Gimble's Swing Transcript
- Now friends, we're gonna play you an old breakdown, the kind that you can just roll up the rug, move back the chairs, and turn on, you know, one of the ol' Deep in Heart of Texas tunes. Here it is. Let's go, boys, a breakdown.
- You know, I played with a lot of bands, but no matter where you go after you play with Bob Wills, that's who people are gonna associate you with which I'm not a bit ashamed of. He had a magic on the stage. He was just-- Had more charisma than anybody I'd ever seen. And so, this night in Waco he says, tells the crowd, "There's a little fiddle player here "that I understand is going to work with us." Said, "The band boys hired him, and they said he's good. "Well, he had better be."
♪ Well, don't be ashamed of your age ♪
♪ Don't let the years get you down ♪
♪ That old gang you knew ♪
♪ They still think of you ♪
♪ As a rounder in your old hometown ♪
♪ Don't mind the gray in your hair ♪
♪ Just think of all the fun you had puttin' it there ♪
♪ As for that old book of time ♪
♪ You've never skipped a page ♪
♪ Don't be ashamed of your age, brother ♪
♪ Don't be ashamed of your age ♪
- [Audience Member] Yeah!
- All right. These guys are not ashamed of their age and I isn't either. I was born in 1926 in Tyler, Texas. And then we lived six miles east of Tyler, little community called Bascomb. The first live music I remember hearing was Uncle John Gimble playing the little eight-string mandolin sitting out on the porch playing Washington Lee Swing. Uncle Paul Gimble, they'd keep a fiddle and a mandolin and when we used to go out in the summertime and spend a week with him and help with the crops, we'd get him to fiddle for us. And he played just unaccompanied; he'd do Bully of the Town. Do you hear that rhythm lick in there?
- [Deep Male Voice] Great.
- Be all right, I guess.
- Turn up the drums! Yeah. Can't hear any steel at all.
- No.
- I didn't start playing until I was about 10 years old. I guess in '36. Then we went over there to Lindale and saw Huggins Williams was his name and found out later that he had recorded with a group called East Texas Serenaders. And, he taught us how to play Beaumont Rag, and how to do-- You know how all the guys do this little shuffle bow? That Jesse Ashlock did some--?
- Yeah.
- Well that's the first guy we'd ever seen to do it. Maybe we'd heard it on a record on something. Now we didn't have a record player, but I couldn't figure out how he was doing-- And he's left-handed to make it more complicated. So we got home one night and old Jean, my brother a year older than me, says, "I saw how he did that. "And what he did was watch the end of his bow "was making a circle like this and almost a circle "and then going back." And he said, "That's the way you do it, "I don't know how you--" And you know watch it when you're doing And we had this little band, the Rose City Swingsters, back in '39 and '40. We were still learning everyday, and we'd listen from radio bands. Our favorite program was the Light Crust Doughboys who were on five days a week at 12:30 noon. They had one of the best banjo players in the world, Marvin "Smokey" Montgomery.
- I joined the Doughboys in 1935, and we'd buy all the records we could find of music out of New Orleans, Dixieland music. And we'd buy-- If we heard a record that had any kind of guitar player, like The Ink Spots. First record I ever bought with a guitar player on it was The Ink Spots, and we'd copy note for note what he was playing and learn the licks that way. And then we listened to Mexican music, like La Cucaracha and Rancho Grande and all those things. And we'd played it five-foot two, eyes of blue, and all the popular songs of In those days, we played the best we knew how, every time. They'd say, "Take the chorus." We'd play every lick we ever knew and went out and learned a few ones on Saturday nights. Or sometime when we're off we'd go down on Deep Elm and listen to the colored people play the guitars and singin'. We'd take our instruments and set in with them. And if they were the right kind of blues, we'd sing them on air. We made records that we couldn't play on the air. Had funny titles like "You Got What I Want", "Pussy, Pussy, Pussy", and "She's Gonna "Give It To Me Tomorrow". Stuff like that which we couldn't use on the air then. Of course you can use everything on the air now.
- There's Billy Dozer with the Milkcow Blues
♪ Well, I woke up this morning ♪
♪ And I looked out the door ♪
♪ I can tell my old milk cow ♪
♪ By the way she lowed ♪
♪ If you've seen my milk cow ♪
♪ Won't you send her on home ♪
♪ I ain't had no milk or butter ♪
♪ Since my cow's been gone ♪
- I suppose first time I heard Bill Boyd's band was their radio programs on WRR in Dallas. Later on, I found out that Jim Boyd was playin' bass with him and played guitar some, and I always really enjoyed him. And so when I got asked to do this album I'm makin' I thought it'd be appropriate to have Jim play guitar.
- Brother Bill started to cowboy around somewhere in 1932, and the "Double Eagle" was the first tune that we recorded on RCA Victor there in 1934.
- And as Jim Boyd says, "If you can play "'Under the Double Eagle' on the guitar and 'Wildwood Flower' you can make a living."
- That's right!
- Whoop it, boy. Whoop it. Oh, Let's see
- I guess the first time I heard Cliff Bruner was when I was 13 or 14 years old. He had some records that had more of life to it than any I've ever heard. And still, they're my favorites. I finally got to hear him in person, and finally got to play some shows with him when I was 17 years old in 1943. And he took time out to teach me some licks on the fiddle, and I'm still learning from him. But one of my favorite records of all time was his version of "Draggin' the Bow" He had a steel guitar that was hotter than a pistol. Bob Dunn was the guy that just invented the steel guitar. Played with Milton Brown and the only steel player on Milton's records, and then with Cliff Bruner and 100 others. This is Cliff.
- Back in those days, it was hard times for us, a bunch of kids, just going from one town to the other trying to seek their fortune, you know, when you're just better than picking cotton. We just started from scratch and had to originate most of our styles back in those days. We didn't know chords; we didn't know anything. We just had to do it the hard way. I've played a few breakdowns, but that wasn't my cup of tea. I liked swing music. Since I was a kid I started improvising, and it's just bred into you I guess.
♪ If you see me stealin' ♪
♪ Don't tell on me ♪
♪ Just stealin' back to my used to be ♪
♪ But now she's gone ♪
♪ I don't worry ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm sittin' on top of the world ♪
♪ What a world ♪ Come in, Tony.
- I didn't really get crazy about Bob Wills until about 1940. His early records didn't really have the jazz feel like they did later on. Eldon Shamblin began to have a hand in arranging and teaching the guys harmony and things. I think he caught everybody's ear then as a jazz or a modern guitar player. And taught everybody a lot about life; he's got the best attitude. Actually, he wasn't a Texas player; he's from Oklahoma. But he joined Bob in '38 I think.
- I was the staff musician at the CBS station in Tulsa in 1937, when Bob offered me a job. At that time, he was just starting to build a good band. I've done an awful lot of the arranging for Bob through the World War II. My thing back in those days were the big bands, hotel bands, when I was a very young man.
- Can you imagine pickin' cotton and hearing that in 1940? Mmm.
- [Interviewer] Had you really been with a big band?
- We could hire 'em in for them, couldn't we?
- Yeah right, that's it!
- So some of these bands were making more money than the big bands.
- That's right. Making more money where we was than we'd had been with Benny Goodman.
- During the last months of the war after Bob got out of the army, and he reorganized his band. He came out with a record that just knocked me out called, "Hang Your Head in Shame". I heard that record, and I was ready to ship out and go overseas in 1945. And it just-- I couldn't stand it. It sounded so good. You'd just laugh and cry, you know. And all the time I was overseas, I was just achin' to hear that music again. Then when I came home in '46, a year and a half later, I got to see him in person. And it was-- It's good music as there's ever been or ever will be.
♪ Hurry up boys and don't fool around ♪
♪ Grab your partner and truck on down ♪
♪ Ida Red, Ida Red ♪
♪ I'm plumb fool 'bout Ida Red ♪
Yeah! Yeah!
♪ Lights in the parlor, fire in the grate ♪
♪ Clock on the mantle says its getting late ♪
♪ Curtains on the window snowy white ♪
♪ The parlors pleasant on Sunday night ♪
♪ Ida Red, Ida Red ♪
♪ I'm a plumb fool 'bout Ida Red ♪
♪ Lamp on the table, picture on the wall ♪
♪ There's a pretty sofa and that's not all ♪
♪ If I'm not mistaken and I'm sure I'm right ♪
♪ There's somebody else in the parlor tonight ♪
♪ Ida Red, Ida Red ♪
♪ I'm a plumb fool 'bout Ida Red ♪
Ida!
- This band was everybody's hero. Like I said in 1948, I saw a jukebox that held 20 records at 12 it was Bob Wills. It's a time I don't keep. So in '49 when they approached me, I was playing in Corpus Christi with a little dance band called the Rhythmers. We had a little five-piece band, and they played at the club where we were working. And Tiny Moore came over to me and says... We were playing when they came in, you know to set up, and Tiny said, "Do you think you'd like to work "with Bob Wills?" It was like, "Sam, would like to go to heaven?" You know? And it was the thrill of my life to go with his band. It would be like going with the New York Yankees if you're a ball player.
♪ Alright! ♪
♪ Roly Poly, eats a hearty dinner ♪
♪ It takes lots of strength to run and play ♪
♪ Yes, yes ♪
- When went on the band, I asked Tiny Moore; they had an expression in the studio, how you want us to act, you know. I said, "What does Bob expect of you?" And he said, "Well, let me tell you a little story." He said, "The night soon after I joined the band." He said, "Bob was playing one of his old fiddle tunes "'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' or something. "And Bob whirled around and pointed that bow for me to play," and Tiny said, "I played the straight lead." And Bob gave somebody else the solo, following Tiny, and eased over to him and said, "Son, when I point at you, "I want you to play all you know." It seemed like that the band's built. You know, we were less than-- From '35, '38, and '40 is they really began to get sophisticated with Spade Cooley on the coast using three synchronized fiddles. Great, clean stuff, but it got to where every band in the country sounded like that. And I think what happened is Hank Williams came along in '51, '52, and although to me it felt like he was settin' music back 20 years, it was fresh again, you see. And then really the death of what we call Western Swing was in 1955, when Elvis Presley started recording, and he so different that it just sort of turned around. When I left Bob Wills' band, I was barber as a side line when things would get slow in the music business. And then later on, I barbered full-time and just played weekends. But in 1968, I finally got up enough nerve to move the family to Nashville and try to make it as a studio musician. The people in Nashville were real nice, and we made a real good livin', but it never did really feel like home and Texas feels like home. And I don't see any in dying and going to Texas you might say, I'm gettin' to play what I like to play. And it might not make as much money as it does from He-Hall, but it sure is a lot of fun. I want to remind the people, too, when they come in to Seven Bar Western where today to be registered for all the merchandise to be given away that you'll be drawing for the 20th.
- You meet Johnny Gimble and free merchandise?
♪ I don't know what I miss the most ♪
♪ The mountains out west or the southern coast ♪
♪ You're just bein' where a fella can see for miles ♪
♪ And miles ♪
♪ The east Texas hills and the tall pine trees ♪
♪ The level land with the prairie breeze ♪
♪ Maybe I'm lonesome just to see a Texas smile ♪
♪ Right now ♪
♪ I wish I was sittin' ♪
♪ Right under the X in Texas ♪
♪ Right in the heart where my heart must be ♪
♪ No matter where I roam I never feel at home ♪
♪ Except in Texas ♪
♪ Right under the X in Texas ♪
♪ Is where I like to be ♪
♪ I got nothin' against the rest ♪
♪ Though why settle for better when you know what's best ♪
♪ Right under the X in Texas ♪
♪ Is where it's best for me ♪
Thank you. I believe that there's a young generation that's turning on to what is called Western Swing. You know Asleep at the Wheel did their first album I suppose in '72 or '73. And where Merle Haggard had done a tribute album and used some of us from Bob's band on it and created a lot of interest, a lot of the hype, when Merle had just won the Entertainer of the Year thing, and so he got a lot of attention to it. And "Asleep at the Wheel" did "Take me back to Tulsa", and they did some of Bob's-- Some other of Bob Wills tunes. And they did the Moon Mullican songs, and they're also doin' Count Basie and Louis Jordan, which is also-- When you do it on strings is Western Swing to me.
♪ The little bee sucks the blossom ♪
♪ While the big bee gets the honey ♪
♪ Poor man raises cotton ♪
♪ Rich man gets the money ♪
♪ Take me back to Tulsa, I'm too young to marry ♪
♪ Take me back to Tulsa, I'm too young to marry ♪
Oh Paul, yeah. Take me back, right now. I can't stand no more.
♪ Went down to the railroad tracks ♪
♪ And I went down to meet her ♪
♪ She pulled out a handkerchief ♪
♪ And I pulled out the Tulsa ♪
- I like-- Okay, but seriously folks. What did you ask me? Oh, what attracted me to Western Swing? Seriously?
- Me.
- The fiddles, and the steel guitars, and the blues. Excuse me, ma'am. You know, all the weirdness. Jazz and blues, you know all the weird stuff. The fact that it was, yeah, it weird. You know it wasn't straight down the line hill billy music or straight down the line fiddle music, straight down the line swing music. It was a little conglomeration of all of that.
- And what attracted you to me?
- Your scent.
♪ Can't go home if you're goin' by the mill ♪
♪ 'Cause the bridge washed out at the bottom of the hill ♪
♪ The big creek's up and the little creek's level ♪
♪ I plow my corn with a doubled shovel ♪
♪ Stay all night, stay a little longer ♪
♪ Dance all night, dance a little longer ♪
♪ Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner ♪
♪ Don't see why ya don't stay a little longer ♪
Play that mandolin, Johnny!
- Some fella wrote me from the coast, he's wantin' to do a movie on Bob Wills. And then had a questionnaire, and one of the questions was, "What do you feel was the message in his music?" And I said the message in our kind of music is have a good time even though you're doin' a love song, you know, or maybe some broken-hearted song, I can't help but play it with a happy beat. And I said-- In my notes back to him I said, "What kind of message is in the verse of 'Stay a Little Longer' where it says, "'Sittin, in the window singin' to my love, "'and the slop bucket fell from the window up above, "'Mule and a grasshopper eatin' ice cream, "'The mule got sick so they laid him on the beam.'"
♪ Sittin, in the window singin' to my love ♪
♪ Slop bucket fell from the window up above ♪
♪ Mule and a grasshopper eatin' ice cream ♪
♪ The mule got sick so they laid him on the beam ♪
♪ Stay all night, stay a little longer ♪
♪ Dance all night, dance a little longer ♪
- Was that a message song? It's just foolishness, but it's fun.
- Johnny Gimble!