Jon W., who's cruising for the title of Bombmeister Jr., was saying:
>>The Riders' stuff is pretty durn consistent, though as Jamie notes, they've
>>acquired some additional polish over the years. I was on Riders Radio
>>Theater a few years back, while they were recording the show at Cincinnati's
>>Emery Theatre (a *great* sounding hall that may soon be renovated), with the
>>Katie Laur Band; the other guest on our episode was the Cox Family, who
>>kicked ass. The Riders are nice fellas all, and talented enough that one
>>can even forgive the accordion they so wrongheadedly added a while ago.
Yeah, yeah, I know you're baiting me, but it gives me the chance to laud the
only guy I know who can give Pee Wee King a run for his money on country
accordion: Joey Miskulin, aka Joey the Cow-Polka King, aka god. Riders Radio
Theater is no more, unfortunately, but I made a few trips to the Emery to catch
tapings and on one occasion got to interview Ranger Doug and shoot the shit
with the other guys. Joey was as nice a fella as I've ever met; when I told
him that I had his accordion instruction video on Homespun Tapes, he put his
arm around my shoulder and said "Any friend of the accordion is a friend of
mine!". He then gave me his home phone # and insisted I call him any time I'm
in Nashville. I've always been too spooked to ever do it, mainly because I'm
afraid he'd want to come and see me play and I don't handle that kind of
pressure well.
Believe it or not, I'm not all that big a fan of most accordion players, but
if more of 'em were like Joey, I would be. The guy is tasteful, knows when to
back up and when to let that pony run, and has chops that I've never seen the
end of. Plus he's a great producer; he produced that Ranger Doug solo CD that
I believe Jamie H. mentioned, as well as a lot of other ones for Warner
Western.
Getting back to Stacey's original request for Riders purchase suggestions, I'm
pretty fond of a lot of the pre-Sony Riders releases, too--particularly "Weeds
And Water", which I think has been re-released on CD by Rounder. It's got
"Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "Cool Water", natch, and not much jokey stuff. Real
nice.
And the show Cheryl's thinking about was indeed "Tumbleweed Theater" on TNN,
which ran on Saturday afternoons (of course!). I think the germ of Riders
Radio Theater came from that show. The specials they've done for TNN in recent
years have been really lame, though--sounds like they're not writing their own
jokes for TV.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Mark Wyatt * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * One Riot One Ranger * Columbus, OH
http://members.aol.com/oneriot/oneriot.html
** "That ain't no part of bluegrass...
that ain't no part of nothin'" (Bill Monroe) **
