 Rex
Allen
Perhaps best known as a B western
cinema hunk or as the narrator of Disney's nature programming,
Rex Allen, the "Arizona Cowboy," first came into fame
as a radio star. The cowboy crooner on Chicago's National Barn
Dance, which for a time rivaled the popularity of Nashville's
Opry, Rex Allen helped put the Western in C&W. Fifty years
hence, these lost and forgotten recordings of the "Voice
of the West" are at long last available, lest we forget
the last vestiges of this vital bit of Americana. From nimble-fingered
accordion and fiddle-driven swing, smooth ballads, and story
songs to energetic yodels and the trio harmonies of Rex Allen's
lively Arizona Wranglers, these tunes embody the nation's optimistic
post-World War II vitality and its longstanding romance with
the American West--rife with possibility and dreams beyond the
known. These radio transcriptions from the Barn Dance of the
late 1940s are as warmly vibrant today as they must've been when
the band was cutting 20 sides a day, many of the tunes freshly
learned and put to vinyl in a single take. --Paige La Grone |
