Customer Reviews

The Best of Patsy Montana

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Patsy's most successful years were 1934 to 1940, the period covered by these recordings. Patsy later re-recorded some of her songs, but these are the originals. Her most famous song, I wanna be a cowboy's sweetheart, sold a million copies - no mean feat for a country record in the 1930's.

That song is a good example of Patsy's style, mixing mountain ballads with cowboy songs and plenty of yodelling. The melody was written by Stuart Hamblen, most famous as the writer of This ole house, a major international hit for Rosemary Clooney in the fifties and a British number one hit for Shaking Stevens in the eighties.

Woman's answer to nobody's darling is a reply to the Jimmie Rodgers classic Nobody's darling but mine. I only want a buddy not a sweetheart was a popular song in the thirties although nobody had a hit with the song - this surprises me, as I have come across several excellent versions of this song.

Patsy was the first woman to succeed in country music but she did not blaze the trail for those that followed, as country remained a male bastion for many years. The Dinning sisters and Patti Page emerged from Oklahoma in the forties, but they found success as pop singers. Rose Maddox had some success as lead singer of the Maddox brothers and Rose, but it was not until Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline emerged in the fifties that women were taken even half-seriously as country singers.

So Patsy must be regarded as a one-off. Her music was of its time, unlike anything ever recorded by other female country singers in the decades that followed. This is the best collection of Patsy's music available, or ever likely to be.

Enjoying this album. As with any album which has 24 selections from one artist, you can't listen to it in one sitting! Vocalion/Conqueror 78's from 1935 to 1940. Some were written by tin-pan-alley-type professional writers and therefore artificial. The best ones were written by her. Great band.

Patsy Montana was the female equivelant to Jimmie Rogers. She was arguably the first female country music star. And like Rogers, she may not have been the best yodeller in the world, but what she lacked in substance she certainly made up for in style. Most of Patsy's songs are upbeat, happy songs - and you can even hear Patsy's smile shining through these 75 year old tunes. Patsy started out singing with the Prairie Ramblers, a group which most afficianados label as the finest string band ever. And luckily, many of these tracks were recorded while she was still with that band, so you can hear their wonderful playing accompanying Patsy's voice. Shortly after she had gained famed by selling over a million copies of her trademark hit "I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart", she took off on a solo career that lasted until her death in the 1980's. Her yodelling actually improved with her age and you can find one of her yodelling CD's from the 80's here on Amazon and listen to her unique "yodelling grandma" style on those. But although the yodelling may be superior on those CD's, the actual songs from this CD are the cream of Patsy's crop and provide a window into a bygone era of American history that no history book can! If you want to up the ante after Patsy, I would recommend searching out songs from the phenomonally talented Rosalie Allen, who had an excellent yodelling talent and style. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to Rosalie's legacy and she has yet to receive a domestic CD release of her many wonderful tracks she recorded for RCA. So you have to find her on one of the many compilations she is featured on or on one of her duets with fellow outstanding yodeller, Elton Britt.

Was there ever another country performer as adorable as Patsy Montana? I doubt it. Montana was the greatest of the "cowgirl" singers, and now at last we get a chance to really check out Montana at her peak form -- perkily yodelling away on these delightfully antiquated, sentimental "western" tunes. This is a long-overdue American edition collecting her best work from the 1930s and '40s -- two dozen old tracks from Vocalion and several smaller labels that have been out of print for decades, available only on teeny specialty labels, and in dribs and drabs on various compilation albums. The songs are corny, but Montana's delivery is not, especially later on as her band put more and more swing into their sound -- and you can hear that progression as it actually happened, since these songs are presented in straight chronological order. A particular highlight is a tune Montana penned herself, "Cowboy Rhythm," which demonstrates how strange musical fads such as opera and jazz can't hold a candle to a coyote's howl and a lonesome guitar as the moon starts to rise... Fans of swing-string revivalists such as The Hot Club of Cowtown are strongly urged not to let this one slip by -- records this fun don't come along that often.

if you've never heard patsy montana aka: the cowboy's sweetheart you're missing a lot. this disc covers a great deal of the recordings and the quality is great. it beats the old scratchy 78's. higly recommended

Pas de surprise... Un vrai plaisir de retrouver cette dame de la country et son yodel si particulier...