SIXTEEN TONSTHE SONGS AND GUITAR OF MERLE TRAVIS

Merle Travis (1917-1983) occupies a unique position in thehistory of country music. In a career that spanned nearly a half acentury, he participated in the transformation of country musicfrom a regional to a national style and introduced his WesternKentucky style of guitar playing to the whole world. He made amark for himself as a singer, guitar stylist, song writer, performer,and actor. He also pioneered the design of the solid body guitar,now widely used by electric guitar players of every genre.

Few musicians have been so influential. Both Doc Watson

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and Chet Atkins credit Merle as their inspiration. Both men namedtheir sons after Travis. Today, Merle’s style shows up as a mainingredient in pop, rock, and country music. Attesting to his great-ness, countless musicians who have never heard of Merle Travishave unknowingly incorporated his influence into their music.His influence has become mainstream. In recognition of his con-tribution to country music, Merle was inducted into the CountryMusic Hall of Fame in 1978. But his influence was considerablywider than just country music.

The earliest days of country music were dominated by per-formers who, for the most part, took their home grown musicinto the recording studio. They were simply performing into amicrophone rather than before a live audience. These musiciansprovided the foundation upon which a second generation of mu-sicians built their careers. Merle was part of this next genera-tion. He consciously entered into the music business. While therewas little precedent for people making their living in this area,Merle never doubted that he could.

Merle Travis was born on November 17, 1917. “I was bornin Rosewood, Kentucky, which is...in Muhlenberg County. Theyraise tobaccer up there. My dad raised tobacco and my olderbrother, Taylor, he moved to Muhlenberg County and got a job inthe mines, so he went back to Rosewood and told dad, said,‘Pappy, you’re crazy raising this tobacco,’ said ‘you could godown to the mines and really make some money.’ So Dad spentthe rest of his days after going to the mines in Browder, Ken-tucky, and then of course eventually to Beach Creek where heworked sixteen years. Dad always said, I wish I’d a stayed on thefarm,’ you know, but I think he kind of liked coal mining.”

Merle was the youngest of four children. His father workedoutside the mines, never venturing underground. In time, Merle’snext oldest brother, John, took a job in the mine. Merle knewbefore the end of the eighth grade, his last year of school, that hehad no intention of working in the mines. Rather, he reasoned,he could make a living with his guitar.

Merle lumped all musical things together: “I was always fas-cinated by things about music...our talkin’ machine and...thefiddle and the guitars and things, had a smell all its own—smelledso musical, you know...now we had a neighbor, his name wasMaynard Matterley, and they had a guitar hanging on the wall,and I remember that somebody, and I don’t know, maybe Mr. or

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Mrs. Matterley played the guitar and it smelled so good. Youknow, it had the round hole and it had a musty sort of smell.”

As a kid, he absorbed the rich musical culture of his region.“There was music in the home, of course...then there was a fel-low named Colie Addison who played the fiddle and he playedthe guitar and the old ‘tater bug’ mandolin, and that just soundedthe purtiest that I ever heard, to me. And of course in home, whymy dad was a five string banjer picker. But he didn’t have a banjerand he talked about the old time banjer players...I remember heused to talk about a guy named Jim Winders who was a greatbanjo player. So finally my dad’s brother, named John, UncleJohnny Travis, he got a five string banjo and Dad traded him outof it and brought it home and Dad, he’d play...pick it, you know,had two different ways, he called it knockin’ the banjer and thenpickin’ the banjer. He’d sing songs...he’d sing ‘Jenny Weaver,’and a song about

Jeff Davis swore when the cruel war begun,I wouldn’t be the Union man and carry the Union gun,But I’d rather be the Union man and carry the Union gunthan to be the rebel, the rebel had to run.

“That was the words to the song he sung. And of course hesung some little old verses to ‘Ida Red’ and a bunch of stuff. Justa world of things he’d pick on the banjer and sing ‘em. And evenmy mother played a little bit. She played what they call...we call

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it ‘Hot corn.’ Now you’ve heard ‘Green Corn?’ ‘Green Corn,’Hot Corn,’ I’ve heard it called two or three different things sinceI’ve growed up, but she called it ‘Hot Corn.’ And that’s the firstthing I ever learned to play was ‘Hot Corn’ on the banjo. And ofcourse all kids make instruments. I used to make banjers out ofcarbide cans, you know, just cut the bottom of the round can offand put a neck on it and strip a screen wire..that’s where I got mystrings and oh, I’d just pick it. I wish I had an instrument thatwould sound as good today...My dad always talked about thebanjos without a fret...he lived until the early forties and he al-ways talked about the banjers, you know, he saw some awfullygood ones, because I was working on a radio station at the timehe passed on, but until his dyin’ day he said ‘No banjer sounds asgood as the kind that Jim Winders used to play made out of ahickory rim, and a groundhog hide for the head, and they didn’thave no frets on them.’ Dad said they’d gotten away.”

The Travis family had a phonograph in their home. His fa-ther loved to order records from the Sears catalog. Each timethey put in an order from the catalog, his father would add arecord or two to the order. He especially liked Vernon Dalhart’sballads. In addition to Dalhart’s music, his dad loved to listen tothe string band music of Charlie Poole and the North CarolinaRamblers and of Clayton McMichen and his groups. “And ninetime out of ten, it would be a song that, in the case of my dad,he’d say, ‘I’ve knowed that song all my life.’ So he was meetin’an old friend as well as hearing some awful good fiddlin’ andbanjo pickin’, you know. So that, no doubt, was the appeal.”

At an early age, Merle’s musical interests focused on theguitar. There were lots of excellent guitar pickers in his area. Histwo favorite musicians, however, were Ike Everly — father ofthe Everly Brothers, Don and Phil — and Mose Rager. Thesemen were strongly influenced by the guitar style of Arnold Shultz,a black itinerant musician from Ohio County, Kentucky. Shultz,who died in 1931, traveled the area and worked along the GreenRiver, which separates Muhlenberg County from Ohio Countyand flows on to the Ohio River. Just where he got the style isunclear, but his influence extended not only to these MuhlenbergCounty musicians, but also to Bill Monroe who recalls seeingShultz and credits him as being a major influence on his music.

By the time Merle Travis was a teenager, he was already awhiz on the guitar. He hung around all the musicians of his area

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and credits a number of the young men with influencing the Travissound. Kennedy Jones, Raymond McClellan, and Lester“Plucker” English were names that Travis often mentioned. Traviswas like a sponge. Mose Rager affectionately recalled that when-ever he would play, young Travis would get up as close as hecould and before Mose knew it, Travis would have stolen a chordor lick.

One of the things that set these Muhlenberg County musi-cians apart was their interest in a wide range of music. They werefascinated by harmonies and chords. Arnold Shultz not onlyplayed blues, but jazz and popular tunes of the day. TheseMuhlenberg County musicians all loved musical complexity.Merle once commented that he was more interested in learningnew chords than new songs.

By the time Merle was fifteen, he was on his way out oftown. His first journey away from home was to join the CivilianConservation Corps. The arrangement was that part of the moneyearned was given to the youngster and the rest was sent home tothe parents. Shortly after his time in the CCC, Merle rode a freighttrain to Evansville, Indiana, where his brother, John, had gone towork in the Servel Refrigerator plant. Merle asked his motherfor the $65 that he had earned in the CCC. He promised that hewas going to buy clothing with the money. John Travis recallsMerle’s trip to Evansville. Merle slipped out on the first day andbought a new guitar. When John questioned Merle about this,Merle replied that he was going to enter a talent contest and winprize money that would pay for the clothing. Merle reasoned thathe could make money with the guitar, but not with clothing. Merleentered the contest that night and came in third, behind a littlegirl who did an acrobatic dance, and a dog who walked a tight-rope. When John challenged Merle that he had not won, Merlereplied that he had. When John pointed out that the little girl hadwon, Merle replied that he was the highest ranking musician!Merle recalled another early trip and contest, saying that he hadstepped up to the microphone and played “Tiger Rag” as muchlike Mose Rager as he could.

Merle soon left home for good. He teamed up with a bunchof young musicians and played the local area. Next, he teamedup with the Walt and Bill Brown and Sleepy Marlin to form theDrifting Pioneers, a group that he worked with off and on foryears. In the middle of his Drifting Pioneers years, in late 1936

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or early ’37, old time fiddler Clayton McMichen invited him tojoin his band. Merle met McMichen three times before he wasasked to become a member of the group. He recalls getting aletter from his mother saying that he had a telegram from ClaytonMcMichen: “I quit the Drifting Pioneers and took off and founda way of catchin’ the boat across the Ohio River at one of themost flooded parts down there and then I caught a freight traindown through Kentucky and got home, which is some hundredmiles or so and there was the telegram, which said ‘Meet me inColumbus,’ which was about four days from then, so I startedgathering up money, you know,...friends that had a dollar ortwo...and I bought a railroad ticket to Cincinnati and when I gotto Cincinnati, why, they hadn’t left yet, so I went on to Colum-bus, Ohio, and that’s when I joined Clayton McMichen and hisGeorgia Wildcats. And boy I was in hog heaven then. And we allwore yellow checkered shirts and everything...and that was a greatexperience, you know, because we had records at home and I’dlook at McMichen and think. ‘There is a man who actually madea talking machine record.’ And he sold ‘em too in his day, youknow. So I was with them some eight months or something andfinally we...the band sort of starved out, you know, and I wentback to Evansville and got my job back with the Drifting Pio-neers.” In any case, he joined the band and says that his firstrecording session was playing guitar on McMichen’s recording

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of “Farewell Blues.” McMichen named Travis Ridge Runner.Clayton McMichen’s daughter, Juanita, recalled to me that dur-ing the time Merle was with McMichen, she would always seehim in his room playing the guitar. He practiced constantly.

During his stint with McMichen, he married for the first time.His bride was Mary Elizabeth Johnson, his teenage sweetheart.Because neither Merle nor Mary were yet 21 and didn’t havetheir parents’ consent, McMichen posed as Merle’s father whileold time fiddler, Bert Layne, posed as Mary’s dad so the youngcouple could get married.

In the fall of 1937, Merle and the Drifting Pioneers madetheir way to Cincinnati where they performed on a variety ofradio shows over powerful radio station WLW. This was a majorturning point for Merle as WLW was one of the major countrymusic stations of that time. While in Cincinnati from 1937 to1944, Merle met a group of musicians who became central as theindustry grew. Among the many musicians he worked with dur-ing those years were the Delmore Brothers, Grandpa Jones, HankPenny, Joe Maphis, and Wesley Tuttle. These broadcasts werewhere Chet Atkins first heard Merle and his guitar.

During the Cincinnati years, Merle not only played on theradio, but made personal appearances all around the area sur-rounding the radio station. Most of the large stations had artistbureaus that booked the musicians in surrounding areas. It was arigorous schedule. After completing a personal appearance, themusicians would have to head back to Cincinnati in order to dotheir radio shows the next day. Merle was busy. He broadcastwith a number of other musicians. He worked regularly with theDrifting Pioneers. He also sang gospel songs with the DelmoreBrothers and Grandpa Jones. Eventually they formed the origi-nal Browns Ferry Four. Merle gave the group its name after theDelmore’s hit, “Browns Ferry Blues.” It is ironic that a slightlyrisqué song would provide the name for a gospel quartet.

Merle also made his first recordings as a featured artist dur-ing these years. With Grandpa Jones, he recorded two sides asthe Sheppard Brothers for the newly forming King Records. TheSheppard Brothers record was King’s first release.

Late in 1943, Merle decided that he should help out in thewar effort. Accordingly, he joined the Marine Corps. This turnedout to be a bad decision as he simply could not fit into this regi-mented lifestyle. After a few months, he was released from the

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Corps and returned to Cincinnati. Embarrassed by his failure inthe Marines and unhappy in his marriage, he left abruptly forCalifornia. He recalled meeting Smiley Burnett, Gene Autry’ssidekick, and hearing how great California was. He rememberedSmiley telling him: “I’d rather live in California and eat lettucethan to live here in this cold weather and eat caviar.”

So one day, Merle went to WLW and asked all of his friendsto lend him ten dollars each. Then he asked Hank Penny if hewould drive him to the train station. On the way, Merle recalled,he asked Hank if he would drive him back to the station becausehe had forgotten his guitar. Soon he arrived in Los Angeles, nothaving any plans for where to go or what to do. But he did havethe phone number of his old friend Wesley Tuttle.

Wesley had grown up in the San Fernando Valley and been apart of the music scene in Los Angeles since his high school daysin the early 1930s. In 1939, he was persuaded to go back to Ohioand try his hand in the music business because, he was told, thatwas where there was the most opportunity. Soon after Tuttle ar-rived in Ohio, he heard Merle, playing with the Drifting Pio-neers, in a personal appearance at the fairgrounds near Dayton.He remembers: “I had never heard anything in my life like thatguitar playing.” After the show they met and it was the beginningof a lifelong friendship. Wesley did not like the Midwest andreturned to California in the July or August of 1941.

Wesley Tuttle remembers Travis’ arrival: “All he brought withhim was his Martin guitar and a paper bag with some extra socks

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in it...My telephone rang: ‘Hello Wes, this is Trav.’ I said, ‘Merle,where in the heck are you at?’ He says, ‘I’m down here in LosAngeles, let me look out the window.’ He says, ‘I’m across thestreet from the Greyhound bus station.’ I says, ‘I know wherethat’s at. He says ‘Can you come and get me?’ I drove down toFifth and Main and saw this shabby hotel and I went in and hadto walk up a flight of stairs...the ceilings were like twelve feet inthose days. I got in that room and of course we did our hugs andhandshakes and everything and it was a dark, dark, dungy roomand I look up and there’s this big fixture hanging from the ceil-ing, which was a gas light fixture for lights. Hangin’ off the armsof that thing was his underwear and socks. He’d washed themout and hung them up there to dry....I got him and brought himhome with me.

“And I took him the next night to the radio program with meand of course, Stuart (Hamblen), anytime anybody came in withany talent, he’d put ‘em on as a guest. Well, of course, he playedthe ‘Bugle Call Rag’ and ‘Cannonball Rag’ and a couple of thingsand everybody just went out of their gourd, you know. Nobody’devery heard a guitar player like that....He stayed with me for sev-eral weeks, at our house, until he got on his feet. In the mean-time, he got a job with Foreman Phillips frontin’ one of hisbands....”

Merle immediately immersed himself in the exciting musi-cal scene of southern California. Southern California was iso-lated. In the mid 1940s there was not a lot of airplane travel andit took several days to get to California by train from back east.Southern California, however, was a bubbling cauldron of talentand opportunity. There was a huge motion picture industry, ra-dio, record companies, personal appearances, dance clubs. Merlebecame involved in all of these activities. He also had time tofurther his interests in cartooning. During these early years hemet Chic Young, who had created the Blondie comic strip.

Merle was a young man of many talents and southern Cali-fornia seemed like just the right place for him. Although the WestCoast was isolated from the rest of the country, almost everyonehere had come from somewhere else. The result was a meltingpot in which Merle could show off his many talents and let themgrow in new directions.

Merle was an immediate sensation, but in early May, whenhe wrote his friend, Jane Allen, a member of the Happy Valley

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Girls on WLW, he expressed both his hopes and a little frustra-tion: “Well partner, I guess you wonder what I’m doin’ — I ain’tyet, but the union is all that holds me down...gotta be here 3months ‘fore you can do any good. Not boastin’ er nothin’, butI’ve had some good offers put up to me, but I ain’t got the say-so....”

Three months goes fast. He laid groundwork and did findsome work outside the union’s control. Within a short time, hewas leading a band for Bert “Foreman” Phillips, one of the ma-jor entrepreneurs in the Southern California country-western mu-sic business. Phillips operated several ballrooms around the LosAngeles area that featured western music suitable for dancing.He also hosted daily radio shows. In addition to personal appear-ances, Merle was active in the Los Angeles recording scene. Heworked for a brief time as an A & R man for his old friend, SydNathan, of King Records. But this was simply not Merle’s call-ing. He also made a few recordings during these early Holly-wood years using pseudonyms. His first recording under his ownname was “That’s All,” a song he reworked from an old Wash-ington Phillips cut he had probably learned when he was buyingold blues records from Syd Nathan’s record shop in Cincinnatibefore Syd formed King Records.

Another name that stands out in the Los Angeles music sceneis Cliffie Stone. Cliffie began as a high school student playingstand up bass for Stuart Hamblen. He soon developed his entre-preneurial skills and had his own radio shows on stations aroundLos Angeles. Radio exposure led to work with the newly formedCapitol Records. Cliffie became a producer for the company.Wesley Tuttle was one of the first country artists to record forCapitol and he used Merle on his recordings. Shortly thereafter,Merle was signed as a Capitol artist and began a series of suc-cessful recordings. For the most part, he recorded songs he wrote.

Merle’s prospects couldn’t have been brighter. He was busywith personal appearances, working daily on radio shows, andmaking recordings that were doing well on the national charts.During these years, the very beginnings of what was to becomethe folksong revival a decade later, were beginning to take shapewith artists like Josh White, Burl Ives, Richard Dyer-Bennett,and Susan Reed gaining popularity. Cliffie Stone asked Merle todo an album of folk songs. When Merle replied that he did notknow any, Cliffie told him to write some. The result was Merle’s

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landmark album, Folk Songs of the Hills. This album, unlike hisearlier recordings, was marketed to a city audience and had onlyMerle’s unamplified guitar and Cliffie Stone’s bass. This albumset Merle apart from the other country acts of the day. He nowhad a market of people who identified with country music and healso had an urban audience that would grow in the succeedingdecades of his career. Two original compositions from that al-bum, “Sixteen Tons,” and “Dark as a Dungeon” have becomeMerle’s best known songs and show signs of entering into tradi-tion.

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During these heady Hollywood years just after the close ofWorld War II, Merle also landed a few roles in Western movies.Merle’s talent was coming out all over. While he did not developa full blown movie career, he did make a notable appearance inthe 1953 classic, From Here to Eternity.

Merle also made a number of musical clips for the SoundiesDistributing Corporation from 1944 to 1946. Six of these rareperformances are included in this video. During the time he madethese clips, he wrote amusingly to Ramona Wiggins, who laterbecame Grandpa Jones’s wife: “You know what soundies (sic)are...You put a dime in a juke box of a thing and a little picturecomes on a screen, and lasts a few minutes. Well, I’m making abatch of them. They’re under my name. ‘Merle Travis and hisCowgirls’ ...It’ll be me and six trim little crafts. We’ve alreadymade the records and will shoot the pictures starting May 16th.It’s so hard to refrain from conciet (sic) when I think that I am abig movie star playing lead in my on (sic) series of three minutefeatures.”

As his letter reveals, the recordings were made before thefilm. In some cases, the films did not use the same personnel asthe recordings. Nevertheless, these rare film clips provide theearliest video record of Merle.

Early in 1947, Merle married Texann Nation, a singer withwhom he made a number of transcriptions for Capitol. Texannwas previously married to Buck Nation, a recording artist in hisown right. This marriage lasted only a few years and in 1951,Merle married for a third time. This time, his wife was anothersinger, June Hayden, whose performed under the name of JudyHayden. They married in Sacramento, California. This marriage,which produced two daughters, lasted about three years. JudyHayden had previously been married to Eddie Kirk, a musicianwho often performed with Merle.

By the early 1950s, television was augmenting Merle’s al-ready busy schedule. He regularly appeared on a number of LosAngeles country music shows including Town Hall Party. TownHall was a huge hall set up for dancing and drinking. Here anumber of the central figures in the Los Angeles country musicscene performed. Included were Joe and Rose Lee Maphis, JohnnyBond, Merle, Wesley and Marilyn Tuttle, Freddy Hart, Tex Ritter,Tex “Jenks” Carmen and many others. The show also featuredguests who came to the Los Angeles area. Many of the great names

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of country music appeared at Town Hall at one time or another.The regular cast numbered well over twenty people. Unfortu-nately, few of these shows are preserved on film or video.

During the early 1950s, Merle recorded a number of guitarinstrumentals in addition to his standard fare of clever songs.These instrumentals were highly influential on guitar players bothin the country and city audiences.

In 1955, almost by coincidence, Tennessee Ernie Ford re-corded Merle’s “Sixteen Tons.” His recording skyrocketed tosuccess and became one of the fastest selling records of all time.Finally, Merle was secure financially. By this time, he had mar-ried a fourth time. This time his wife was Betty Lou Morgan.This marriage lasted for over twenty years.

Merle’s professional career divides itself nicely between theperiod before the hit recording of “Sixteen Tons” and the remain-der of his life. Looking back, it is the early period that was hismost productive. As a young man, he excelled on all fronts. Hiscompositions were spectacular, his guitar playing was unequaled,his performances were popular, and his records sold well.

After Tennessee Ernie’s release of “Sixteen Tons,” Merle en-tered into a long period in which his creative juices ceased toflow as freely as during the early years. Not that these years wereempty or without significant accomplishments. But, for the mostpart, these years were marked by replays of his earlier successes.

Merle stayed active as a studio musician. He played hun-dreds if not thousands of sessions with others. Outstanding arehis sessions with his dear friend, Hank Thompson. On most ofThompson’s recordings for Capitol, Merle’s guitar can be heard.

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But Merle’s contribution to the Thompson sound went far be-yond his guitar solos as he made suggestions that shaped theoverall sound of these sessions. Merle was a brilliant on-the-spotarranger.

Although Merle played on a number of sessions, he seemedunable to write or find new material to record. Finally, in 1960,when he did find his way into the studio again, he recreated hisearly hits, accompanied once again by a western swing band com-plete with trumpets.

During this period, he really began to make inroads in thecity folksong revival market. He became a frequent performer infolk festivals and at urban venues that catered to a city audience.He certainly did not, however, forget his rural fans. His earlysuccess had been so marked that whatever Merle did was warmlyappreciated by both city and country audiences.

Throughout the sixties and seventies, Merle’s public appear-ances generally featured his older material. He worked as a soloact, rarely if ever taking along a band or working with othermusicians on stage.

His greatest triumph during the post 1955 period was therecording of Songs of the Coal Mines. This 1963 album presentstwelve songs that paint a picture of the life of the coal miner.Unlike his earlier album, Folk Songs of the Hills, this album did

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not concentrate exclusively on Western Kentucky. Rather, thealbum talks about miners throughout North America. This albummet with great critical acclaim, but did not sell well. It is inter-esting that Merle never incorporated these songs into his reper-toire. In public appearances, if fans asked for these songs, Merlereplied that he had never learned them. He composed the songs,recorded them, and never performed them widely in public.Rather, he continued to rely on the old standards that had broughthim his initial success.

In the summer of 1965, Merle and Betty moved to Nashvillewhere Merle enjoyed a couple of great years. He was on the GrandOle Opry, writing songs, and performing. Betty remembers thoseyears as highlights of the twenty three years they were together.It is interesting that nothing lasting came out of that period. Thecreative energy simply was not what it had been during the earlyyears. Just prior to moving back to Nashville, however, Merledid record one last effort for Capitol: “John Henry Junior”. It gotinto the top fifty in the charts and was his last commercial suc-cess. Merle and Betty returned to the San Fernando Valley, justoutside Los Angeles, in 1970 or 71.

In the 1970s, Merle, now reflective and probably no longerthinking about setting the world on fire, made a number of al-bums for CMH records, a small Los Angeles label that gave Merlethe freedom to do just what he wanted. These albums provide alot of insight into his career and range from recreations of oldradio shows to newer compositions, some of which had the oldspark, and finally to an album of songs done in Black dialect.

In 1979, Merle married for the last time. This time, DorothyThompson, previously married to Hank Thompson, became hiswife. For his final seven years, Merle moved to Oklahoma whereDorothy lived. He died in October of 1983.

IIThe material presented in this collection spans Travis’ ca-

reer from 1944 until nearly the end of his life. No footage ofMerle exists before the 1944 Soundie in this collection.

In early 1940, James Roosevelt, son of the president, en-tered into a partnership with the Mills Novelty Company, a lead-ing manufacturer of jukeboxes. Their idea was to join film andmusic in a jukebox-like medium. Viewers would deposit a dimeand see the next selection on the reel. Unlike jukeboxes, how-

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ever, the viewer couldnot choose the selec-t ion. Rather, theywould see whateverwas next on the reelof film. By the timethese rare TravisSoundies were made,the Roosevelt-Millspartnership had splitinto two parts. Theone arm concentratedon production whilethe other arm, knownas the Soundies Dis-tributing Corporationof America, focusedon distribution. There

were never more than 4500 Soundies machines, about one per-cent of the number of jukeboxes. Nevertheless, Soundies enjoyeda success that lasted until the dawn of television.

During the early 1940s, hundreds of these three minute mov-ies were made. While most of the early clips featured jazz andpopular artists, a number of these films featured country musi-cians. Generally, the recording was made separately from the filmfootage. Often different personnel were used for the audio andvideo portions of the final product.

The earliest footage featuring Merle is the Soundie of “NightTrain to Memphis” by Jimmie Wakely and his Oklahoma Cow-boys and Girls. The audio portion was recorded on September27, 1944, while the video portion was not committed to filmuntil October 2, 1944. The personnel include, in addition toTravis, Johnny Bond on guitar and Wesley Tuttle on string bass.The Oklahoma Cowgirls in fact the Sunshine Trio, which includedColleen Summers before she married Les Paul and gained fameas Mary Ford. Full details of this session as well as other Soundieswill be found in a forthcoming book by Mark Cantor, who gra-ciously provided background information on the Soundies ses-sions included in this collection.

The next Soundies session to feature Merle was recorded onApril 25, 1945, in Los Angeles. The titles from this session in-

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cluded here are “Texas Home” and “Why Did I Fall for Abner.”The footage was shot on May 16, 1945. While the personnel forthe recording and film differ, Merle is present on each. CarolinaCotton plays string bass on the footage, although she is probablynot on the recorded soundtrack.

The third session represented on this collection yielded “Sil-ver Spurs,” “Old Chisholm Trail,” and “Catalogue Cowboy.”These titles were released as by Merle Travis and Betty DeVerewith The Bronco Busters. They were recorded on September 13,1946 and filmed on September 18 of the same year. The lefthanded fiddle player is Tex Atchison on both the sound and filmportions of these numbers. On “Old Chisholm Trail,” the beardedbanjo player is “Herman The Hermit,” who was well known inthe Los Angeles country music scene and the father of CliffieStone.

Merle’s video of “Lost John” is from an early television ap-pearance. In 1951 and 1952, The Old American Barn Dance waspackaged and syndicated in both quarter and half hour formats.Stations could choose the format they preferred. The show origi-nated in Chicago.

One of the major shows in the Los Angeles area was TownHall Party. Much of the same cast appeared on Ranch Party, asyndicated half hour show originating in Los Angeles. All to-gether there were thirty nine of these shows and Merle was aregular on the show. The six numbers included here are typicalof the performances he offered during the Town Hall Party years.Joe Maphis and Larry Collins were also regulars on these shows.

Network television shows featuring country music were rare.ABC, however, offered Ozark Jubilee, which became CountryMusic Jubilee. The show changed its name a final time when itwent to NBC as Five Star Jubilee. Merle performed both “Darkas a Dungeon” and “Rockabye Rock” on this show.

While country music didn’t enjoy widespread acceptance bythe networks, there were scads of regional and even national syn-dicated country music offerings. One of the most successful ofthese shows was the Porter Wagoner Show which ran from 1961until 1981. Four appearances of Merle come from the 1971 sea-son. Most likely, these were taped during the period when Merlewas living in Nashville.

From 1977 to 1981, Merle Travis’ son, Thom Bresh, co-hosted a Canadian television series, Nashville Swing, with Mirna

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Lorrie. “Cannonball Rag” and “Who’s Sorry Now” are drawnfrom the 1979 season. The latter song is one Merle recorded withChet Atkins on an album they did together in 1973.

Thom and Merle enjoyed making music together over theyears. Fortunately, Thom made a video of one of their sessions.The result is the two numbers that round out this collection. It isinteresting to note that Merle felt free to venture away from thenumbers with which he was strongly identified in the privacy ofthis informal family setting.

Ed Kahn

I wish to acknowledge the help of Thom Bresh, Mark Cantor, NormCohen, “Grandpa” and Ramona Jones, and Bob Pinson of the Country Mu-sic Foundation in the preparation of these notes. Quotations from MerleTravis are drawn from personal interviews I conducted with him in the sum-mer of 1960. Quotations from Wesley Tuttle are drawn from personal inter-views I conducted with him in the spring of 1995.

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Vestapol 13034

SOUNDIES, 1946: Silver Spurs • Texas Home • Why Did I Fall For AbnerOld Chisholm Trail • Catalogue Cowboy • Night Train To Memphis

THE OLD AMERICAN BARN DANCE, 1951: Lost JohnRANCH PARTY , 1957: Nine Pound Hammer • John Henry • Wildwood Flower

When My Baby Double Talks To Me • Sixteen Tons • Cannonball RagFIVE STAR JUBILEE , 1961: Dark As A Dungeon • Rockabye Rag

PORTER WAGONER SHOW, 1967-1971: That's All • Wildwood FlowerLost John • Nine Pound Hammer • NASHVILLE SWING , 1979: Cannonball

Rag Who's Sorry Now • THOM BRESH'S HOME, 1981: Way DownYonder In New Orleans • Backwater Blues

Merle Travıs (1917-1983) was the fountainhead of a blues/jazztinged country guitar fingerstyle since dubbed “Travis picking.” Itsimpact has permeated not only country but folk and ‘roots rock’ guitaridioms. Travis’s seminal role in American guitar styles overshadowsthe fact that he was also a formidable talent as songwriter and performer.The many facets of his career are all present in this second offering ofrare footage spanning his West Coast post-War prime to his last days asa rediscovered legend. The renewed interest in his music in the 1970sis evident in six performances from that decade, while an informal duetwith his son, Thom Bresh, videotaped towards the end of Travis’s life,provides a moving coda to this varied collection of brilliant countryguitar playing leavened with Travis’s blend of humor, poetry, anddownhome philosophy in his songs.

ISBN: 1-57940-963-6

Running time: 60 minutes • B/W and ColorPhotos courtesy of the Merle Travis EstateFront photo hand tinted by Diane Painter

Nationally distributed by Rounder Records,One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140

Representation to Music Stores byMel Bay Publications

© 2003 Vestapol ProductionsA division of

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