The Black Canyon Gang - Ridin' High

Yeah, yeah, it's 4/20 and everyone is diggin' out their stoner songs...

Thought I would play one from the fantastic mellow Colorado country LP, Ridin' High "(featuring the finest in Colorado Country head music)," from the Black Canyon Gang.

 Listen to "Alcopulco Gold" 

(yes, that's how Acapulco is spelled in the title--

no need to send me a typo correction)

The Black Canyon Gang (Montrose/Olathe area brothers, Bill Bland Austin and Russell Austin, Robert Dale Mount, Bart Lyons and Paul Hunter) signed on with promoter Dick Woods, who worked extensively with Gladys Hart, the Colorado country music promotions queen. According to a 1975 issue of Billboard, Woods purchased Mountain Records from Ethel and Steve Mengee. The story goes on to report that Woods also signed Mike Bowman and Dick Kerns to his new label, along with the Black Canyon Gang. The LP was recorded at Viking Studios, in Denver.

In 1974, the band was on the bill for the first annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

Categorized as singer/songwriter "hippybilly," the Black Canyon Gang made a resurgence this year, when the band's song "Lonesome City" appeared on the Numero Group compilation, Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music.

According to the liner notes: "The Black Canyon Gang were a group of farm hands who simply enjoyed making music together: “The boys spent afternoons playing music, hunting rodents, drinking beer and smoking herb." As Black Canyon Gang vocalist and electric guitarist Russell Austin reflects on that decade, he recalls, “Apathy was everywhere. We gave a generation of weary downtrodden youth hope. It actually brought hippies, rednecks, bikers, warriors and regular people together … We were trying to make it through a rough time in history and help as many people as we could. And it worked.”

Rec-O-Tour Presents The Denver Mountain Parks

Listen to Side One

Narrated by B. Lee Pace, and accompanied by the organ of Alvyra Tuttle, I could have sworn this 1951 recording is much older, given the production.  Mr. Pace was a veteran Colorado Springs newspaperman and secretary to former Governor E . C . Johnson. According to an Internet search: "He is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and for more than 30 years was news editor of tho Colorado Springs News, a weekly farm publication. He later was a columnist and news writer for the daily Free Press in that city."

Alvyra Tuttle was apparently a local organist in the Springs. She passed away in 2004.

Rec-O-Tour released a few other recordings, all written by Elizabeth Jane Shafer, who was a member of the advertising staff of the Colorado Springs News, and a continuity writer for KVOR radio.

The records were shipped with "Kodachrome slides," to accompany the recording as a complete audio/visual presentation.

Rec-O-Tour Discography:

The Cave of the Winds (1948)
The Garden of the Gods (1948)
Seven Falls and South Cheyenne Cañon (1948)
Pikes Peak (1948)
Carlsbad Caverns (1949)
Denver Mountain Parks (1951)

Johnnie Dwyer

This one is a bit of a head scratcher. Credited on the pre-Band Box label Columbine as Johnnie Dwyer with Billy Lee and the Rocky Mountain Playboys. As there tended to be several bands calling themselves the same thing, I have no clue whether these guys are affiliated with Hank Locklin's, Jimmy Snow's,  Rocky Rauch's Rocky Mountain Playboys.

A 1949 issue of Desert Magazine notes:

December meeting of the San Fernando 
Valley Mineral and Gem society of Se- 
pulveda was a Christmas party and pro- 
gram including songs and recitations. John 
and Johnnie Anderson furnished music with 
their electric guitars; the Craig family acted 
out a skit portraying a night on a field trip; 
Johnnie Mitchell, Mary Newbold, Mr. Lil- 
jibald, and Master Johnnie Dwyer sang, 
and Master Hal Dwyer recited "What Are 
Rockhounds?" 

Johnnie (Johnny) went on to record at least one single on the Dee Jay label, re-recording "Love Grown Cold," with The Pike County Players--again there apparently was more than one group calling themselves that (sigh).

That said, this is a sweet country ditty.

The Mesa Verde Story

Lots of great memories going to Mesa Verde National Park, as I'm sure everyone does. However, I never climbed the Balcony House ladder, nor do I recollect seeing Esther the mummy - not sure how I missed that experience. Guess it's time to go back for a visit.

Eva-Tone red flexi on "The Mesa Verde Story."  Runoff shows 61071AXT, so guessing this is a 1971 recording. No indication who is voicing "Ranger Bill," or who is providing the Native American chants in the background. Cool little souvenir.

Listen to an audio sample

Jeannie Bradway, the Christian Cowgirl

I was going to post this record in July, when the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo was going on--but I forgot.  However, since there's a rodeo going on in Colorado practically every weekend, from now through September, I figure I'm still good to go on this little gem.

In the mid to late 1950s, little Jeannie Bradway performed with her parents, Bill and Jean, as the Harvest Time Trio.  Yes, we are talking about the same Bill and Jean Bradway, "King and Queen of the Silver Strings," who would go on to record the fantastic Gospel Hawaiianaires LP (1965).

Bill and Jean were channeling Les Paul and Mary Ford, when they added little Jeannie to the act. Around this time the couple started up the Rapture Talent Center record label, out of Denver.

Rapture Talent Center discography (label numbers noted):
1/2 - Darkest Before the Dawn / Behold the Man
3/4 - Walk with Me Lord / This Man
5/6 - ??
7/8 -  Christian Cowgirl / March Medley

Sam Johnson

Sam Johnson

Colorado Folk Ballads

(1965)

Side One:
The Place That They Call Home
A Long and Sad Farewell
Don't Blame Me
If You Like That Kind of Thing
All of September
This Weary Road

Side Two:
Where Man Once Was
Quiet Valley
Satan's Got a Way
Long Road Home
Ballad of Wilborn's Wall
There's Still a Place for Faithfulness
Together, Hand in Hand

I'm calling it.  My best obscure Colorado discovery of 2015 (actually, a fellow collector found this and sent it to me, but still).

Love. This. LP.

I first noticed the cover, the same picture used on the Emanon Majority LP I featured back in 2009. Your standard issue private vanity cover (collectors of these call this particular cover art the "burying a body," "taking a wiz," or the "Big Foot" cover).

Can't find a thing about Sam Johnson.  The only other name on this record is that of Scotty Glasgow, who produced this album in his basement recording studio on Cascade Avenue, in Colorado Springs. Scotty, who was born in 1916, worked at the Gazette-Telegraph, hosted the Scotland Pride show on KRDO-TV, and ran the Scotty Glasgow Advertising Agency, when he wasn't recording local singers.

He died in 1977.

Thankfully the LP had a typewritten insert from Sam:

"In response to recent requests for it, I have decided to release this album of original folk songs, featuring my favorites, the folk ballads."


"Concerning the songs of protest.  The purpose of 'Satan's Got a Way' is to explain the basic cause of the need to protest, not only in songs, but in everyday conversation. Understanding the cause of society's problems is certainly one big step toward realizing a solution.  If our great leaders can dig out from under their cover of intellectualism, open their hearts to Truth, and fight, not in the war between the nations, but in the war within their own hearts, more and more people will someday see a victory, at least in individual lives.  In the great physical war, as nations rise against nations, victory and destruction will be synonymous, but in the spiritual war, victory if attained, will be once and for all, and will mean real peace."

Eric Karlstrom

 Listen to a sample

Not sure where I found this endearing folk disc. It's been in my stash for a long time, so I assumed I did some research on it awhile back, or made a note that it had SoCo regional roots (it was stamped with a Pueblo address on the label), but I since lost those notes.

Back to square one.

So thanks again to the Internet Gods I tracked down Eric, who lives in Crestone, near the Great Sand Dunes National Park, about an hour north of Alamosa.  Come to find out, the record is actually out of Arizona, but since he is still an active performer in the SoCo region, I thought I would give his record a shout-out.

I'll let him share the details.

"I wrote those two songs my senior year of high school, this would have been 1967. 'A Red Flower' is something I wrote after reading the book, The Little Prince, in high school."

Listen to a sample of "Race to Knowhwere"

'The Race to Knowhere' kind of grew out of my readings on existentialism in high school - also perhaps the general mood of the country back then - this would have been 1967 - and the fact that both my parents were pretty high-powered academics. At the time, I kind of dreaded jumping into the rat race, but did anyway, of course.  I got a M.A. and Ph.D., and became a university geography professor, but kept doing music throughout, of course.

LEM (the name of the label) stands for Lunar Excursion Module, the vehicle that the astronauts were going to use on the moon landing.  My father was one of the geologists who trained the astronauts for the moon expeditions back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  He funded the 300 copies that were pressed.  Calling it LEM Records was his idea.

One of my high school friends' father suggested that I record the song at the local KAFF radio, in Flagstaff.  I played harmony guitar and sang, and another high school friend, Richard Cavanaugh played lead guitar, and Dennis Olesniwich played tambourine.  Before we pressed the tape into vinyl the guy at the record company suggested it needed a bass. So my father paid a local bass player $20 to dub the bass part.

A high school buddy, Dave Fronske, was so taken by the sentiment of 'The Red Flower,' that he personally distributed it to all of the juke boxes in the local restaurants in Flagstaff. The radio DJs in Flagstaff also played it a lot - so I had my 15 minutes of fame pretty early in my career."

Check out his website.