The Steel Guitar Forum

Detour.mp3 - 3.0 Mb

Another live recording from Jovita's in Austin.... I'd never heard this song until I played it with Jerry Sires, and he's the kind of guy that thinks this is top-40 . You never have to worry about not knowing the latest Kenny Cheesy hit when you show up for Jerry's gigs.

Look at the folks who've recorded this:

Patti Page - 1951
Spade Cooley & His Orch. (vocal: Tex Williams) - 1951
Ferlin Husky - 1960
Bill Haley & His Comets - 1961
Ramblin' Jack Elliott - 1962
Dean Martin - 1965
Bill Kieth - 1976
Willie Nelson - 1979
Sleepy LaBeef - 1979

Also recorded by: Tennessee Ernie Ford; The Cornells;
Tex Ritter; Duane Eddy; Elton Britt; Cornell Hurd Band.

Detour was written by Paul Westmoreland a good Steel Guitar Player back in the fourties. I don't know if he is still with us, he used to live in Chico, Ca. (North of Sacramento).

Great tune, and great playin', Bill. Thanks for posting.

C'ya next Sat.

Johnny

Sadly Okie Paul as he called himself, left us a while back. He had the Detour Inn in North Sacramento with his wife Olla Louise. He worked as a DJ on one of the Sacramento radio stations.

I wonder if he ever made much money on that song? I'd think with as many times as it was recorded that it probably was fairly good 'mailbox' income, at least for a while.

I got interested and did a discography search and found this:

http://rcs.law.emory.edu/rcs/artists/w/west7500.htm

Apparently he wasn't particularly prolific as a writer, but there is a little piece of a song by "Paul Westmoreland and His Band" called Hot Rod Rag that's got some pretty cool non-pedal.

I have an old 78 rpm record I got in maybe 1947 or 48 by Wesley Tuttle and his Texas Stars of Detour on the Capitol label !! Nice , simple arrangement with easy "Gene Autry" style slides. Features a steel solo with a swing style. I have no idea who the steel player was !!??? May have been the first recording of that song ??

This thread is kind of ironic for me as this was the first record that I purchased,ordered it from Atlanta, in my much younger years. I guess it was the same Capitol record and if I remember it right Wesley Tuttle and his wife sang together on it . I probably still have the record stacked away somewhere.