Honky Tonk Song

Buck Billo and Maxi sing The “Honky Tonk Song” by Webb Pierce. Webb Pierce was one of the most popular honky tonk vocalists of the ’50s, racking up more number one hits than similar artists like Hank Williams, Eddy Arnold, Lefty Frizzell, and Ernest Tubb. For most of the general public, Pierce — with his lavish, flamboyant Nudie suits — became the most recognizable face of country music, as well as all of its excesses; after all, he boasted about his pair of convertibles lined with silver dollars and his guitar-shaped swimming pool. For all of his success, Pierce never amassed the reputation of his contemporaries, even though he continued to chart regularly well into the ’70s. Webb’s weakness for gaudy ornaments of his wealth, as well as his reluctance to break away from hardcore honky tonk, meant that he had neither supporters in the industry, nor the ability to sustain the ever-changing tastes of a popular audience. Nevertheless, he remains one of the cornerstone figures of honky tonk, both for his success and his artistic achievements. As a child in West Monroe, LA, Pierce became infatuated with Gene Autry films and his mother’s hillbilly records, particularly those of Jimmie Rodgers and various Western swing and Cajun groups. He began to play guitar before he was a teenager. At the age of 15, he was hired as a singer by Monroe’s KMLB. During World War II, Pierce enlisted in the Army. While he was in the service, he married Betty Jane Lewis; their wedding was in June …

One more of my father records, this one in a very bad shape. Is a Capitol record pressed in Brazil around 1950. Label reads St. Louis Blues (WCHandy) by Margaret Whiting with Frank DeVol orchestra. It also says: side “A” # 10-40.148 Time: 2’43s (first time I see a track lenght on a 78rpm.) Again, thanks to “Wiki” some info on Margaret Whiting below. Enjoy ! Margaret Whiting (born July 22, 1924, Detroit, Michigan) is a singer of American popular music who first made her reputation during the 1940s and 1950s. Margaret’s musical talent may have been inherited; her father Richard Whiting, was a famous composer of popular songs. She also had an aunt, Margaret Young, who was also a singer and popular recording artist in the 1920s. In her childhood her singing ability had already been noticed, and at the age of only seven she sang for singer-lyricist Johnny Mercer, with whom her father had collaborated on some popular songs. In 1942, Mercer started Capitol Records and signed Margaret to one of Capitol’s first recording contracts. Her first recordings were as featured singer with various orchestras: “That Old Black Magic”, with Freddie Slack And His Orchestra (1942) “Moonlight In Vermont”, with Billy Butterfield’s Orchestra (1943) “It Might As Well Be Spring”, with Paul Weston And His Orchestra (1945) In 1945 she began to record under her own name, making such recordings as: “All Through The Day” (1945, becoming a bestseller in the spring of 1946) “In Love In Vain” (1945) (these …
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