Welcome!


This blog is for the sharing of non-copyrighted or out-of-print Texas style fiddle music. If you believe something posted here should not be shared, please contact me. Feel free to share this site on social media via Facebook, YouTube, etc.

If you download something, please share something back, too. Also, if you have information about any of these recordings, please pass it along. The goal of this site is to preserve the music with as much supplemental information as we can get!

Most of the music is shared in a .zip file format. You must decompress the .zip file before you can access and play the individual .mp3 songs. It's pretty easy with both Windows and Mac.

DISCLAIMER:
Much of this music was recorded from old worn cassettes that have been sitting in a box deteriorating for years. So...sometimes it sounds like music recorded from old worn cassettes that have been deteriorating for years. It's not studio quality, but it is good enough that you will still love the music.

Monday, November 28, 2016

Texas Shorty/Terry Morris: Backstage at Hallettsville

Texas Shorty

Blogger: Grant Wheeler

This audio was originally recorded sometime around 1985-86 by Bill McNeil in one of the contestant warm-up rooms that flank the stage at the Fiddler's Frolics in Hallettsville, Texas. Audiences can always expect to witness fierce competition at this contest, but as can be heard on this recording, there was some incendiary fiddling going on back stage, as well. As Bill so eloquently states at the 1 minute 8 second mark on the very first track:  

"Aww...SOOEY!"

The fiddlers are the incomparable Jim "Texas Shorty" Chancellor and the late, forever great, Terry Morris. The faded hand writing on the cassette lists a first string, dream team trio of backup pickers: Bobby Christman and the legendary Franklin Brothers power duo, Royce and Ray. (Other guitarists pinch hitting here are there on a few tunes are Shorty's brother Robert Chancellor and Gerald Jones. And you don't have to listen too closely to hear the gleefully maniacal laughter and thumping stand-up bass lines of Alfred Eugene Mouledous.)  

Shorty (Tracks 1-11) lights the fuse, laying a blistering 4 minute long smack down on "Tug Boat" and later serves up a few deep cut tunes like "Liverpool Hornpipe" and "Old Sport," and gets his swang on with "Kansas City Kitty" and "Brown Skin Gal." 

Terry Morris
Terry (Tracks 12-16) keeps it cookin' doing what Terry does; pulling rabbits out of his hat on standards "Sally Johnson" and "Dusty Miller" and executing exquisite acrobatics on "Wednesday Night Waltz".  We close out the set of tunes with a bonus track of Terry taking a second run at "I Don't Love Nobody." 

Thanks to Brother Sumner for re-discovering the cassette tape from which this audio was digitized and to Brother Matthew for filling in some details about this recording. This music lives on and continues to inspire when it is shared. 

Aww...Sooey.


In memory of Royce Franklin...gentleman picker extraordinaire.




No comments:

Post a Comment