Smokie (Part 2) Bill Black's Combo 1959

[Michael Bishop]

Does anyone know who was the Sax player for this great song? I remember hearing this all the time when I was young…man I miss hearing this stuff on the radio! At least we have youtube LOL Learning all of Johnny’s 1950’s songs is definately on my list and I REALLY hope that Johnny makes more 1950s stuff available like this song here! Great, great stuff that virtually everyone loves to listen to hear in the South.

[Michael Bishop]

Here’s a couple of other great ones from Bill Black’s Combo 🙂

[john]

ya cool stuff. reminds me of Honky Tonk and Bill Dogget.

[William Cingolani]

I would say Ace Cannon. I know Ace Cannon did the Hearts of Stone recording. Ace Cannon played a lot of sax with Bill Black’s combo. I play along with some Ace Cannon’s recordings like “For The Good Times” “Red River Valley”, “I Fall To Pieces”, “Always on My Mind”, and others. Al Hirt is on some of these recordings with Ace Cannon. I like AceCannon’s style of playing

[William Cingolani]

It could also be Martin Wills on sax

[john]

Yes William you’re right. I had to look it up, I’ve heard of Ace Cannon but not the other guy, apperantly they both did the gig at different times.

[Michael Bishop]

LOL I looked it up just a few minutes ago too and found that it was Martin Wills…I hadn’t heard of him either. Man, he played some good stuff.
When it comes to Saxophone playing in today’s modern world, a lot of what today’s young generation plays is modern funk, rap, etc.. Different strokes for different folks I guess, but what I see a lot of very young, talented players doing, frankly, just doesn’t appeal to me….and I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way either. My personal feelings is that it’s garbage that they play. My wife also HATES a lot of what they do….what ever happened to truely good music? Sometimes I wish I had grown up in that golden era of what TRUE music was and if you’re someone who had that priviledge…to me you had something special. What I’m afraid of is, with the passage of time, this type of music from the 1940-1950s, old Motown, King Curtis, etc.. type of music is going to become extinct. I’m hoping Johnny will make plans to expand on more of this type of good, good stuff to buy in his music selection as it continues to expand.

[Anonymous]

thats the cycle of life Michael, the younger generation wouldn’t be seen dead listening to dads music – NOT COOL man! lol

The opposite works with certain cultures, they will stick with the
same type of music for many generations.

The western cultures usually don’t
find it cool to associate with the
styles of older generation, so they tend to distance themselves from their way of dress and music!

All down to street cred man – so you have to be in with the ‘new boys on the street’ man – all lot
of these musicians in their day – were the ‘new kids on the bloc’

But it doesn’t stop the rest of us
from enjoying some of the fabulous stuff they created!

[Author]

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