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The Cisco Special!

24 Oct 10 - 11:55 PM (#3014694)
Subject: The Cisco Special!
From: John on the Sunset Coast

I'm currently entering this fifty year old Cisco Houston LP into my laptop. Several songs have a chorus or background singers. One of the voices I think I hear is the bass of Lee Hayes (he wrote the liner notes for the album), especially on This Land (Is Your Land). Any old-timers, here, know if it is he?


25 Oct 10 - 11:22 AM (#3015004)
Subject: RE: The Cisco Special!
From: GUEST,Doc John

Try Jim Clarke on the Cisco web site, there's just about everything known about Cisco there. I haven't discovered this information myself. www.ciscohouston.com/ There are a lot of gaps in Cisco Houston information which have not yet been closed.


25 Oct 10 - 01:14 PM (#3015105)
Subject: RE: The Cisco Special!
From: Charley Noble

John-

And report back when you've checked.

I also have a fondness for Cisco's singing and am hungry for more details of his life.

Charley Noble


25 Oct 10 - 03:07 PM (#3015201)
Subject: RE: The Cisco Special!
From: Art Thieme

...and he sang like he talked too!

Yep, it was Lee Hays on that LP. "This here killin' o' deputy sheriffs has just gotta stop!" ----- and other places on it as I remember it. That was on Bad Man Lee Brown. Cisco sang "The Colorado Trail" on that one I think. Just beautiful.

When Cisco sang with Woody he sort of did adopt a less pretty style--sort of sang like Woody thought a folksinger ought to sound.
Just my opinion.

Art


25 Oct 10 - 03:22 PM (#3015214)
Subject: RE: The Cisco Special!
From: Joe Offer

What label was it on, John? Can you post the list of songs here?

-Joe-


25 Oct 10 - 03:50 PM (#3015231)
Subject: RE: The Cisco Special!
From: John on the Sunset Coast

Thank you all for your help...I knew you'd know.

Here is the requested info:

Cisco Houston, "The Cisco Special"
Vanguard, VRS-9057 (mono), 1960
Album notes by Lee Hays. This is the last project Houston recorded before his death. Although the album was released 'post mortem', the notes read as if he were alive, then.

Tracks as listed; ( ) my additions:

A1 -- Badman Ballad (Badman Blunder)
A2 -- Hard Traveling
A3 -- Nine Hundred Miles
A4 -- Way Out There
A5 -- (On Top of) Old Smoky
A6 -- This Train (Is Bound for Glory)
A7 -- Talking Dust Bowl
A8 -- This Land (Is Your Land)

B1 -- Old Dan Tucker
B2 -- Colorado Trail
B3 -- Old Blue
B4 -- Chilly Winds
B5 -- Dark as a Dungeon
B6 -- I Don't Mind Marrying
B7 -- Big Rock Candy Mountain