Search - Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys :: Riding Your Way The Lost Transcriptions for Tiffany Music, 1946-1947 (2-CD Set)

This new 2-CD, 50-track set from Real Gone Music offers folks a chance to own some of the most revered and rare recordings in the history of American music. In 1946 and 1947, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys cut nearly 400 full songs for Tiffany Music, Inc., recordings that came to be known as the Tiffany Transcriptions. These recordings were distributed only to radio stations on 16-inch transcription discs, and were intended for airplay as part of a syndicated radio show featuring Wills and the Playboys. However, the transcriptions proved to be a financial failure, and Tiffany Music, Inc. folded by the end of the 40s, seemingly relegating the Tiffany Transcriptions to obscurity (and leaving over 200 songs in the can).

But that was not the end of the story. The Tiffany Transcriptions were unlike anything else in the King of Western Swing s discography. Typically recorded on a Monday in between tours, they usually consisted of on-the-spot arrangements of everything from Wills hits to western swing standards to sentimental ballads to blues and hot swing instrumentals, and the 16 , 33 1/3 rpm recording format allowed some of the songs to be longer than the normal, three-minute limitation of the 10-inch, 78 rpm commercial records of the day. This meant that Wills and his incredible band with the great Tommy Duncan on vocals had a chance to stretch out and have fun with the material. The result: the Tiffany Transcriptions are generally regarded as the best recordings Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys ever made.

For decades, the Tiffany Transcriptions were more legend than fact. Collectors passed copies of them around on poorly recorded reel-to-reel tapes and, later, cassettes. Finally, in the early 80s, Kaleidoscope Records began releasing a series of vinyl volumes of the Tiffany Transcriptions, followed by a CD release on Kaleidoscope and Rhino Records in the 90s. To date, however, less than half of the songs recorded by Wills and the Playboys have seen the light of day since the original transcription pressings of the 40s.

Flash forward 60 years. One day, Warner/Rhino tape vault honcho Mike Johnson spies the master tape reels for the Kaleidoscope Records releases on the shelf but what s on those 49 other tape reels right next to them?! That s right only the biggest discovery in American popular music this millennium, all the missing recordings Wills and his band made for Tiffany, both released and unreleased. Now, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys: Riding Your Way The Lost Transcriptions for Tiffany Music, 1946-1947 presents 50 of those long-lost transcription sides 20 of them never released even on transcription disc inside a package worthy of the material, a 6-panel DVD-style digipak featuring photos and memorabilia from the collection of Kaleidoscope Records co-founder Tom Diamant. The 20-page, DVD-sized booklet includes notes featuring quotes from the original Playboys by Western Swing expert Cary Ginell, plus a foreword from Johnson (who co-produced the set) and a complete discography of the Tiffany recordings. The recordings are mastered by Bob Fisher from recently discovered tapes to preserve their vintage sonic vibrancy while eliminating excess background surface noise.

To quote from Ginell s notes: As the years go by, it has become more than appropriate to compare Bob Wills Tiffany Transcriptions with Tiffany & Co., the elegant New York-based jeweler that markets itself as an arbiter of taste and style. These newly released performances only brighten the luster of the Tiffany catalog, which is now acknowledged as being one of the most important single collections in the history of twentieth century music.