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Country Blues => Weenie Campbell Main Forum => Topic started by: wreid75 on May 08, 2014, 05:31:49 AM
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Is there anyone who wants to relive some of their greatest finds when it comes to 78s that totally made your day. Some of the stories I have heard seem very interesting, at least to me. It allows someone late to the game such as me to kinda live vicariously through you. Anyone who have found one of the Willie Browns, obscure Patton, and Son House I would really like to hear since those three are my favs but any story I find fascinating. It might sound mundane to you but to those of us who have never experienced this it will be enlightening.
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I'm late to the game like you, but I've still had a few great finds. I'm a fairly casual record collector, but I always check thrift stores and antique shops and yard sales when I'm out and about. About six years ago I was on tour and we stopped at an antique shop in a small town on the Columbia River about an hour east of Portland. I was with my buddy Kit who is a much more devoted 78 nerd than me. There were lots of random piles of 78's throughout the shop and we flipped through them all, pulling out a few decent records.. some Carter Family and some novelty orchestra stuff. Buck a piece, standard junk shop price. We thought we had seen it all, when I found one last pile sort of tucked away. Kit came over and I pulled the top half off the pile and handed it to him. Flipped through a couple more records and suddenly I'm staring at a very clean Vocalion record and it reads.. Henry Thomas, "Ragtime Texas", Little Red Caboose, Whistle and Guitar! Bob Mckinney on the other side! I rubbed my eyes, elbowed Kit and showed him, and boy if you could see the look on his face! He started looking through every pile in the store again in case he missed another gem like that. That was it though. Somehow that Henry Thomas record made it to a small town in the Pacific Northwest and remained unharmed and virtually unplayed til today.
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Wow, I bet you never forget that day, Devin! That's a great story.
All best,
Johnm
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heh.. I bet Kit never forgets it either!
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Plus proves he's a true friend, since he didn't clock you and run off with the record.
Bob McKinney! Nice find.
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I can't say I have ever owned a single 78' and I live in Australia so the chances of me ever finding an authentic "race record 78" in this country seems rather impossible, certainly I doubt any of them ever reached our shore during the 20's or 30's, maybe some collectors have flown to the US and found some and brought them back and for that reason I seriously doubt any of those will ever be seen outside of those lucky owners.
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Speak to anyone you know over the age of 65. They'll tell you how there were only 78s in the 1950s. It's amazing what was imported en masse to Australia, e.g. Oscar Schmidt's Stella guitars....
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Speak to anyone you know over the age of 65. They'll tell you how there were only 78s in the 1950s. It's amazing what was imported en masse to Australia, e.g. Oscar Schmidt's Stella guitars....
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Thanks Professor, yes my nana had some 78's from the old days but they were swing bands certainly not blues from the race records era, she was not the sort of lady who would have cared for "the devils music" I would say. My main point is that those who do have rare blues 78's from the 20's and 30's are probably very unlikely to part with them. I have not though considered the possibility that US servicemen (and women) from WWII may have brought some over with them and misplaced a few somewhere (so maybe I'll find one oneday after all). There were so many yank troops and sailors here that they nearly outnumbered Australia's total population of the time :)
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Jimmy Rodgers and the Carter Family sold well in Australia, India and Africa. A case can be made for Carter influence on African guitar playing.
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Speak to anyone you know over the age of 65. They'll tell you how there were only 78s in the 1950s. It's amazing what was imported en masse to Australia, e.g. Oscar Schmidt's Stella guitars....
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Yep, I got my early 1920s Stella while living in Australia (I'm in New Zealand again now). And when Brownie McGhee saw it, he exclaimed "you got a Stella like my daddy had". A lot of US country music was issued in Australia, mainly on the old Regal Zonophone label, but also some on Decca and others. Assiduous junking will probably still turn up old Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Delmore Brothers and others; there were also some odd ones -- the Stripling Brothers (fiddle & gtr duets) had a release in Australia (June Rose/Midnight Waltz), as did Bradley Kincaid (The Blind Girl). Overall, it's kinda hard to work out what the release policy was -- seemed to be "let's try it and see". But ... I never have come across any country blues 78s that were released in Australia (or in New Zealand). There are people with collections in both countries, but our discs came from the US.
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Jimmy Rodgers and the Carter Family sold well in Australia, India and Africa. A case can be made for Carter influence on African guitar playing.
Interesting you mentioned Jimmy Rodgers the brakeman's records reaching Australia. Rodgers influence on Australian music was absolutely vast, he was the man who inspired blokes like Tex Morton (actually a Kiwi but he spent much time in Australia and he is the father of my mate Bob Morton a blues harmonica player who lives here) and Slim Dusty and from what I hear, Smokey Dawson, these three are giants and founders of Australian Country Music and they were huge fans of Rodgers. Jimmy Rodgers was truly the Father of Country Music.
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Tex Morton had two main influences -- Jimmy Rodgers and Goebel Reeves. His yodel was definitely influenced by Reeves, although he took it much further. I remember interviewing Tex Morton for a magazine I was working for in around 1967; unfortunately that was long before I came to learn how important Morton was to Australian and New Zealand country music, so I guess it has to be left as a missed opportunity. I think Slim Dusty's main influence was Tex Morton, rather than Jimmie Rodgers; listen to his first recordings, which came a decade after Tex's first. Smoky Dawson started as a Hawaiian steel player; according to Eric Watson's "Country Music in Australia" his first country influence was Carson Robison (which does show in his music). Apropos nothing at all, I once did a TV show (early 1980s) playing dobro in a band backing Smoky Dawson; a nerve-racking experience as Smoky didn't know the band and the band didn't know the song and couldn't get him to rehearse.