TEXAS SLIDE GUITARS — Complete Recorded Works 1930-1938 In Chronological Order of OSCAR WOODS & BLACK ACE | DOCD-5143 (1991) RM | FLAC (tracks), lossless)

Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes. Blues musicians from the Deep South tend to use the bottleneck-slide or slide guitar style more often than other “down-home” blues players, and Black Ace and Oscar “Buddy” Woods were two of the best musicians to perform in this manner. Oscar Woods, a street singer since 1925, teamed with Ed Schaffer to record two selections for Victor at their May, 1930 Memphis field session. Their record was issued as by the Shreveport Homewreckers and featured Schaffer’s gritty vocal and kazoo supported by their twin slide guitars. They returned to the studio about two years later for a session almost certainly arranged by Jimmie Davis, who was in Dallas for a session that lasted several days. The duo played on four sides: Saturday Night Stroll, Sewing Machine Blues, Red Night Gown, and Davis’s Salty Dog. Davis went on to claim authorship of You Are My Sunshine and was twice elected governor of Louisiana. In the early 1930s, however, he was a struggling hillbilly and singer with a taste for the yodelling of Jimmie Rodgers and black blues music. Sewing Machine Blues is a strangely effective, almost eerie blues performance that belies Davis’s later political and Christian song-writing career. Five years after recording with Davis, Oscar Woods travelled south to New Orleans for a solo Decca recording session that included his theme song, Lone Wolf Blues. Two more brief commercial sessions for Vocalion followed in 1937 and 1938, this time with a small band – The Wampus Cats. Nothing is known of Ed Schaffer, who seems to have drifted out-of-town in the middle 1930s. Babe Kyro Lemon Turner spent much of his life about two hundred miles due west of Shreveport in and what is now the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex. In the early 1930s the Black Ace temporarily migrated to Shreveport and teamed with Oscar Woods. By 1936 he’d moved to Fort Worth and secured work as a musician and broadcast over a local station KFJZ from 1936 to 1941. Turner even appeared in the film “The Blood of Jesus” in 1941. Known as “The Black Ace“, Turner first came into the ARC field studio in April, 1936, but his two selections Bonus Man Blues and Black Ace Blues were never issued. Nearly one year later he returned to Dallas for a Decca field session that also included pianists Black Ivory King and Alex Moore as well as Blind Norris and Andrew Hogg. The six selections on this album, most of which are compositions based on traditional themes like alcohol, women and Santa Claus come from this session. Chris Strachwitz, during a field trip to Texas in 1960 in the company of Paul Oliver, came across the Black Ace and recorded him including, of course, his theme song, Black Ace and Mr. Turner’s unique slide guitar and vocals were introduced to a new audience of blues enthusiasts. DOCD-5143
Tracklist :
Oscar "Buddy" Woods    
1    Jimmie Davis–    She's A Hum Dum Dinger (From Dingersville) 2:56
Guitar – Oscar Woods
Guitar [Poss.] – "Dizzy Head"
Vocals – Jimmie Davis
2    Shreveport Home Wreckers–    Fence Breakin' Blues 3:11
Guitar – Oscar Woods
Guitar, Vocals, Kazoo – Ed Schaffer
3    Shreveport Home Wreckers–    Home Wreckin' Blues 3:14
Guitar – Oscar Woods
Guitar, Vocals, Kazoo – Ed Schaffer
4    Jimmie Davis–    Bear Cat Mama From Horner's Corners 3:00
Guitar – Oscar Woods
Guitar [Poss.] – "Dizzy Head"*
Vocals – Jimmie Davis
5    Jimmie Davis, Oscar Woods–    Saturday Night Stroll 3:17
Guitar – Ed Schaffer
Vocals – Jimmie Davis
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods
6    Jimmie Davis–    Sewing Machine Blues 3:19
Guitar – Oscar Woods
Guitar [Poss.] – "Dizzy Head"
Vocals – Jimmie Davis
7    Jimmie Davis–    Red Nightgown Blues 2:57
Guitar – Oscar Woods
Guitar [Poss.] – "Dizzy Head"
Vocals – Jimmie Davis
8    Jimmie Davis–    Davis's Salty Dog 2:27
Guitar – Oscar Woods
Guitar [Poss.] – "Dizzy Head"
Vocals – Jimmie Davis
9    Oscar Woods (The Lone Wolf)–    Evil Hearted Woman Blues 3:05
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods (The Lone Wolf)
10    Oscar Woods (The Lone Wolf)*–    Lone Wolf Blues 3:10
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods (The Lone Wolf)
11    Oscar Woods (The Lone Wolf)*–    Don't Sell It - Don't Give It Away 2:54
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods (The Lone Wolf)
12    Buddy Woods With The Wampus Cats–    Muscat Hill Blues 2:47
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Unknown Artist
Piano – Unknown Artist
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods
13    Buddy Woods With The Wampus Cats–    Don't Sell It (Don't Give It Away) 2:30
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Unknown Artist
Piano – Unknown Artist
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods
14    Kitty Gray And Her Wampus Cats–    Baton Rouge Rag 2:27
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Oscar Woods
Piano – Kitty Gray
15    Buddy Woods–    Jam Session Blues 2:34
Accompanied By – Wampus Cats
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Unknown Artist
Piano – Unknown Artist
Trumpet – Unknown Artist
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods
16    Buddy Woods–    Low Life Blues 2:31
Accompanied By – Wampus Cats
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Unknown Artist
Piano – Unknown Artist
Trumpet – Unknown Artist
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods
17    Buddy Woods–    Token Blues 2:30
Accompanied By – Wampus Cats
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Unknown Artist
Piano – Unknown Artist
Trumpet – Unknown Artist
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods
18    Buddy Woods–    Come On Over To My House Baby 2:23
Accompanied By – Wampus Cats
Bass [String Bass] – Unknown Artist
Drums – Unknown Artist
Guitar – Unknown Artist
Piano – Unknown Artist
Vocals, Guitar – Oscar Woods
        Black Ace    
19    Black Ace–    Trifling Woman 2:46
Guitar [Prob.] – Smokey Hogg
Vocals, Guitar – Black Ace
20    Black Ace–    Black Ace 2:44
Guitar [Prob.] – Smokey Hogg
Vocals, Guitar – Black Ace
21    Black Ace–    You Gonna Need My Help Some Day 2:34
Guitar [Prob.] – Smokey Hogg
Vocals, Guitar – Black Ace
22    Black Ace–    Whiskey And Women 3:00
Guitar [Prob.] – Smokey Hogg
Vocals, Guitar – Black Ace
23    Black Ace–    Christmas Time Blues 2:45
Guitar [Prob.] – Smokey Hogg
Vocals, Guitar – Black Ace
24    Black Ace–    Lowing Heifer 3:02
Guitar [Prob.] – Smokey Hogg
Vocals, Guitar – Black Ace