Howdy folks! En route for a new batch of bopping ‘billies. Main instrument will be fiddle (but not in all titles present), always to the fore. It even had in places good solos. Second instrument (normal in honky tonk) is steel-guitar. By accident, I’ve uploaded two yodeling vocalists too. Music rounds up from 1954 to 1961, from Texas and southern New Mexico to Ohio. Here we go…

RICKY McKINNEY offers on the Mystic label (# 0528) (an RCA custom pressing from 1958) the nice Western swing flavored “Washday blues“. Roswell, New Mexico.

Ricky McKinney, “Washday blues”

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Second offering is by a well-known guy (for his Rockabilly side “My square dancing’ mama (She’s done learned to Rock’n’roll)“. Here is the flip side (MGM 12195 from March 1956), “Your wild life’s gonna get you down“, very much in a traditional Honky tonk manner. The name: BOB GALLION!
Bob Gallion, “Your wild life’s gonna get you down”

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Freddie Frank, “This old rig”

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Freddie Frank, “Another woman looking for a man”

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Another Woman Looking For A Man

From an unknown location I guess Chicago, on the microscopic Chuck’s label (although # 3434 seem to evoke other previous issues) by CHUCK SMITH. Without doubt his own label, where he delivers a great, dramatic bluesy (à la Hank Williams) “Love sick daddy“. Smith even does yodel. I wish to hear more by a man of this talent. Chuck Smith, “Love sick daddy”. Note (March 25,2018). Smith had “Train I Ride/Just Window Shopping” on Chuck’s 3433.

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Finally back to Texas (Plainview) on the Flair label (# 1021-1023) by JAMIE HILLIARD, “I’m going back to my  Indian maiden“. Good piano (solo) and guitar, and the fiddle takes two solos, while Hillard vocalizes in yodel too. Indeed nothing to do with the Los Angeles Flair label (Richard Berry, Elmore James, etc.) of the Biharii Brothers.

Jamie Hilliard, “I’m going back to my Indian maiden”

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Hope to hear from you! Any comments or additions welcome (even bad ones!). My thanks as usual go to Ronald Keppner: he’d help me a lot for the Shorty Long story.

June 2nd, 11h47PM. I don’t really know what happened. I had included Shorty Long’s “Goodnight Cincinnati, good morning Tennessee” (King 953), announcing the next feature on him in Bopping. Really cannot understand: everything about him disappeared from the project (pictures, text and music).Sorry for inconvenience! Blame on internet wizardry? Also all my article on Freddie Frank, whom you only have without any explanation two tunes. More on him later!