Blue Skies - Bob Dunn and his Vagabonds

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Though Bob Dunn recorded some good music on electric lap steel in his post-Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies career he never quite seemed to recapture the edge-of-your-seat fire and excitement of those earlier performances; that wacky standard guitar with a raised nut and Volutone pickup had a unique hair-raising, glass breaking tone that to this day remains unique. But Dunn's later Vagabonds cuts do have a certain more reserved charm ...

https://home.comcast.net/~aevolk/music/BlueSkies.mp3

Peter Lindelauf · From: Penticton, BC

Thanks, Andy. That rendition is a keeper.

So, when is Lap Steel Guitar - Volume 2 coming out?
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...but you are the music / while the music lasts (TS Eliot)

Jim Sallis · From: Arizona, USA

Thanks, Andy. And that's an excellent question -- I'd pre-order Vol. 2 in a heartbeat!

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

I deeply appreciate your comments, guys. Unfortunately, the publisher and I couldn't see eye-to-eye on the finances for doing an update on Lap Steel Guitar. There's a lot that needs updating and lots of new info. I may get around to it one day with a different publisher if I can ever find the time to do it. Several other ideas are brewing; we'll see if they ever come to a boil!

Guy Cundell · From: More idle ramblings from South Australia

Thanks, Andy. Do you have a date for this cut?

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Late 30s? Early 40s?

New Dunn 2-CD set coming this year from Origin Jazz:

http://www.originjazz.com/

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Decca records, label 5676, matrix 65103, date 3/2/39. Flip side, Toodle Oodle Ooh.

All of the Bob Dunn's Vagabonds sides were recorded 3/2/39 or 9/5/39, so in 2 sessions they yielded 23 or 24 sides. Not bad.
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Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

That's Moon Mullican on the vocal.

A 2 CD set of the complete Bob Dunn has been in production for close to a decade. I am beginning to wonder if it will ever be released.

I'm not sure if why it's taking so long. I'd think the source material could all be located by now, so the delay may be related to the economy. Would it sell even 500 copies?

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Dunn's Vagabonds recordings can be found here (along with a whole lot more vintage music) ...

http://westernswing78.blogspot.com/2007/03/bob-dunns-vagabonds.html

John Ed Kelly · From: Victoria, Australia

Andy,

I have a 4 CD ''Properbox'' set of Milton Brown. Of the 106 tracks therein, about 80 or so have Bob Dunn.

I have also, a smattering of Bob on some other CDs, including some of his Vagabonds cuts. Have you a rough idea of how many tracks he actually recorded?

I'm a huge fan of his and would like to complete the collection if at all possible. As far as I am aware he did not record with Bob Wills or Spade Cooley. If this is so then I guess I'll need to track down a lot of the lesser known groups from the South West.

I love his huge archaic sound and I wonder how it can be duplicated - apart from playing a Martin plus a VoluTone? I got this from your book of course and I just noticed that on p. 92 Bob is playing a solid body - what would it be I wonder?

I reckon he bears a vague resemblance to Paul Whiteman too...................

Thanks,

John

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Bob also played with Cliff Bruner's Texas Wanderers and Bill Mounce and the Sons of the South. The Vagabonds are essentially the Texas Wanderers.
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Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Dunn recorded with these groups, but this may not be a complete list:

Bill Mounce
Cliff Bruner
Milton Brown
Buddy Jones
Floyd Tillman
Leon Selph
Modern Mountaineers
Roy Newman
Sons Of Dixie
The Shelton Brothers

I think also with Dickie McBride.

The problem is in many cases he just cut a few songs with a group and most songs by that artist may have another steel player.

Here he is with the Benny Leaders band in 1948:

Billy Tonnesen · From: R.I.P., Buena Park, California

In listening to the early Bob Dunn playing I often wondered couldn't he tell how bad his playing sounded. Some of the Bands he played with had excellent fiddle and sometimes horn players comparable to present day players. But, when it was time for Bob's chorus IMHO it comletely destroyed the record. I know his playing improved over the years but some of the Hawaiin players played better single string than he did and they had a tone and a flow to their playing.

John Ed Kelly · From: Victoria, Australia

Billy says''In listening to the early Bob Dunn playing I often wondered couldn't he tell how bad his playing sounded.''

Crikey, that's a bit tough on a bloke who pioneered the use of amplified guitar, in the days of (by modern reckoning) sub-standard equipment.

He was also recording in studios of varying quality, like hotel rooms in Dallas, for example, rather than the top notch Nashville type set-ups of today.

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My thanks to the other folks for mentioning those band names, now I can continue my search.

JK

Edward Meisse · From: Santa Rosa, California, USA

Yes, I have a hard time listening to most of the old recordings. But I don't think the horn players were that advanced. Jazz has come a very long way since the 1930's and 40's. Still, you have to remember that steel guitar is a relatively new instrument. We haven't even worked out a standard tuning yet. And just to avoid long discussion, standard guitar also has many tunings in use. But there also is a more or less standard tuning. We don't have that yet.
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Amor vincit omnia

John Ed Kelly · From: Victoria, Australia

Edward says ''We haven't even worked out a standard tuning yet. And just to avoid long discussion, standard guitar also has many tunings in use. But there also is a more or less standard tuning. We don't have that yet.''

It seems that E9 is standard for Nashville, and C6 for the west coast of the USA, as far as I can tell.

I have opted for F13 here in good 'ole Melbourne Australia, but then again, my knowledge is limited.....................................but slowly improving.

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

John, duplicating Bob's sound is an interesting notion. The recored sound we hear is a mix of the guitar he used, the early pickup & amp, the inherent distortion in that system + the early recording and mastering equipment that captured that sound which was later re-EQ'd and re-mastered on modern gear. That's a whole lot of stuff to figure out! With a lot of patience, I'd bet one could get pretty close to Dunn's sound. Stochelo Rosenberg, for example, comes remarkably close to the hollow, distorted (yet way cool) sound Django got in the early 50s using a Selmer guitar with a Stimer pickup and amp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbOJIXoIVo

I assume an audio archelologist could do the same for Dunn's sound. Thinking like a 20s trombone player, now THAT's a whole different matter!

This isn't Dunn's exact gear but here's a look at an early Volutone pickup and a couple of their amps. You need to be very careful of electric shock with these particular old amps. There are several old threads that explain the issues.

John Ed Kelly · From: Victoria, Australia

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the detailed info and the pics.

I viewed the Rosenbeg trio video and I see what he's is up to - more or less. It looks like he is going for the full emulation of Django, it seems like he may be the ultimate Django purist. DR is a favourite of mine and I am listening to an LP as I write.

Whilst I would like to sound like Bob Dunn (fat chance for me at this point) I don't think I would go overboard with equipment. The recording equipment of the times certainly seems to play a part, in addition to the vintage equipment - which I guess would be fairly difficult to obtain - I can't imagine finding a VoluTone down here in Oz.

I know what is involved in attempting to sound like another, though. In my other life I'm a jazz clarinet player of about 40 years standing with a particular interest in 'revivalist' New Orleans jazz.

The New Orleans 'jazz police' will tell you that this is really only obtainable unless one uses a wide lay mouthpiece, hard reeds and an Albert system instrument. All of these I have for all of my playing life, and whilst I model myself on an Englishman by the name of Sammy Rimington, who in turn models himself on George Lewis, I would have to say that I will never sound like either of them.

I wonder if I should look around for some type of fuzz box maybe, and see what it can do? Bob's tone sounds kind of fuzzy to me, in parts, in a good sort of way that is. I also have a 1960s vintage Aussie manufactured tube amp (16 watts/Moody Mfr.) which needs repair. I currently have a chinese manufactured 6 stringer guitar, which sounds OK, of itself.

Cheers,

JK

Lee Jeffriess · From: Vallejo California

Billy is not the only High caliber steel player to feel that way about Dunn.
I once asked Joaquin if he listened to BD, he looked at me as if I was insane.

John Ed Kelly · From: Victoria, Australia

Lee says ''I once asked Joaquin if he listened to BD, he looked at me as if I was insane.''

What did you actually deduce from JM's body language Lee, was he being too polite to answer or was the body language enough?

I gather that, possibly, you are not too keen on BD either - if so what what would be your major objection? Dunn may be an acquired taste for some, particularly as, like me, you may have heard only recordings. As a related example, many early New Orleans recordings (my specialty) and most acoustic recordings, generally speaking, can be a bit taxing on the ear, but with some dedicated listening the quality becomes apparent eventually. Try listening to the King Oliver Band, for instance, recorded acoustically by Gennett in 1923! I guess JM heard Dunn play live and his opinion would carry weight.

I didn't cotton on to Dunn immediately either, but I recognise now that his style was individual, perhaps eccentric even, but he certainly was a pioneer and some who followed sounded like him, to one degree or another - Lefty Perkins for example. Check out his solo on Bring It Down To My House Honey, with the band led by Milton Brown's brother Derwood.

I'm keen on the early pioneers of jazz and western swing so the odd clunker or two in a performance does not mean much to me - to the contrary - it adds to the 'down home' charm in many instances.

It all boils down to preference really doesn't it?

Lee Jeffriess · From: Vallejo California

Absolutely John, It does boil down to preferance.
Im certainly not going to say Dunn is not part of the puzzle and your perceptive, Im also not a big fan.
However I do enjoy his verve and I am respectful of his legacy.
Back in the late 30's and early 40's in Los Angeles a young Joaquin and Billy would have heard and seen Hawaiian steel players that were technically and harmonically more advanced than BD.
Hence there lack of enthusiasm, Dunn's style would have seemed primitive in comparison.
Believe me I understand where your coming from, I love everything from gut bucket blues to Be Bop.
Like you said its just preference.
All the best
Lee

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

I think part of Dunn's appeal is based on how most people arrive at Western Swing.

Most people arrive by the Bob Wills door, which means Leon McAuliffe. I had been listening to Wills recordings for a number of years before I heard Milton Brown.

Dunn so completely differs from McAuliffe that it gives the Milton Brown recordings an entirely different character than the Wills band. The trombone thing that Dunn (and Billy Briggs) had wasn't heard elsewhere and was gone by the early 40s. The Wills band changed and grew much larger by 1940, but Milton is stuck in 1936 and never evolved.

Dunn's recording career is very closely linked to Brown and was almost entirely pre-war, so he retains that primitive sound in our mind whenever we think of him.

As a band, I don't think the Brown band holds a candle to Tex Williams or Spade Cooley and I can certainly understand how someone who lived in LA in the 40s would roll their eyes at Milton Brown and therefore Bob Dunn.

Both bands are now referred to as "Western Swing", but that term wasn't used until well into the 1940s, nearly a decade after Brown and Dunn's heyday. I never saw much "Western" in Milton's band and tend to think of it as as string band jazz--no horns or take-off guitar.

If Milton had lived another 20 years, he might have sounded like this California band:

http://picosong.com/yNe

I wouldn't be in the least surprised if Murphey or Boggs never laid eyes on Bob Dunn. I never heard of Dunn or any band he worked in playing in California.

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