Ernest Tubb
Live at the Spanish Castle 1965
Reviews
Free Times
If your idea of a
"Live" album is the latest Garth Brooks release, hold on to your ten-gallon
hats. This landmark 1965 recording captures Ernest Tubb, king of Texas honky
tonk country music, still at his prime 25 years into his career. It is "live"
in the best sense of the word--spontaneous and unforced, immediate and highly
entertaining.
This is the version of the
Texas Troubadours that included Leon Rhodes, Jack Drake, Buddy Charlton,
Jack Greene, and Cal Smith. The latter two members of the band were soon
to become major country stars on their own, and are heard here taking lead
vocals on songs they would have huge hits with in the near future. Cal Smith
sings on "I Couldn't Care Less" and "Lonesome 7-7203," and Jack Greene takes
over on "Born To Lose," „Last Letter," and,"I Wash My Hands in Muddy
Water." The other notable cameo role here is one from the album's producer,
drummer Jan Kurtis. A member of the Texas Troubadours himself from 1959 to
1963, Kurtis also drummed for Bobby Goldsboro and Ray Price. Here,
he is asked on stage by Tubb for a song, and turns in what may be the first
extended drum solo recorded in a country music show on the jazzy number "Hold
It."
It is a strong, varied night
of classic country music that is all the more special thirty-plus years down
the road, now that artists like Ernest Tubb are much fewer and further between.
Billboard,
Nashville Scene
The real E.T.:
Thirty-three years in country music's history may as well be a hundred
years - such is the lost world evoked by a recording of Ernest Tubb's live
1965 show.
Tubb's road show was the
prototypical honky-tonk package, playing every night for your listening and
dancing pleasure, as he says, till 1:30 in the morning, when the band would
pack up the bus and head for the next nightclub. When this show was
recorded, he had an all-star band featuring Jack Greene, Cal Smith, Jack
Drake, Buddy Charlton, guitarist Leon Rhodes - as in, "Take it away Leon"
- and the "singing bus driver," Johnny Wiggins.
Tubb's Texas Troubadours
were one of the first touring country bands to add electric guitar (so the
band could be heard above the honky-tonks' raucous din) and to use drums
(for the same reason). This historic recording captures one of the
first country drum solos and what, incidentally, may also have been one of
the last.
This set was recorded at
the Spanish Castle in Seattle by that drummer, Jan Kurtis, a Troubadour alumnus
who left his tape recorder on long enough to nail the solo on the song "Hold
It," Kurtis alo provides liner notes.
The album is not only a valuable
snapshot of what country music was like on the road at the height of the
honky-tonk era, it's also some very enjoyable music.
The New York
Times
Those who want to hear how
Tubb turned a concert into a gathering of kinfolk visiting a favorite uncle
must start with “Live, 1965.”
Newsweek
“Ernest Tubb did 40 years of one-nighters
like the one at Seattle’s Spanish Castle Ballroom in September 1965.
What made that show different from any other is that it was recorded, and
on good equipment. Which makes “Ernest Tubb: Live 1965” both a
precious document and a sad artifact. His two “live” albums were
just studio cuts with dubbed applause; this is the only known high-fidelity
recording of E.T. doing what he lived to do.”
Country Song
Roundup
The power and quality of the performance surprises
no one who has had the pleasure of hearing Ernest Tubb in person. What is
absolutely astonishing about this recording is its lifelike, noise-free
stereophonic clarity. Despite the age of the original master tape, the listener
has the impression of being in a front-row seat at a show in which Tubb was
obviously having the time of his life.
People
Magazine
Bottom Line: Honky-tonk
heaven
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