Kentucky Records !

Jimmie Ballard 
Kentucky Records # 520 - 1952
Tappin' Boogie / Taint Big Enough .

Here we find Jimmie Ballard and some naughty lyrics about tapping that thing and Taint Big Enough ! superb boogie lead guitar punctuates the whole A side song , of course is complimented by some silky steel . Very underrated tune on the Kentucky label. 

Risque lyrics on both sides . 1952 Cincinnati, OH - Buffalo Johnson & His Herd (James “Jimmie” Ballard [vcl/gt + unknown musicians.Producer: Carl J. Burkhardt)

018 TAIN’T BIG ENOUGH Kentucky 4-520 

019 TAPPIN’ BOOGIE 4-520

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Harry Adams with Buffalo Johnson.

Kentucky Folk Records # 521 - 1952

Side A - Milk Bucket Boogie.

Side B - Arkansas Traveler.

This is hillbilly boogie at its finest! nothing sounds finer than a  'milk Bucket Boogie'. (recorded 1st by Reece Shipley) Harry Adams is up early with the alarm clock and is in great  form on this Kentucky Folk record out of Ohio! .......it has it all, great steel, guitar  & fiddle and  those humorous  lyrics make this one mighty fine record!

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Bobby Musgrrove 

Kentucky Records # 584 - 1954

Dollar Sign Heart / Be Still My Heart.

In 1954 Kentucky released this lil' beauty by Bobby Musgrove , Born in 1932 . Dollar Sign Heart is nothing to get hot under the collar about, just a really good country Hillbilly mid tempo tune, plenty of steel and searing guitar work and some fine singing by Mr Musgrove. Bobby went on to sign to King Records and dropped the 'Mus' from his surname and was better known through the 60's in country and gospel circles as Bobby Grove.

OT Records !

Virgel Bozman 
OT Records (Oklahoma Tornado) # 109 - 1950
Blues For Oklahoma / Don't Let It Grieve Your Little Heart

Sparse instrumentation is what you get here on the A side, this is pure rural hick bop ! you get some cool Steel and even a mandolin interjects every now and then ! So when you get to the second break you get a full dose of some rasping guitar, just wonderful and is the sort of stuff I just love ! The B side is just as cool but at a much more relaxing country slow to mid tempo pace with lashings of Steel sweeping through the whole song and some nice piano plinking away in the back ground ! 

This O.T. label was originally based in Westlake, a small town on Highway 10 in the Southwestern corner of Louisiana. The initials O.T. stood for Oklahoma Tornadoes, a group run by Virgel that had recorded for Bill Quinn’s Gold Star label. Among the members of this short lived, but important band, were Bennie Hess, and Cajun fiddler extraordinaire Floyd Le Blanc. . His brother, Harmon recorded Rockabilly on the Texas Sarg label. Another Bozman O.T. release, when the label was relocated to San Antonio, is the fine, more Western Swing in style, « Troubles, Troubles » (# 113), backed by the Circle C Boys. It’s driven along by a bass player who enjoys himself enormously.

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Cleo Harves with Lightning Guitar.

OT # 105 - 1949

Side A - Skinny Woman Boogie.

Side B - Crazy With The Blues

This is a great record but at the same time kinda strange because Cleo sounds like two different singers on the the two tunes. On the B side he sounds just like all Black blues singers of the period, vocals, guitar all fit typically in the Blues A-Z of how to make a Blues record, don't get me wrong he does it very well and is a class tune of it's style. But the A side is just bizarre, out of time, great and truly brilliant Country Blues thing with Cleo sounding like a Country White Blues singer. This side is right up my alley! it's clumsy, superb, wrong but right and at the end the whole thing just about falls apart with all members stopping at different times (you can imagine them all looking at each other nodding as if to say 'right stop now' .......it's a thing and sound of beauty and the wrong bits sound just perfect to me!

Republic records !

Lee Bonds & Sonny Sims 
Republic Records # 7041 - 1953
I'm Glad That I Love You / Give My Broken Heart A Break

Born in Alabama in 1924. Lee Bonds had two releases previous to to his Republic offerings in 1953 on the Tennessee Label. Bonds was a prolific writer and could certainly write a nice Country Honky Tonk tune.
This release on Republic has one side with Lee Bond and Sonny Sims and the other on his lonesome. The duet with Sonny is pure class, both have vocals that just melt into one, absolute class, great uptempo song with strong fiddle and Steel. The B side is more sedate and has Trumpet laden throughout by Bill Roberts along with some fine piano and Steel by Larry Garman and falls more into the Honky Tonk  category !