Big Sonny & His Furys, El Paso

BIG SONNY & HIS FURYS- Fail Safe(Best 112)

Both sides of this early Sonny Farlow release bounce- there's a rubber band-esque bounciness to the production. This would seem to be one of the earliest productions from the prolific 'Gum' publishing company that operated out of Mesilla Park. Sonny was an El Paso boy, though. He later recorded a handful of sides for Suemi including "A Magic Touch"(unreleased until recently) and then later released an album with former Mother (Zappa) Jimmy Carl Black & the Loboys. Prior to the Loboys Farlow evidently replaced Doug Sahm as lead singer for a reformed "Quintet".

Little bit more on Sonny over at the always excellent El Paso Musicians blog.

The Celtics, El Paso

THE CELTICS- And She'll Cry b/w Jail (Linjo 106)

Best known release on a rather short-lived label. Released in 1965 and the 1st of two Celtics releases, the second being on the Coronado label. "And She'll Cry" is a bulldozer of a tune. And a nice, moody flip.

That's all.

Joseph Brunelle, Midland

Joseph Brunelle's 1981 release, Round To It, on Midland's NoMountain label gets better and better. The album is made up of singer-songwriter folk which sometimes straddles the line between light and dark. The three cuts here are those that struck me most on initial listens, but additional spins change the mind. The bluesy "Highways of Your Mind" has left itself echoing in my head for hours and hours on end on more than one occasion. It has received a bit of attention from those wandering further and further from the late 60s in search of the strains of psych. While I'm not so sure I hear that, I most certainly do feel the desperate loneliness of an empty desert highway. "The Barrys" is an instrumental duet shared with fellow Texan Barry Coggins, who had an excellent release titled One Man Singing just a couple of years before on a Dallas label (featuring a short instrumental titled "Midland").


There is also an earlier 45 rpm release on the Sore Thumb label which has been stomped HERE. A later, mid-80s release on Sore Thumb sees Brunelle treading waters familiar to a Buffett guy.

Brunelle is still out there making music with his wife Theresa (Tree) and with Barry Coggins in Duology, who you should check out if you at all enjoy the guitar work of John Fahey or Leo Kottke.

And if you ever find yourself in Study Butte, Texas stop in at the Study Butte Mall, pictured below. There you can pick up cds by Duology, the Brunelles, Butch Hancock, and Collie Ryan among others. And just about anything else you'll need from propane to equine and automotive needs.

Back Soon...

Ol' Westex survived another excursion into the greater Bend region. Witches Canyon musta been cursed as one of the caves swallowed me up on the way out, leaving the bottom of my left foot with a deep bruise. But Texas hikers DREAM of hitting the spot below...

... so how blessed am I.


Trip clips... I've never edited one of these movie/image things before so... Sounds are by Joe Brunelle (this track and more on the Midland Folk Blues post)