Search - Hank Thompson :: Dance Ranch / Songs for Rounders

Dance Ranch / Songs for Rounders
Hank Thompson
Dance Ranch / Songs for Rounders
Genres: Country, Pop
 
  •  Track Listings (24) - Disc #1

If they're in print at all, recordings from honky-tonk's golden age have usually been presented as patchworks of greatest hits while original albums get consigned to oblivion. That trend has been reversed: witness these tw...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Hank Thompson
Title: Dance Ranch / Songs for Rounders
Members Wishing: 4
Total Copies: 0
Label: Koch Records
Release Date: 9/21/1999
Genres: Country, Pop
Styles: Roadhouse Country, Classic Country, Western Swing
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 099923804826

Synopsis

Amazon.com
If they're in print at all, recordings from honky-tonk's golden age have usually been presented as patchworks of greatest hits while original albums get consigned to oblivion. That trend has been reversed: witness these two platters from Hank Thompson's prime Capitol years. Dance Ranch, recorded in September 1957, features a lively (albeit Merle Travis-less) band, distinguished by Western swing fiddler Harold Hensley, takeoff guitarist Joe Maphis, and underappreciated steel-guitar savant Bobbie White. Stellar cuts include the 1940s classic "Drivin' Nails in My Coffin," the regretful weeper "Headin' Down the Wrong Highway," and four big-band-inspired instrumentals, all bubbling with spontaneity. Songs for Rounders, on the other hand, lingers in the seediest honky-tonk corners, a remorseless document of lying, killing, drinking, gambling, and all manner of ramblin' round. This 1959 album presents Thompson at his bluesiest--riveting yet still playful. With his affable, precisely tuned baritone, he lends "Drunkard's Blues" (a reworking of "St. James Infirmary") a dry gallows humor and turns traditionals like "Rovin' Gambler" and "Deep Elm" into wry jaunts. Both albums are welcome and essential--they rarely repeat material from available compilations--and together they neatly capture Thompson's dual personality: the spirited Western swinger and the masterful honky-tonk showman. --Roy Kasten

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CD Reviews

Ultra Western Lounge
Jeffrey D. Caudill | Takoma Park, MD United States | 08/15/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Two great albums on one CD! Dance Ranch the first album is a definitive western swing album maybe a bit glossy in production at times but the pickin is superb. Songs for Rounders is just an amazing album if there was a western swing equal to Sinatra's Swingin Lovers this is it. Ii's as if Dean Martin had possesed Bob Wills, songs like "Teach em how to swim" Bachelor til I die and Cocaine Blues are awesome. Yes, alcohol gambling drugs and smoking are evil but if done with a western beat it can be cool."