Billy and Andy:
Can you guys comment on that Will There Be Sagebrush In Heaven solo and explain it to a tin-eared non-musician like me??
It encompasses every Boggs trademark lick that I love so much, but I have no idea what he is doing with his hands. I am referring to his technique rather than his tone. Explain it to a layman if you can.
Specifically, for a second or two at 1'34 and again at 1'42, he sounds like he is jumping back and forth between a couple of strings in a pattern he often used (listen to his ride on the 1945 Wills Columbia recording of "Smoke On The Water" for more of this. I think of it as staccato.
And that little tag he puts right at the end of the ride in "Sagebrush"--I hear that over and over again in his recordings.
Is this stuff technically difficult? It's odd, because I can think of only two recorded instances of a steel player that I thought was Noel Boggs when in fact it was not.
The first was on a late 50s/early 60s Tommy Duncan version of "Remember Me, When The Candlelights Are Gleaming". Spitting image of Noel, but it turns out it was recorded in the Pacific Northwest by a lesser known guy whose name escapes me.
The second instance is Billy's work on "Sunflower" behind Sinatra, most of which could have been Boggs to my ear.
Boggs' style sounds so effortless, languid, and beautiful (to me, at least) that I constantly wonder "how come no one else sounds like that"?
I can understand why no one sounds like Joaquin--sheer virtuosity I assume--very few if anyone else could have done that regardless of practice or effort.
For 3 or 4 years beginning about 1952, hundreds of up-tempo country records were riddled with Speedy West style effects--indicating that dozens of recording pros of the time were not above blatantly emulating another player. That boo-wah and bar crash stuff went on until the rise of Wynn Stewart/Ray Price shuffles and Ralph Mooney.
You don't hear Boggs emulated. Why?
Technically very difficult?
Hip in 1947, but square in 1952? I don't think so--he doesn't appear to have been emulated even in 1947.
Was he outright disdained, even in Southern California? I wouldn't have expected him to be flown to Nashville to replace Bud Isaacs on the next Webb Pierce session, but I wonder if he was distinctly in the shadow of Speedy after 1951/52 in LA? Joaquin did so few recording sessions that it's hard to imagine that he interfered with anyone.
Too "uptown" and not suitable for "hillbilly" records?
Did he have trouble getting recording sessions after 1950? I am wondering when he began to play down his studio career and concentrate on the type of gig shown below for most of his income? Offhand, he seems to have done far fewer sessions after the early 50s--just like Joaquin. I can't imagine either of them on a Wynn Stewart record.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Lastly: Billy, how is that your ride on "Sunflower" quotes "Hello Dolly" many years before the latter song was written? Jerry Herman was obviously listening to you and Frank in his teens and I think you oughta sue somebody!
