October 07, 2012

stop eatin' steak and go back to beans . . .

First posted this video in May 2009 . . . some things are worth repeating every three years of so . . .

Even in Texas folk and country music circles, singer and guitarist Don Walser is regarded as unique. The songs Walser specializes in aren't exactly current; he sings classic old Western swing tunes. In a sense, he's a man on a mission: keeping the old Texas country songs alive. Songs like "Cowpoke," "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," and "Mexicali Rose" are signature tunes for Walser, who is also one of the country's premier yodelers. Songs penned and popularized by Bob Wills, the Sons of the Pioneers, Hank Williams, Faron Young, Merle Travis, and Johnny Horton are all part and parcel of what you're likely to hear in the course of a typical Walser show.

3 comments:

  1. Very nice ... Hadn't heard of Walser before - gonna check him out further.

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  2. Hot damn! Thanks a lot for this post, Bill!

    I managed to score an album of Walser's, "Rolling Stone From Texas," today, and man, this feller could sing! Why was this man's music not played, coast to coast and wall to wall, on every country station in America, instead of, say, Garth Brooks, or any number of the other hat acts' stuff? (I know, I know ... it's only a rhetorical question - mostly.)

    And I love his choice of material and his treatment of it, too. There's something just so manly and so free-spirited about Texas country and Texas swing from the '30s and '40s - Ted Daffan, and Al Dexter, and Milton Brown, and Bill Boyd, and hell, even Jimmie Davis and Spade Cooley and Ernest Tubb, bless his ol' Walkin' and Waltzin' heart ...

    Thanks again for this turn-on - another one I owe you.

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    Replies
    1. Okay, you've given me a couple of names that I've got to check out . . .

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