The Catch-back, vol. 3 : Herb Ellis - Pat Boyack - Buckwheat Zydeco - Doug MacLeod - Eddie Kirkland - Johnny Cash - Toby Walker - Lost Bayou Ramblers - Mercy - Robert Cage - Shawn Pittman & Jay Moeller

...some that deserved to be featured here…

Herb Ellis - Texas Swings (1992)

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When Herb Ellis celebrates his native Texas

At times, when the violin and the guitar are talking together, it almost sounds like the unforgettable pair Django Reinhardt-Stéphane Grappelli. The two French gypsy jazz musicians actually used to play some of the standards featured here : "Undecided", "It Had To Be You", "Sweet Georgia Brown". But no, here it's Dallas native Herb Ellis with a group of fine Western swing-Country music instrumentists : pianist Floyd Domino, pedal steel guitar master Herb Remington, fiddlers Johnny Gimble and Bobby Bruce, and… Willie Nelson on guitar, not forgetting the two Tommys' rhythm section, Aslup on bass and Perkins on drums.

This 10-song all-instrumental album features mainly Western swing and jazz standards, with only two Ellis compositions. If the final "America the Beautiful" is a disputable choice in my view, the nine preceding tracks are cheerfully swinging without being wild. The exciting sound of Remington's pedal steel is sometimes reminding that of Buddy Emmons on Danny Gatton's two "Redneck Jazz Explosion" 1978 live albums, and the fiddles bring a vintage Country & Western sound on some tracks.

Special Billy C. Farlow : I Ain't Never Had Too Much Fun (1991) / Billy C. Farlow & Bleu Jackson - Blue Highway (1995) / Billy C. Farlow featuring Mercy - Alabama Swamp Stomp (2011)

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From the Ozone to Alabama

Billy C. Farlow - I Ain't Never Had Too Much Fun (1991)

Billy C. Farlow left the original Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen when they disbanded in 1976 (and immediately re-appeared the following year as the Commander Cody band, in fact the new name used by Cody for his post-Airmen solo career). In 1991 it sounds that Farlow who had penned some of CC&HLPA best known songs ("Too Much Fun", "Seeds and Stems " and the band's theme song, "Lost in the Ozone"), was apparently still under influence. Apparently only.

The first half of the album features some solid Texas and Nashville style rock'n'roll songs that would have fitted well the CC&HLPA repertoire : a Texas swing revisit of “Too Much Fun”, “Love Bandit” (which strongly reminds Dylan's famous “Isis” on his 1976 album “Desire”), “Sit On Daddy's Knee”, “Demon Lover” (starting with a very Rolling Stonian riff close to the intro of 1971 “Can't You Hear Me Knocking”).