Saturday Night Rag 1934-36 Volume 1

At its core, the music known as Western Swing was simply big-band jazz with a Southwestern twist. Take the lively rhythms of Harlem and New Orleans jazz groups, add high-proof hillbilly spirits and a few assorted Mexican folk melodies, and you’re getting pretty close to the sublime musical flavor purveyed throughout the flatlands in the ‘30s and ‘40s by the likes of bandleaders like Bob Wills, Jimmy Revard, Milton Brown, and Bill Boyd. Patrons of dancehalls throughout the Southwest could count on being wowed by wildly different musical repertoires and instrumental styles, depending on which band happened to swing through town that weekend. Bill Boyd and his Cowboy Ramblers never incorporated a drum set or horn section, as Bob Wills was known to do, and they eschewed the hokey embellishments favored by Hollywood cowboys like Spade Cooley. The Cowboy Ramblers simply played great country dance music. What listeners get when they sample this marvelous compilation of Boyd’s work is 16 tracks of undiluted Western Swing played by one of the era's most virtuosic bands.