The Steel Guitar Forum

Here's a fun clip of "Tex" Carmen doing "Dixie Cannonball" and "Hillbilly Hula": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTV2wvUAiyk

I always wondered how he had such a thin sound. I didn't realize he played an acoustic guitar lap style.

Just for the record,it was Joe Maphis that introduced him. There was a quick shot of Merle Travis playing guitar,& Billy Mize was the featured steeler,playing a Fender 1000.

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<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Smiley Roberts on 21 February 2006 at 11:09 PM.]</p></FONT>

Interesting on a number of levels - Merle playing a Guild (new one on me), and Billy's right hand position...

Ian

I have a clip of him doing Dixie Cannonball on the Ranch Party show.
Tex Ritter introduces him saying here is a "Cherokee Indian, called the Dixie Cowboy, from Oklahoma, named Tex, playin' a Hawaiian guitar, singin' a song about Dixie".
Although he was from Kuntucky.

As for Merle Travis with the Guild guitar. He designed a guitar for Guild back in the early '60s and they did make a few of them. It was called the "Solomaster".

Hey cool photo Alvin!! The number of those Travis Guilds built was less than minimal, don't remember exactly, but it might have been less than your right hand fingers. The one Merle is playing on those clips however is a regular Guild hollowbody ( maybe a X500 )which was custom built for Merle.

Fascinating link, Gary - thanks for sharing! I certainly preferred Billy Mize's playing over his, but he's a true original. What an entertainer.

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Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Brad Bechtel on 22 February 2006 at 03:45 PM.]</p></FONT>

Did I hear some measures with 5 beats??

Awesome clip!!!!

Who is that playing electric steel next to Merle? Did he use the pedals on his Dixie Cannonball solo?

Gary,
thanks very much for posting the information on the Jenx Carman clip. His playing is what first attracted me to the steel guitar back about 1949 and it was a thrill to finally actually see him play that song. It made my day.

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www.mikeauldridge.com

A pleasant memory from out of the past!A note about the Guild guitar, in 1961-1962 Guild ask Jimmy Bryant to play Guild guitars.They brought him a beautiful blonde guitar.He went to do the Sqeakin Deacon show and the Deakin said, on the air, Jimmy that is a fine looking guitar you're playing.Jimmy replied,"it is pretty but it has a neck like a 4x4.Obviously he didn't last as a Guild rep.

I seem to remember that Guild only made two of the Merle Travis model guitars. I've seen and played one of them that was in Carruthers Guitar shop for repair about 10 years ago. At that time, i took some photos of it just for fun. It is based on an X-500 in dimensions, but the top is carved with quite an extreme arch. The guitar itself has a lot of hand work like multi-piece bindings (not multi ply) of different colors, and the traditional Travis arm rest. <font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Dan Sawyer on 05 March 2006 at 01:10 AM.]</p></FONT>

It's interesting that Mike Auldridge was inspired to play by Tex Carmen. Tex's enthusiasm does make it look like a lot of fun.

I have a feeling more people have heard Mike play "Hillbilly Hula" (I think it's the first track on one of his early albums) than have heard Tex Carmen play it.

Tex was a performer not a musician.

I have a CD of his collected recordings and the accompaning booklet is fascinating. It goes into great detail on the frustrations of other musicians who had when trying to play with him and back him up. It also talks about the fact that they all joked about his inability to stay in tune.

This is not to take away from his legacy because it was clear that he was a very popular performer. But that is where we should focus our attention. Not on his musicianship on the steel.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Bill McCloskey on 05 March 2006 at 07:07 PM.]</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Bill McCloskey on 06 March 2006 at 03:14 PM.]</p></FONT>

This clip has been removed

Too bad, 'cause it is quite entertaining.

Is it possible to save these You Tube clips to my computer?

I found an LP I have with a couple of Jenks Carmen songs on it. I will try to post them here in a few days as time permits.

There was a post in the Computer section of the SGF about saving You Tube clips: http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum12/HTML/002910.html

Here's what I do on a Windows PC. I go to this page and enter the link to the video I want to download: http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php

I save the file as an '.flv' file. I use this FLV player to view it: http://www.martijndevisser.com/blog/article/flv-player-updated

The program works well and doesn't seem to have any spyware or viruses. The "zoom" feature doesn't seem to work and you can't skip to a point in the middle of the video.

I don't know of an FLV player for Mac OS X.