16mm films projected in a jukebox-like device called a .

Posted on April 10, 2006 11:05 PM '60s pop singer and songwriter Gene Pitney died early Wednesday of a heart attack in Cardiff, Wales, where he had performed the night before. In 1993, interviewed Pitney for Goldmine magazine; today :
When the hits stopped coming, Pitney knew when to ditch the record-biz merry-go-round in favor of his always-supportive live audiences. He wed his high-school sweetheart, stayed married, raised three sons, invested well, and never wrote a kiss-and-tell tome.

The author of Ricky Nelson's unassuming hit "Hello Mary Lou" never tried to be an Artist with a capital A.