Instrumentally Yours: Brassy Down Home Rag

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You knew it had to end..after two months of no country music, this month’s look at instrumentals STARTS with country music. Well, “ish.” You don’t think of brass bands when you think of country music, but that’s where we start. And, for those allergic to country music, be thankful that it’s less than two minutes long! Let’s go. Brassy Down Home Rag - Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass Sooo….let me tell you the story of George Joseph Nowlan, a good Irish Catholic boy from Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was an excellent trumpet player, good enough to join the Massachusetts All-State Symphony Orchestra and earn admission to the New England Conservatory of Music. He threw that all away to join Gene Krupa’s band. As his career in music took off, he got a name change. A record company executive told him he “looked like a Danny,” so he changed his name to Danny Davis. Davis played with Krupa, Art Mooney (he was trumpet player on Mooney’s hit “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover”), Merv Griffin, and many others. As he moved through music, he became a producer and A&R man for MGM Records, producing Connie Francis and signing Herman’s Hermits. Then he went to Nashville. One of the greatest stories in country music history revolves around Davis producing the Waylon Jennings album Country-Folk. This album, recorded with a vocal quartet known as the Kimberleys, earned Jennings his first Grammy…wait for it…for “MacArthur Park.” The album sessions didn’t go well, and the legend is that, in the process of recording the album, Jennings pulled a gun on Davis. (“We were oil and water,” Jennings later states in his autobiography, and nothing could be more accurate: down-home Texas boys and formally-educated New England trumpet players aren’t a perfect fit! ) They both later denied the gun story. So, you’ve been reading for five minutes about a song that’s not even two minutes long. Congratulations, you made it to the end…and now you know a little more about the guy who brought brass bands to country music. Brassy Down Home Rag Written by Danny Davis and Bill McElhiney Recorded by Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass From Down Homers, 1970 Gee, I can’t quote lyrics this month to introduce the video, can I?