Search - Merle Travis :: Turn Your Radio On (1944-1965)

A sampling of Travis's radio work from his best years

Nick Jones nic@nicjon.force9.co | England | 08/05/1998

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Spanning Merle's most active years, this CD draws on radio transcriptions for the most part, as the title suggests, but there's also an extract from a 1966 onstage reunion of Travis and his guitar mentor, Mose Rager - significant as much for its historical resonances, in a country guitar context, as for the quality of the playing. Without Rager there would have been no Travis guitar style, and without that there would have been no Chet Atkins as we know him...or Scotty Moore, or James Burton, or Jerry Reed. Several of Travis's great guitar tunes are here - Cannonball Rag, I'll See You In My Dreams, Bugle Call Rag, Rock-a-Bye Rag - as well as a selection of his 1940s honky-tonk hits - No Vacancy, Cincinatti Lou, So Round So Firm So Fully Packed - and the more celebrated 'folk songs' - Sixteen Tons, Nine Pound Hammer, John Henry. The sources are as varied as Travis's repertoire: a 1944 transcription cut with Wesley Tuttle and the Coon Hunters, a 1959 Town Hall Party excer! pt, the set with Rager (from an outdoor concert at the Smithsonian?), and more radio transciption material from the mid-1960s. Travis was a star on West Coast radio in the 40s and 50s and this sampling is representative of his best years - great songs, spirited singing and magical guitar playing. This is the fourth Country Routes CD from the Travis radio archive. They say Merle was at his best on the radio and this selection certainly supports that view. The CD liner notes promise even more material and since Travis left us in 1983 that can only be very good news indeed."