Ida Red - Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys Telescription 1951

[OleWatashi]

He didn't have a band... He had a Texas Orchrastra.

[OleWatashi]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

[BanjoR549]

Bob Wills is so cool it's almost scary!

[GracieFleury]

Wow this brings back memories..

[fiddlestixgirl24]

Haha, Bob Wills is hilarious to watch!!! :D

[Toobaluba]

Damn. I didn't think I'd like this but this shit smokes.

[HillbillyBoogie1]

This is the roots of Rock n Roll!

[SpeegBJ]

Who in the world wouldn't enjoy this?! Rockin musicians all round. I was taught to square dance to Ida Red. Tommy is almost jazz!

[guitarslim56]

Who is Chuch Berry?

[klezmando]

@guitarslim56 Chuck's brother.

[glipzik]

@texas guy, According to Lp Discography. Roy Acuff's version was released around January 1940. Bob Wills version was released around September 1939

according to other discographies I've seen.

[glipzik]

I dont see any resemblance between Ida Red and Mabellene. Different tune different cadence.

[southwriter]

@glipzik I agree. I couldn't see any similarity between "Maybellene" and "Ida Red". Different beat, different melody. Not unless the original record 78 single sounds more like it.

[williamwhiston]

@southwriter see Wikipedia's article on "Maybellene"

[williamwhiston]

@glipzik see Wikipedia's article on "Maybellene"

[sgpnc]

Smoking band

[signjay]

Ida Red goes back to the 1800s, and Bob no more wrote it than any of us did. The verses come from country dances, and probably go back to the slavery era, when black fiddlers would entertain their masters. There are so many verses to this song, just like Liza Jane, Black Eyed Susie, Stay All Night, etc. that have come down through the ages, written by "Anonymous". The band or fiddler simply added as many verses as necessary, and could make the song 3 minutes long or 15 minutes.

[TXRangers5807]

country nowadays is a disgrace, nothing like this, which are its true roots

[Varianna12]

@TXRangers5807 Very true. You'll notice that Bob Wills had individual solos for specific instruments throughout his works. You hear great fiddle, steel guitar, piano, clarinet. Modern stuff is all about the performer, not music. Like a boring one course meal.

Bob brought it all together, a true pioneer.

[texasguy11363]

"Chicken in the bread pan, picking out dough. Granny does your dog bite? No, child. No." Straight from "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band. I guess Chuck Berry wasn't the only one inspired by this song. But, didn't Roy Acuff do it before Bob Wills? And I'm not sure Roy was even first...

[grands1am]

This is crazy

[hep2jive]

Thighs Movin!!

[blindincission]

my great great grandpa and his grandpa were brothers :O

[EndlessNot1]

refer to previous comment troll

[gringoflamenco]

For those of y'all who doubt that Chuck Berry based "Maybellene" on Will's "Ida Red" just go to Wikipedia and search for "Maybellene". Chuck has also been quoted on this.

This is a great version and another great one is with Tommy Duncan on vocals.

[EndlessNot1]

i see what you mean windy,but if you take Prince's "1999" and the Monkees "Last Train to Clarksville" and play the songs backwards, you get a combination of Bob Wills' Texas twang and "YMCA" by the Village People!! amazing

[EndlessNot1]

@1ndi64 i'm serious windy..take "Last Train to Clarksville" and the theme to "Brokeback Mountain" and a dash of "I Am Woman" and you'll come up with a backwards chord progression from "Macho Man"!!

[EndlessNot1]

@1ndi64 the way see it, you got the ball rolling when you trolled the Dentists site a month ago....you were the furthest thing from my mind so now i'm returning the favor..enjoy dum dum

[Fitzliputzli23]

love the steel git solo, specially the fancy chords in the end

[inkey2]

that lap steel guitar player is phucking awsome

[mrmattc1978]

I'm plum Fool for this song !

[JackGrider]

love Bob's jive talk asides and enthusiastic "yeahs" during the guitar solo! Long Live Western Swing!

[shizzyb1]

These boys are bad to the bone!

[wkiernan]

Totally love that upside-down (Hendrix-stylin) guitar. And _two_ violins!

[writerrad]

@wkiernan

nothing hendrick style it is just the way that left handed people play the guitar

[ldhummingbird]

@wkiernan Yeah, it's called twin fiddles. Very Texan, very Western swing.

[Trekkerjon]

well, there is something decent about Texas

[MrJLev]

It's whats on the inside that matters, not the outside. Bob Wills and the texas Playboys play some of the beat blues i know and I have toured and played as bass player with people like Frankie Lee, Sonny Rhodes, Johnny Guitar Know, Fillmore Slim,,,,,,,,,,

[brianpadraic]

So Texas hillbillies invented rap and rock n' roll? :)

[jmallton]

@brianpadraic Country music was indeed a Big part of rock and roll......dont let people tell you differently

[brianpadraic]

@jmallton Well, the white guilt liberal east establishment hates whites and especially Southern whites so that is why they get no credit and they give all to blacks alone. It is really a theft of credit. But what do you expect from carpetbaggers? Honesty? LOL!

[RastafariPoet]

@brianpadraic

Sounds a little far fetched don't you think?

[brianpadraic]

@RastafariPoet No. I'm an American and I know that it is politically correct to give credit to African-Americans for EVERYTHING musical the past 40 years, but I know that the cultures of the American South are actually intertwined. They, black and white, fed of each others' cultures in lots of artistic respects.

[RastafariPoet]

People had the nerve to say Chuck "Stole" Mabelline from this song. When comparing the two songs. It seems more of an inspiration. Esp. Seeing as Chuck used his own lyrics, and sound.

[jmallton]

@RastafariPoet Chuck used the arrangement from "Ida Red" which was a Bob Wills original....the song "Ida Red" had always been done the same way until Bob Wills gave it a different arrangement......suspiciously 19 years later Chuck Berry released "maybelline" and it sounded and was arranged a lot like Wills version of "Ida Red"

[RastafariPoet]

@jmallton

Like I said though, it sounds more to me; an inspiration. Rather than "Stealing". Besides I can't get enough of Mabelline.

[brianpadraic]

@RastafariPoet Well, it is odd that whites (poor ones) NEVER get credit for anything musical don't you think; especially, if they are Southern. Coincidence? I think not. White Northern colonial hegemony. I love all good music: country, blues, rock... whatever. Just sayin'.

[jmallton]

@brianpadraic Careful......what bothers me is the want of the guilty whites and greedy blaciks to give zero credit to the white musicians.....take rock and roll.....it is obvious that country music was a major contributor to rock and roll.....but many blacks and all the guilty white cowards say no it did not.......just give proper credit where it is due and dont back down from their guilt.....rock and roll is a white and black creation

[RastafariPoet]

@brianpadraic

But out of the two of us, you're the one who brought up the whole race thing. So you're only contributing to what you find a problem.

[brianpadraic]

@RastafariPoet Huh? What problem? I don't write the "official" history of this stuff. Just sayin'. That's all.

[eyefulpower]

The Hot Club of Texas.

[cadetfelix]

Man that's great. Got to appreciate what they could do back then with substandard sound equipment to come across so flawlessly on video in a live presentation.

[collecttas]

Bob Wills is still the king of western swing! He was definately ahead of his time.

[guambetty]

I just love everything Bob Wills and the Playboys!!

[carpetcrawler79]

the guy at 1:45 plays a right hand guitar left handed hehe

[TheJoozie]

@carpetcrawler79 Joe Holley plays a right handed fiddle left handed... other than the chin piece it's right handed strings.

[bogeyat3]

beaut singing, piano and everything else of course.

[1953jazzman]

God bless him, the undisputed inventor and king of what is known as Western Swing, an ingenious melding of jazz rhythms and improvisation with country and western storytelling, shot through with a dose of the blues! One group, Asleep at the Wheel, carries the torch for this music today - but this guy is the source!

[badbrian1]

piano player?

[JPcares]

who's on the guitar?

[dgtxdutch]

Joe Andrews on vocal, Joe Holley on fiddle and Bobby Koefer on steel. and Bob's got 'em "fired and wired"!

[drlmg]

One of my favorites of Bob Wills and TX Playboys. Thanks so much for this video post!!

[steinsteel]

steel 0:50

[LittleKim1001]

Wonderful!!

[willburr]

YES!!! I've been waiting too. All love to Tommy Duncan, but this is my all-time favorite version of this. Totally live too...

[fiddlenut24]

glad to see this back on youtube!

[mondofzz]

Great musicians! This song was the basis for "Maybelline" by Chuck Berry.

[gilgamess]

@1ndi64 The framework of the song similar, the verse is sung quickly and there is similar phrasing. Sing the verse of Maybelline over this song's verse and you will see what I mean, but the chorus is where they really diverge. They, as you say, aren't the same song, but they are built in a like fashion, much like the verses of Prince's "1999" and The Bangles' "Manic Monday", also written by Prince, as "Christopher".

[mondofzz]

@1ndi64 I think the story was that Chuck Berry used to play Ida Red in his act and then wrote new lyrics when he recorded it. "Maybellene" was the name of a cow in a nursery rhyme he heard as a kid.