No Surprize to Time Jumpers fans

Janice Brooks · Post by **Janice Brooks** » 1 Feb 2003 10:43 am

In Feb 1 issue of the Tennessean

Western swing's the thing

By CRAIG HAVIGHURST
Staff Writer

The middle of January is a hard time to muster a crowd on Lower Broadway in downtown Nashville. But on a recent Monday evening in Robert's Western World, where long shelves of cowboy boots pointed their toes across the honky-tonk and burgers sizzled on the flat-top griddle, a clutch of cold-weather refugees tapped their own toes to old songs by the likes of Bob Wills and Floyd Tillman.

Making the music was a closely-huddled six-piece band called John England and the Western Swingers, a crew that's played on Lower Broad for the better part of two years. They're a motley bunch, including an ebullient lead singer/guitarist and a 74-year-old they call Pappy who's been fiddling in Nashville for 43 years. They put on a reliably engaging show, and they recently celebrated their first album-release at a packed-house hoedown.

Seven blocks up and two blocks over, at the famous Station Inn, another Western swing band called the Time Jumpers began their weekly set at 9 p.m. Stocked with studio and Grand Ole Opry musicians, they are one of the most extraordinary bands of any kind in Music City.

It would be too much to call it a revival, but these two groups — both of whom play as much for fun as for money — constitute today's local heartbeat for a 70-year-old strain of country. Like bluegrass, western swing places as much emphasis on instrumental prowess as on the song, so it's music that Nashville musicians have played informally more than Music Row artists have recorded it. But there are exceptions. Merle Haggard cut an entire swing album, and the genre heavily influenced George Strait and Willie Nelson.

The father of it all is Bob Wills, the son of a fiddler who grew up in Texas keenly interested in early country music as well as African-American blues, ragtime and jazz. That color-blindness began to blossom into a new style of hot dance music when Wills' band landed a daily gig on powerhouse KVOO in Tulsa, Okla., in the mid 1930s.

There were other important band leaders such as Milton Brown, Leon McAuliffe, Spade Cooley and Hank Thompson. But Wills emerged as its patron saint, leading his Texas Playboys around the country and turning songs such as San Antonio Rose, Faded Love, Take Me Back to Tulsa and Right or Wrong into standards. The music blended big-band swing with Dixieland jazz and blues for a sound that was refined and down-home at the same time. Wills also became famous for his loopy entertainer's enthusiasm, conducting the band with his fiddle bow and hollering his falsetto ''a-haw!'' and other exhortations to his cast of stellar players. It's a technique England has adopted in his live shows and on his disc.

''Western swing is about personality,'' says England. ''Everybody gets to play and express themselves. It's like jazz. It's about the people who are playing it at that moment.''

England, who moved to town in 1997, met fiddler Gene ''Pappy'' Merritts on a gig at Opryland. Merritts, who was in the eight-piece Lower Broadway Swing Band as well as the Robert's late-night band Brazilbilly, grew up in the big-band era and spent enough time in Texas to be grabbed by the connection. ''It was so close to big band, but it was country music, too,'' said Merritts.

Also in the group is bassist David Spicher, son of Buddy Spicher, one of Nashville's great swing fiddle players. Pedal steel man Tommy Hannum is deft and clever. England plays guitar with a jazz man's training, comping through chords in a style pioneered by Wills alum Eldon Shamblin and playing fine, three-part melodic leads with the fiddle and steel.

It takes nothing away from the Western Swingers, however, to notice that the Time Jumpers play in the same school but on another plane. They've expanded on the standard Wills repertoire with original songs and sophisticated jazz instrumentals.

The group's collective experience behind their instruments and their well-practiced group interplay is quite unique. The group's putative leader is Opry staff fiddler and studio veteran Hoot Hester, who says the band came together backstage at an Opry jam session and set up shop at the Station Inn on Mondays, lighting up the club on a night it had historically been closed.

Crowds have poured in over the years to see a group that puts a cast of dazzling soloists and singers on display.

Besides the fiddling pair of Hester and Kenny Sears, there is the consummate guitar of Andy Reiss, the breathtaking pedal steel of Johnny Cox and the impossibly delicate accordion mastery of Dennis Taylor, all over a two-stepping rhythm section. Texas native Carolyn Martin is the group's best singer, a winning throwback to the days where emotion was measured and artful rather than loud and histrionic.

The band's bonus member is Riders in the Sky guitarist Ranger Doug Green. Generally he sits in back strumming the chord changes on his massive and expensive Stromberg guitar, but when he steps forward, it's a treat. On a recent night, his patient and romantic take on Along the Navajo Trail proved a pleasantly heart-stopping four minutes.

In recent years, the Austin band Asleep at the Wheel has kept western swing alive nationally, but when the Time Jumpers formed, Hester says, western swing was scarcely alive in Nashville and the band was a weekly lark and little more. Now there's interest that parallels the surge in bluegrass and old-time country and the Jumpers won a major national western swing band award that's sparked them to think beyond their two albums to an all-originals album.

England agrees that the western swing scene is improving. ''But we're a niche band. I'm not down here playing (gritty country classics like) Ring of Fire and I Walk the Line. I'm trying to cultivate a market for it.''

Getting There

Find John England and the Western Swinger at Robert's Western World, 416 Broadway, on Mondays from 6-10 p.m. No cover, but the band works for tips.

The Time Jumpers play Monday nights at The Station Inn, 402 12th Ave. S. at 9 p.m. Cover is $7.

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Janice "Busgal" Brooks
ICQ 44729047

Craig Stock · Post by **Craig Stock** » 3 Feb 2003 6:10 am

Have the TJ's ever played the Opry? If not they should, as well as the incredible Western Caravan that plays in NYC regularly.

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Regards, Craig

Smiley Roberts · Post by **Smiley Roberts** » 3 Feb 2003 12:36 pm

Craig,
A while back,I was backstage at the Opry, & spoke to Pete Fisher about this. Through a multitude of "excuses",it bottomed out to, "Well....we'll see.",so I wouldn't count on it in the near future.

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Craig Stock · Post by **Craig Stock** » 3 Feb 2003 1:04 pm

Sounds about par for the course

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Regards, Craig

Steve Hinson · Post by **Steve Hinson** » 3 Feb 2003 1:41 pm

That guy should have mentioned everybody in the band...but he has a history of omissions and wrong information.The accordion player is JEFF Taylor...the bass player is Dennis Crouch...the drummer is Rick Vanaugh...What a great band![This message was edited by Steve Hinson on 03 February 2003 at 04:45 PM.]