The Songs & Guitar Of Merle Travis: Sixteen Tons

Rare Performances 1946 - 1981, Volume 2.

Merle Travis (1917-1983) was the fountainhead of a blues/jazz tinged country guitar fingerstyle since dubbed "Travis Picking." Its impact has permeated not only country but folk and 'roots rock' guitar idioms. Travis's seminal role in American guitar styles overshadows the fact that he was also a formidable talent as songwriter and performer. The many facets of his career are all present in this second offering of rare footage spanning his West Coast post-War prime to his last days as a rediscovered legend. The renewed interest in his music in the 1970s is evident in six performances from that decade, while an informal duet with his son, Thom Bresh, videotaped towards the end of Travis's life, provides a moving coda to this varied collection of brilliant country guitar playing leavened with Travis's blend of humor, poetry, and down-home philosophy in his songs.

Includes:

Soundies, 1946-
Silver Spurs
Texas Home
Why Did I Fall For Abner
Old Chisholm Trail
Catalogue Cowboy
Night Train To Memphis

The Old American Barn Dance-
Lost John

Ranch Party, 1957-
Nine Pound Hammer
John Henry
Wildwood Flower
When My Baby Double Talks To Me
Sixteen Tons
Cannonball Rag

Five Star Jubilee, 1961-
Dark As A Dungeon
Rockabye Rag

Porter Wagoner Show, 1967-1971-
That's All
Wildwood Flower
Lost John
Nine Pound Hammer

Nashville Swing, 1979-
Cannonball Rag
Who's Sorry Now

Thom Bresh's Home, 1981-
Way Down
Yonder In New Orleans
Backwater Blues