Hi all,
I can find plenty of old mandolin music from the 1920s/30s recordings of blues players (Yank Rachell, Charlie McCoy etc), brother duets (Monroes, Sheltons etc) and stringbands. But moving forward to the Honky Tonk era of the late 40s and 50s, it seems that bluegrass pretty much swallowed up the vast majority of American music's mandolin players. I love the music of Honky Tonk stars like Lefty Frizell, Ernest Tubb, Ray Price, Webb Pierce, Hank Garland and so many others but the classic instrumentation from this period didn't feature mandolin. I've taken to learning ideas from other instruments like lead guitars, steel guitars and fiddles but was there any notable mandolinists recorded in the Honky Tonk era? Or, failing that, are there any mandolin players who specialise in that honky tonk groove in a later decade (I'm sure plenty of professional cats can do it, but is anyone actually focusing on it)?
The closest I could probably get to these ideas was in the western swing arena with players like Tiny Moore, Jethro Burns and Johnny Gimble but there's more meat on their bones than Honky Tonk.
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