From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Fri Nov 29, 2002  6:20 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Merle Travis
 
MERLE TRAVIS (By Jean-Marc Pezet)

Born Merle Robert Travis, 29 November 1917, Rosewood, Kentucky
Died 20 October 1983, Tahlequah, Oklahoma

GENIUS

"Merle Travis could write you a hit song and sing it; he could draw you
a cartoon; he could play you a great guitar solo; or he could fix your
watch. . . . I'd probably be looking at the rear end of a mule if it weren't
for Merle Travis. . . . If you can say there is a certain style to my way of
playing, then you have to recognize it as the influence of the guitar
pickin' of Merle Travis." - Chet Atkins

That sums it all up. Merle Travis was one of the most influential country
guitar pickers in all the history of Country Music, and across the border
to Rockabilly. His style is now known as the "Travis Style". Every single
guitarist from Chet Atkins, Doc Watson to Carl Perkins was influenced
by Merle. Chet emulated his style, Doc named his son after Merle and
Carl put the rockabilly fire into the picking style.

The Travis family moved from Rosewood to Ebenezer to find work in coal
mines while Merle was only four (and youngest of four). Daddy Travis, Rob,
played the banjo and Merle started off on it, and graduated to guitar at 12.
Merle was hugely influenced by two local guitarists, Ike Everly, (father of
two kids who would also leave their mark on the music business) and Mose
Rager. They played a unique fingerpicking style, deeply rooted in this part of
Kentucky, using the thumb to play the bass and the index to play the lead
and treble. The style can be traced from Kennedy Jones (born 1900) who
got the style from his mother, passed it on to a black guitarist, Arnold
Shultz, from whom Everly and Rader learnt and often cited by Bill Monroe
as a major influence.

Merle quit school at 16 and started work, but was more and more feeling
the urge for a career in music. His first break came during a visit to his
brother's home in Evansville, Indiana, in 1935, where his chance to
entertain at a local dance resulted in membership in a couple of local
bands and a chance to appear on a local radio station. He briefly joined
The Tennessee Tomcats, then The Knox County Knockabouts and Clayton
McMichen And His Georgia Wildcats.

In 1937 he became a member of the Drifting Pioneers, who performed on
WLW Cincinnati. In 1943 he recorded for the local King label, recording a
solo as Bob McCarthy and a duet with Grandpa Jones as the Shepherd
Brothers. He and Jones did many radio shows together and many years later,
re-created that atmosphere for an album. Travis, Jones and the Delmore
Brothers also worked as a gospel quartet, the Browns Ferry Four.
In 1944, after war service in the marines, he first returned to Cincinnati,
recorded with Grandpa Jones for King (some of these appeared on the recent
ACE compilation "Hillbilly Bop n Boogie") and then settled in California and
worked with artists such as Tex Ritter. Travis' arrangement of "Muskrat" for
Ritter was later developed into a hit single for the The Everly Brothers.

He played with several bands, becoming one of the first to appreciate that a
guitar could be a lead instrument, and he had success as a solo artist for
the newly-formed Capitol Records with "Cincinnati Lou", "No Vacancy",
"Divorce Me C.O.D.", Missouri" and a US country number 1, "So Round,
So Firm, So Fully Packed". He co-wrote Capitol's first million-seller,
"Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette" with Tex Williams, who recorded
it. Burl Ives and Josh White were spearheading a craze for folk music, so
Capitol producer, Lee Gillette, asked Travis for a 78 rpm album set of
Kentucky folk songs. 'I don't know any' said Travis. 'Then write some' was
the reply. His eight-song FOLK SONGS OF OUR HILLS, included "Nine
Pound Hammer" (a rewritten folk song), "Dark As A Dungeon" and "Sixteen
Tons" with spoken introductions about the coal-mining locale. Although
Travis maintained that "Sixteen Tons" was a 'fun song', it dealt with the
exploitation of miners in the company store. It won a gold record for
Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955 and was parodied by Spike Jones as
"Sixteen Tacos" and by Max Bygraves as "Seventeen Tons".

Travis himself was also enjoying a country hit with a revival of "Wildwood
Flower" with Hank Thompson, and he won acclaim for his portrayal of a
young GI in the 1954 film FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (featuring
Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift), in
which he sang "Re-enlistment Blues". Travis's WALKIN' THE STRINGS is
a highly-regarded album of acoustic guitar solos (recorded 1960).
He also did a lot of work as a backing guitarist, notably for Tennessee
Ernie Ford ans was a mainstay in Hank Thompson's Western Swing band.
It's also him who plays lead on Jackie Lee Cochran "Mama Don't You Think
I Know" / "Ruby Pearl" on Decca in 1956 (Merle would also cut an EP for Rollin
Rock Records with Ray Campi in the 1970s - Ray told the full story in Now
Dig This #132 and 136).

Merle Travis was not only a fantastic guitarist. In 1948 he devised a
solid-body electric guitar, which was built for him by Paul Bigsby and
developed by Leo Fender. 'I got the idea from a steel guitar' he said, 'I
wanted the same sustainability of notes, and I came up with a solid-body
electric guitar with the keys all on one side.' This guitar was a blueprint
for the Fender Telecaster. Merle was a good cartoonist (he worked as a
scriptwriter on Johnny Cash's television shows) and had skills in watch
repairing!

Merle Travis was elected to the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1977. Says
Tennessee Ernie Ford, "Merle Travis was one of the most talented men I
ever met. He could write songs that would knock your hat off".
Merle was one of the Texas Playboys in the Clint Eastwood film,
HONKYTONK MAN in 1982. He died in October 1983.
A posthumous album of blues songs played on 12-string guitar, ROUGH,
ROWDY AND BLUE, included a tune from his mentor, Mose Rager,
"Merry Christmas, Pretty Baby". His friend and fellow guitarist, Joe Maphis,
wrote a tribute "Me And Ol Merle'", which concluded,"We liked good
whiskey and we loved the pretty girls, And we loved them guitars-Me and
Ol' Merle."

Recommended listening:
"Guitar Rags And A Too Fast Past" 5 CD Box Bear Family BCD 15637
(covers the 1946-1955 Capitol recordings + some earlier tracks)
(the 80 pages book by Rich Kienzle is a must-have, packed with period
photos and humourous cartoons by Merle himself)

Viewing:
"Merle Travis Rare Performances 1956-1981", DVD Vestapol 13012dvd