A Texas Two-Fer

Today, we make another visit to the waning days of the great Film City label. This is number 4035 on the label, that label having started at #1000 and going to around # 4140, so this is late indeed. It's two releases up from Rod Rogers' great "Little Rug Bug", so there is quite the chance that Rodd Keith is also the Chamberlin master herein. And like several other releases in this numbering sequence, this record appeared on goldish-yellow vinyl. 

The singer is Jim Wheeler, about whom the less said the better, and the songs - both about Texas - represent a fairly rare occurrence in the land of song-poems, and that is, submissions by a songwriting team. Both of these song-poems were written by the same two-man team. Does that mean they wrote the words AND music (making this more of a vanity number), or just that they both wrote the "song-poem" lyrics. There's no way to know for sure, but these melodies and chords sound so traditionally "Film City-ish", that I'm betting these were traditional song-poem, with music by the Film City crew, and not a full submission of completed songs. 

The better of the two by a wide margin - better being very much a relative term here - is "Remember the Alamo". It is peppy, with a creative backing arrangement, a nicely structured "string section" solo and a lilting melody. And best of all, it doesn't wear out its welcome, ending in well under two minutes. 

But please, while everyone is remembering the Alamo, let's not forget that those fighting for America were on the wrong side of history: The battle at that time and place was really about trying to control Texas in order to allow those living there to have slaves, a practice that Mexico had outlawed. 

Download: Jim Wheeler and the "Swinging Strings" - Remember the Alamo

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I can muster up no enthusiasm for the flip side of this record. "The Beautiful Texas Waltz" goes on for roughly five days, or at least seems like it (it is actually just under twice the length of "Alamo". The word "dreary" comes to mind, which is unfortunate, as the song tells a happy story, and seems to have been designed to be a counterpoint to "The Tennessee Waltz", a song with a positive outcome. 

I'd also like to point out that both of these songs contain the weird feature - mentioned here from time to time - of songs which have a fade out, but then end before the face out is completed. Why fade a record out if you ended on a full stop? 

Download: Jim Wheeler and the 'Swinging Strings' - The Beautiful Texas Waltz

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