Southwest Shuffle

SOUTHWEST SHUFFLE, Richard Kienzle`s entertaining and well-researched history of the rise of western swing music, gathers three decades` worth of interviews from many of the genre`s main figures, as well as personalities from the Grand Ole Opry and other leading country music performers. As Kienzle relates, though it was an offshoot of country music, the Texas- and California-based form was not well received by Nashville country traditionalists, who saw it as a bastardized version of the real thing. Audiences, however, disagreed, and when perhaps the archetypal western swing band, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, arrived to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, they were greeted with a reaction of almost Elvis Presley-like proportions. Kienzle also highlights the careers of personalities like fiddle player and bandleader Donnell Clyde Spade Cooley (who, until he was jailed for murdering his wife in 1961, was seen as the inheritor of Bob Wills` western swing mantle), and producer Ken Nelson, who with his protege Buck Owens became one of the architects of the so-called Bakersfield sound, a leaner, meaner version of the lush swing textures of the `40s and `50s. Fascinating and revealing, SOUTHWEST SHUFFLE is essential reading for any western swing fan. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.