Jon Weisberger wrote:
>
> He and Atkins worked awfully well together, in my opinion; you can hear it
> on that Country All-Stars stuff. One of the things that I find interesting
> is that so many of the guys who played on a lot of hillbilly music records
> made in Nashville were interested in jazz; Byrd, Atkins, Dale Potter, but it
> was a different kind of jazz,
That is something that I found intriguing as well. Here in Texas, it was
almost a pride thing, a mark of "we're not hicks, we play country
because we love it and we can also play jazz if you ask us to". Also,
here it was never considered to be odd to mix jazz and country because
of the deep western swing roots. Most old-time steel players had a
strong dollop <g> of jazz in their playing simply because of that
jazz-chord neck they all had on there, what is it, a C9 tuning? In
nearly every dance band I have ever been in, it has been standard
practice to throw in jazz instrumentals like "Home in Indiana" as break
songs, as a way to blow out the cobwebs and leave them with a nice
sparkly fresh feeling in their ears.
--
Joe Gracey
President-For-Life, Jackalope Records
http://www.kimmierhodes.com
