Mel Bay The Songs & Guitar of Merle Travis/Sixteen Tons: Rare Performances 1946-1981 Volume Two - DVD

Artist: Merle Travis
Format: DVD
Version: Concert Performance DVD
Instrumentation: Guitar

This second Merle Travis DVD collection presents more rare footage from 1946 to 1981. The year of Travis's first hits on the fledgling Capitol label, 1946, is represented by a half-dozen "Soundies" in which a 29 year old Travis fronts both an "all-girl band" and one of hot session players. The 1950s saw Tennessee Ernie Ford's recording of Travis's Sixteen Tons become an international pop hit, and its creator performs it here on a 1957 clip from the Tex Ritter hosted Ranch Party. The renewed interest in his music in the 70s is evident in six performances from that decade, while an informal duet with his son Thom Bresh, videotaped toward 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 humour, poetry and downhome philosophy in his songs.

Song List:

• Backwater Blues
• Cannonball Rag
• Catalog Cowboy
• Dark as a Dungeon
• John Henry
• Lost John
• Night Train to Memphis
• Nine Pound Hammer
• Old Chisholm Trail
• Rockabye Rag
• Silver Spurs
• Sixteen Tons
• Texas Home
• That's All
• Way Down Yonder in New Orleans
• When My Baby Double Talks to Me
• Who's Sorry Now
• Why Did I Fall for Abner
• Wildwood Flower