Jack Tate and The Sandy Land Play Boys, ????

Andrew Brown's recent posting of the Dixie Rogers single on Caprock on his excellent Wired For Sound blog reminded me that I had been sitting on a Caprock single of my own for some time. Oddly enough it will be my first posting on this Hank Harral label from Big Spring... so let's get to stomping.


JACK TATE AND THE SANDY LAND PLAY BOYS - Casanova b/w Maybe I Won't Need You Anymore (Caprock 111)

We ain't got the best of soil out this way. From Midland out east to the Caprock's edge near Stanton there's fairly nice soil in spots. North of Andrews heading into Seminole the land lays fairly nice with good farming soil. But from Odessa west and south it's just ruff stuff, seemingly more barren and useless the further west and further south you go. Calling it "sandyland" isn't too far of a stretch. Some of the land, especially in the Monahans area and back up north towards Roswell and beyond is just dunesville. Elsewhere, like the Rancho Westex backyard, it's a mix of rock and useless sand. It gets in everything and just won't come out.

But enough about dirt.


Aside from having released this 45 on Hank Harral's Big Spring-based Caprock records I know nothing of Jack Tate nor the Sandy Land Play Boys. I would guess they might have been from Odessa, Monahans, or even Kermit based on the band moniker. "Casanova" shows some mightee fine picking from both the guitarist and the steel guitarist, who I would have loved to have heard more from. The uptempo proceedings nicely suit Jack's voice as well, though it doesn't fair quite so well on the so-so flip "Maybe I Won't Need You Anymore".
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Another big West Texan "Thanks" to Little Danny of the might fine Office Naps blog for sending this 45 along some time last year or the year before last. Good to see Danny's incredible blog up again. He's also got an excellent new site dedicated to his vision of the exotica genre, called the Exotica Project.... check it out HERE.