JENKS "TEX" CARMAN "Chippeha! The Essential Dixie Cowboy" 1947-1957

Everything you'd ever want by Tex Carman is contained on this great reissue from John Fahey's wonderful indie label Revenant. Twenty-two tracks (three versions of "Hillbilly Hula"), including an entire 15-minute radio show recorded for a program called Country Music Time, which was produced as an extended advertisement for the U.S. Air Force, make this a hoot and a half. Carman's guitar playing is not nearly as bad as many have said; in fact, he's a vernacular virtuoso, approaching the instrument with a completely original mindset, especially when it comes to tempo, phrasing, and soloing. His voice ain't much either, but none of these alleged shortcomings will deter from the total enjoyment of this wonderfully rambunctious music. Some might call this crude and unsophisticated music, but that's precisely part of its charm and greatness. None of the new breed of country performers coming out of Nashville are what Tex was: an American original. (Allmusic)Cowboy music, hillbilly music, Hawaiian music, and some just plain weird music combine on this anthology of tunes by Jenks "Tex" Carman, an offbeat recording artist who straddled the dangerous line between comedic genius and idiot savant. Carman was best known for "Hillbilly Hula," a song whose title pretty much describes his style on these recordings. Covering 1947 to 1953, the cuts include radio spots that feature Carman recruiting listeners into the armed forces. The Beasties were right: You gotta fight for your right to party. Great stuff. - Jason Verlinde
This is uncommonly strange, anachronistic American music. But unlike the records collected on Harry Smith's celebrated Anthology, this music was weird back during its day, too. Nobody was playing cowboy ballads after World War II, and what's with that Hawaiian-style guitar playing? Collapse Jimi Hendrix's "singing" guitar (well ... actually, Carman could barely stay in tune, but he did have his own unique, expressive style) with Roy Rogers's wandering cowboy shtick, Western swing with hillbilly country, and throw in a thousand lightning-speed allusions to history and daily sounds, then add a couple of tunes in Carman's native Cherokee, and you're beginning to get an idea of how essential, if not always musically "perfect," this collection of weird-school country music is. - Mike McGonigal
It appears that history has treated the hillbilly wampum of part-Cherokee Hawaiian slide guitar master Jenks "Tex" Carman with a decidedly cold touch. We read in the liner notes to this terrific collection that Carman, like similar oddball geniuses, had his crazed approach to cowpoke guitar demystified by a conspiracy of squares who deemed Tex too unprofessional and/or unorthodox for true study. Why, it just makes my blood boil. The consummate singing cowboy, but packing a twisted little bag of "extras", Jenks Carman could bend a string and coax a variety of wild sounds from his laptop guitar like few others of his day. "Hillbilly Hula" was his signature number, and in the three versions presented here the man never strays from his vaudeville roots while still making the strings on his guitar dance like a pack of drunken wagoneers. This collection takes a handful of 78s waxed for the 4 Star label in the late 40s and early 50s and pairs them with some later recordings for Capitol, while throwing in a great three-song interlude for the U.S. Air Force's "Country Music Time" radio show from 1957. The latter is a blatant recruitment tool by the oppressor (complete with a long pitch to join the "aerospace team"), but Jenks shows he's nobody's puppet - he just blows the man clean away with a blazing "Dixie Cannonball", "Hillbilly Hula" and "Cripple Creek"! And you'll surely want to check out his until-now unreleased song that makes fun of stutterers. It's another re-opened chapter in American roots music -- alive, vital and raw as hell. (Amazon)trax:
01 The Artillery Song 02 Hillbilly Hula 03 Wreck of the Old 97 04 Mississippi Valley Blues 05 New Waikiki Beach 06 Sunny Tennessee 07 Fireball Mail 08 Kahila March 09 End of the World 10 Old Number 9 11 Stutter Song (Unreleased) 12 Roll on Silver Moon (Unreleased) 13 Dixie Cannonball 14 Hillybilly Hula 15 Cripple Creek 16 Blue Memories (Unreleased) 17 Indian Polka 18 Hilo March 19 Locust Hill Rag 20 Dixie Cannonball 21 Hillbilly Hula 22 The Caissons Go Rolling Along
...served by Gyro1966...