The Steel Guitar Forum

A friend turned me on to some recordings of Wade Ray (great fiddle player and vocalist) with Noel Boggs playing steel and, man, these tracks are sublime. Wade is now one of my favorite singers, his voice was that good, and Noel's playing is beautiful on many of the ballads they recorded. Have a listen to these 3 (I added the 3rd track, in a later post, but will add it here, too):

First, "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home", which has such a nice swing to it, mostly due to Wade's vocal phrasing. Sounds like Chet Atkins on guitar, too. The steel only plays backup on this track, but he plays a few nice fills:

Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home

Second, is "It's All Your Fault", which was written by Wade. You might remember the version Jimmie Rivers and the Cherokees (with Vance Terry) recorded on Brisbane Bop. Great playing by Noel on this track, using his E13 tuning and taking a swell solo.

It's All Your Fault

Third cut is my favorite of these 3: a beautiful ballad, If They Should Ask Me. I love everything about this record: from Wade's voice (which is superb and to me sounds as if it could have easily fit into the Pop and DooWop genres) to Noel's beautiful playing--particularly his incredible vibrato. It is so hauntingly beautiful and so easily identifiable.

If They Should Ask Me

The British Archive of Country Music has a CD of a lot of the tracks that Noel played on with Wade Ray, called Things That Might Have Been. http://bacm.users.btopenworld.com/CD-details5.html

Enjoy!

Yep,
Some of my favorites as of lately. That version of Bill Bailey is great. I like his vocal take on Rosetta too.
Todd

When Wade Ray was here on the West Coast playing at "Cow Town" on So. Vermont Ave. in Los Angeles, his signature song to me was "Heart of a Clown". During his tenure at Cow Town he was always changing his sidemen mostlty due to that they had to be the best and they would play with Wade and then move on to better paying jobs. Noel Boggs recorded with Wade but usually had his own group in other clubs around L.A. All the major clubs in the L.A. area were unionized by local #47 and union scale approached starvation. Only if you were a Bandleader did you make any real money. At one time Earnie Ball played steel with Wade for a short time and was probably the best of his Steel Players. Eddie Martin played with him at Cow Town probably the longest. For a while Noel played there on Sunday Nights with his own group and any Mucician not working on Sunday nights would show up there, including me. I am going back to the late 50's.

"It's All Your Fault"...........sorta sounds like Jimmy Bryant on his early day Fender.....familiar licks, and such.

Forumite Bill Stafford did a fabulous job on an all steel instrumental of "Heart of a Clown". Ever heard it? How about it Bill. Give us a 'sample'.

Wade was great on all his records. Never heard one I didn't like.

Ole "Button Nose" always put on a great show.

It's all your fault isn't a Wade Ray original It was recorded by Bob Wills on july 24 1941 with Leon McAuliffe on steel and vocals, it was written by Cindy Walker.

The guitar man on "Bill Bailey" was most likely Bill Carson. I spent a lot of time there when I was working down the street at the Saddle Club. Eddie Martin on steel, Monty Mountjoy on drums and Stan West on bass. A great group. The name of the club had been changed from Cowtown to The Red Flame. That name change seemed to affect the attendance and Wade's crowd slowly dimished after that.

Erik van Beek wrote:It's all your fault isn't a Wade Ray original It was recorded by Bob Wills on july 24 1941 with Leon McAuliffe on steel and vocals, it was written by Cindy Walker.

Thank you, Erik, I stand corrected. I don't know what made me think it was wade's tune.

Ray, I thought that sounded like Jimmy Bryant, too.

Anyone remember Buddy Kendrick singing and playing Bass with Wade Ray. Buddy was about 6' - 8" tall and had huge hands. Bass player Stan West had also played with Spade Cooley at Santa Monica Pier at one time. As I remember he played a stand up 5-String Bass.

Here's a beautiful ballad, If They Should Ask Me. I love everything about this record: from Wade's voice (which is superb and to me sounds as if it could have easily fit into the Pop and DooWop genres) to Noel's beautiful playing--particularly his incredible vibrato. It is so hauntingly beautiful and so easily identifiable. I can appreciate Noel's playing just as much as any other player I've ever heard--he definitely belongs in the Mt. Rushmore of steel players.

If They Should Ask Me

Thanks for posting these, Mike. Noel Boggs-- his sound and approach-- just always gets to me.
Nice treasure trove.

during the 40s Wade was part of the uncle dick slack furniture prog on radio in St Louis everyday, along with Skeets Yaney, Frankie, Shucks Austin and others. I was fortunate enough to play with Wade at his gigs at Hillbilly park in Taylorville or Pinknyville, IL. Did not see Wade again until mid 60s when he came to Killeen Tx with Ray Price band. Wade played fiddle and sang a few songs. cc

Five-star thread, Mike - thanks for sharing the clips. Great to hear from Billy and others who were there in the old days.

Thanks for postin these Mike. I've never cared for most renditions of "Bill Bailey, Won't you pleas come home" but I really like this version. Love that steel on "It's All Your Fault"too.

I just wanted to be sure you guys heard the 3rd track, which I've now included in the original post.

That third cut is really nice. Great blend of styles. Nothing sounds out of place.

Anybody besides me having trouble linking to the songs? I just get a page of gobbledegook script.

i get the gobbledegook too Gary
Youtube has'nt been runnin' the same these last months
i find myself havin' to click like crazy, to get to the vids

Thanx Mike, some wonderful stuff & by a wonderful steeler -

I don't what is causing you to get that script, but what you can do is right click and select "save link as" and this will allow you to download the mp3 directly to your computer.

Thanks for posting this Mike! Noel Boggs was such an excellent musician. He really knew how to swing.

Wonderful stuff, Mike! I see what you mean about the tone and vibrato of Wade's vocals; great stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Here's "A little bit of boogie", one of my all-time favorite Boggs cuts. It's not exactly a technical tour de force but Boggs is so perfectly in the pocket and swinging so hard that for me, it's the chord player's equal of some of Joaquin's best single line solos. Those bar gliss licks Noel does really rev up the swing factor.

https://home.comcast.net/~aevolk/music/Wills_Boogie.mp3

What can be said about Noel Boggs. He had the ability to take a realatively few 6th and 13th chords and with his great phrasing fit them into just about any kind of a song or instrumental. He was pretty much in the attack mode and very aggressive in his playing. However, he could also play with a lot of feeling. When he played the Waltz "Beautiful Ohio" the whole room would become quiet. Noel had a great personality and when he played something exceptional he would look at his audience as to say "how do you like this". I was very fornunate to have Noel as a personal friend and received some great mentoring from him in the early years of my playing.

Billy: Please check your private messages on this forum.

I love that lazy languid style Noel had on mid tempo songs. Here is a classic example with The Sons Of The Pioneers that makes my eyes wet every time I hear it:

http://picosong.com/yED


Here he is on a rare purely pop session with Eartha Kitt:

http://picosong.com/yEH

Lately, I have been listening to him even more than Joaquin Murphey.

Thanks Mitch, I have Lovin Spree on a 45.
I haven't heard it in a long while.
Hey can any of you guys post Carmen's Boogie, he knocks that one out of the park.
Lee

Here ya go, Lee:

http://picosong.com/yNF