Saturday, July 23, 2011

Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, And Loud Loud Music. Been There, Done That, Got The Liver To Prove It...

Great article today in the LATimes Magazine about country music in Southern California back in the day. I well remember Town Hall Party on TV on Saturday nights. To a 13-year-old kid who was already a social outcast for liking country music, this was hot shit!

Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and LOUD, LOUD music) performed by Joe Maphis & wife Rose Lee, LIVE in 1959.

Maphis. known for the flatpicking style he developed in the 1930's, sings magnificent harmony with wife Rose in this 1950's crowd-pleaser.

Thanks to weirdovideos, Afghanistan (?!).

2 comments:

Arthur Mervyn said...

Great music! Is that a combo guitar/mandolin he's playing? My dimming eyes were trying to count the tuning pegs on the top neck and I couldn't tell if it was 6 or 8. Reminds me of a YouTube video of Stevie Ray Vaughan coming on stage with a double guitar to play with Carlos Santana.

And that reminds me of Fender Stratocasters, which most country musicians won't touch with a ten-foot pole. The man who designed it for Fender died a few years back and an article about him at the time noted that he moonlighted as a country and western guitar player. He found the Telecaster to be uncomfortable as heck to play for a few hours at a time, so, in his day job, he designed the Stratocaster. It was popular on Lawrence Welk and then Jimi Hendrix made it popular in rock music, but country musicians shun it for some reason.

Anyway, forgive my rambling. I love the older country music - thanks for the video!

Gordon said...

It's a double-necked guitar. Glad ya liked the video!