Singer, guitarist, and songwriter Ernest Tubb was a groundbreaker and an enduring star in the country music field, charting hits across four decades. Collecting early sessions with his backing band the Texas Troubadours, ORG Music’s Record Store Day 2024 release The World Broadcast Recordings 1944–1945 offers a vivid portrait of Tubb’s emerging talent, its 14 tracks reinforcing the artist as the trailblazer of the style known as honky-tonk. The set is available April 20 in a limited edition of 1,800 copies.
Like most successful musicians, Ernest Tubb struggled to find his footing. Enamored of the great Jimmie Rodgers, Tubb’s first record, cut in 1936 for RCA, was a tribute to the Singing Brakeman. “The Passing of Jimmie Rodgers” was unsuccessful in terms of sales. After a tonsillectomy changed his singing style (and ended his ability to yodel a la Rodgers), Tubb first turned to songwriting before giving performing another shot in a manner far less indebted to his idol.
Cut for Decca in 1941, “Walking the Floor Over You” was Tubb’s first hit and just as importantly is the disc where the honky-tonk subgenre effectively begins. The removal of those tonsils resulted in a sharp vocal twang that helped set the standard for male C&W singers across most of the ensuing 20th century; it’s safe to say that Tubb inspired as many imitators, some becoming major stars in their own right, as Rodgers did himself.
“Walking the Floor Over You” was rerecorded by Tubb numerous times in his career, with the first revisit heard here, from sessions held in Los Angeles at Decca Records in 1944. World Broadcasting System was a subsidiary of Decca that offered recordings direct to radio stations on a subscription basis (rather than selling to record stores) through an exclusive agreement with the musician’s union immediately following the resolution of the recording ban of 1942–1944.
Eight songs from the Los Angeles sessions are included on this album; at the time, the Texas Troubadours consisted of Jimmie Short on lead guitar, Melvin Leon Short on rhythm guitar, Herbert M. “Butterball” Paige on bass, and Johnny Sapp on fiddle. Tubb sang lead of course, along with adding guitar to the mix. Six more songs from 1945 sessions held in Chicago round out The World Broadcast Recordings. For these tracks, Jimmie Short switched to rhythm guitar, Melvin plugged in an electric guitar, Ray Head joined on steel guitar, Jack Drake took over on bass, and Sapp held it down on fiddle.
The changes of instrumentation are significant but don’t result in a major leap forward in style. Note that the steel guitar is a pre-pedal steel traditional lap steel that was common in country music at the time. Therefore, ORG Music’s decision to reject a strict scholarly chronology for this set, instead blending the sessions across the record with seven songs on each side, brings a pleasant sustained listenability to songs that weren’t conceived for the close proximity of the LP format.
This is notably the first time tracks from these sessions have been released on vinyl. Taking into consideration the technological limitations of the era, the sound is quite full-bodied. Tubb is obviously the focal point, but the recordings are clear enough that the weave of guitars comes shining through, the rhythm doesn’t get buried and the fiddle’s glide is clearly discernible.
If busy perfecting his honky-tonk twang, Tubb was also honing the qualities of a powerful frontman, his singing conversational as well as emotional, inviting the listener into his lyrical scenarios while maintaining the toughness and intensity that became emblematic of the honky-tonk style. The songs on World Broadcast Recordings 1944-1945 were well chosen as the whole illuminates how Ernest Tubb became a country music giant.
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