Original price was: $50.00.$25.00Current price is: $25.00.
“Play It Lazy”
The Bob Wills Fiddle Legacy
Frankie McWhorter
Historic, “One of a Kind” recording of Traditional Texas Fiddle by a true master of the style.
Limited Edition
Special Custom Order
Copy of original Cassette
Made available from private collection
TUNES
The following tunes are included in “Play It Lazy” CD. Click above to purchase.
Faded Love
Harry of the West
Seven Come Eleven
Dreamy Eyes Waltz
‘Taters in the Sandy Land
Big Beaver
Wednesday Night Waltz (Betty’s Waltz)
Texas Two-Step (Loula)
_________________________________________________________________
Durang’s Hornpipe
Jack of Diamonds Waltz
Papa’s Tune
Hunky-Dory
Just Friends
Fiddlin’ Man
_________________________________________________________________
CREDITS
“Play It Lazy”
The Bob Wills Fiddle Legacy
Frankie McWhorter
Frankie McWhorter – Fiddle
Joe Carr – Guitar
Alan Munde – Banjo
Audio Recording from the Book with Cassette
“Play It Lazy”
The Bob Wills Fiddle Legacy
By Lanny Fiel and Frankie McWhorter
Forward by John Erickson
The Preservation Series
Mel Bay and Texas Tech University Press
© ℗ 1992 Texas Tech University Press
Many thanks to Tommy Alsup, David Brody, Joe Carr, R. P. Christeson, Craig Duncan, Leon Gibbs, Joseph Hickerson, Alan Jabbour, Bill Malone, Judy McCulloh, Marvin “Smokey” Montgomery, Alan Munde, Kenneth Pitts, Leon Rausch, Charlie Seemann,
Charles Sens, Wayne Shirley, Charles Townsend and all others who in small and large ways have taken time to visit with me about traditional music and old-time fiddling.
I am especially grateful to Eugene Wiggins for his correspondence, which has been so helpful in putting me on the trail of the origins of these old tunes. Contributions from Bob Pinson are used throughout the manuscript. I am particularly mindful of his efforts, which have provided new insights and helped so much to clarify in my mind the process of the fiddler’s lore.
Susan Miller shared my vision of this book and gave her time freely to make it come together. Her extra effort can be found on every page. I thank her along with John Erickson and Frankie McWhorter for being among those who willingly contribute their time and energy in the interest of preserving the past.
LINER NOTES
What makes Texas Fiddle different from all the other styles?
It’s all in how you draw the bow and how life was lived on the Texas Plains.
I heard about Frankie McWhorter in 1991. Joe Carr and Alan Munde of South Plains College in Levelland, Texas, introduced me to a recording they made with Frankie playing fiddle tunes he had learned from Bob Wills. And that’s all it took. I listened over and over again; wrote ’em down . . . transcribed every note; then traveled to the Gray Ranch in Lipscomb County, Texas, to meet the man himself.
When I got there in the afternoon Frankie started to fiddle and played through the night. One tune right after the other, “Liberty,” “Arkansas Traveler,” “Sally Gooden” all of the old standards he knew and played them different every time*. That’s the tradition you know. But when it came to the tunes Frankie learned directly from Bob Wills he played them the same way every time.
How do I know? Well, Frankie told me whenever he toured with Bob he would pull his mentor aside and bug him. He wanted to learn the old tunes and the old way of doing things. Bob Wills (1905 – 1975) learned from his father “Uncle John” Wills (1880 – 1952) and he played tunes you didn’t hear much. “Harry of the West,” “Loula,” or “Hunky-Dory,” they weren’t featured onstage . . . not like “San Antonio Rose.”
Frankie had a great deal of respect and admiration for Bob. All of the Texas Playboys agreed Frankie sounded more like Bob Wills than Bob Wills. And that’s it. Like I said, I arrived at Gray Ranch with a notebook full of transcriptions. We sat down and as he played Frankie matched what I had written note for note even when it came to odd meter like an extra beat in a bar of four.
You may have heard some folks say Bob Wills broke meter like. But that’s not true. The old time fiddlers often threw in an extra beat here and there. It’s another part of the tradition . . . the old way of doing things rooted in country life. (It’s just that those extra beats make it tough when it comes to holding a modern large band together.)
That said I could not count the number of times I visited Frankie McWhorter the Cowboy Fiddler and Ranch Foreman. We would fiddle or ride around in his truck checking on the cows. All the while drifting over what seemed like nothing but flat land with no end. But that’s not the case.
While Frankie drove I began to notice a crevice or small dry wash in those rolling hills. And it looked like the way Frankie would scoop a long note with his bow. That’s exactly how he played . . . just like Bob Wills and just like the rolling Panhandle Plains.
Lanny Fiel
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.