Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer): Bob Wills

Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer) by Bob Wills & Tommy Duncan is a great song especially when paired with old photos of people dancing.

I don't know much about Bob Wills, but apparently he was a big name playing western swing in the 1930's-1940's.

I like the lyrics which could describe any dance where you just don't want to leave until it's really really over.

"Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner
I don't see why I don't stay a little longer"

Some of the other lyrics seem to be nonsense, but it could well be the case that I don't have the cultural context (USA in the 1930's-1940s) to get the references. If the lyrics do have a meaning, please leave a comment and explain.

What do you think of Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer) by Bob Wills & Tommy Duncan? Please comment.

Quebe Sisters Band: "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie"

Western swing isn't a style that I feature very often on the blog but here is a nice version of "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" by The Quebe Sisters Band. The sisters; Grace, Sophia and Hulda; plays fiddle and sings in harmony.

"It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" was written in 1936 by Billy Mayhew and the most played versions of the song are probably by Fats Waller. I can't find much information about Billy Mayhew, can anyone help me?

Listen to Fats Waller's version.

What do you think of The Quebe Sisters Band? Please comment.

Hey Mister Jesse! May I have this dance?

As you hopefully already know, the May episode of the podcast Hey Mister Jesse that talks about swinging music is now available. If not, download May 2008 episode of Hey Mister Jesse. (~50 MB, mp3).

Read the show notes for Hey Mister Jesse May 2008 to see all the details.

I wrote to Jesse and Manu (as always) with some tips:

First tip is the album "With Thee I Swing" with New York singer Terry Blaine and pianist Mark Shane and a bunch of other fantastic musicians. It's a live album from a concert in Hamburg, Germany.

It has songs like "Getting Some Fun Out Of Life", "Mama Don´t Allow", "I Never Knew" and my favorite song from the album: "Why Don´t You Do Right".

Terry Blaine is touring with a new show called "Swingin' the Benny Goodman Songbook".

Second tip is the album "Swingin' with Humes". On this album from 1961 the former big band singer Helen Humes fronts a small group that has a light and laidback style. I like her version of "There'll Be Some Changes Made".

Bonus tip: When I listened to the interview with Catherine Russell in last the show she mentioned western swing. Although western swing is not my prefered jazz style, I'd like to recommend a pretty decent 4 cd compilation set called "Western Swing & Country Jazz".

I like the song "Gettin' That Low Down Swing" by the band Modern Mountaineers which has great lyrics.

Manu said that "Gettin' That Low Down Swing" probably was his favorite song ever. What about that! Yehaa! That kind of comments makes a dj happy.

What other things are there in the podcast?

Well, they have a good 8 count countdown of late night blues songs. But the list has a fatal flaw! It doesn't include any Jimmy Witherspoon song. You can't have a list like that without him. It's mandatory. I 've written before about Jimmy Witherspoon and late night blues and his great compilation album Jazz Me Blues in my series of posts called Late Night Music.

Several of the songs on Jazz Me Blues (like "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer" and "Bad, bad Whiskey") come from his 1963 album "Baby, baby, baby".

The original abum is worth checkin out because it has many good slow late night blueses like "Rocks In My Bed" and "Lonely Boy Blues". Listen to clips from the album below.



What do you think of the May edition of Hey Mister Jesse? Tell me.