Merl Lindsay

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Merl Lindsay
Merl Lindsay.jpg
Background information
Birth name Merle Lindsay Salathiel
Born 1916
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died October 12, 1965 (aged 49)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
Genres Western swing
Occupation(s) musician, songwriter, bandleader
Instruments fiddle
Years active 1930s–1960s
Labels 4 Star, Bullett, MGM, Mercury
Associated acts Oklahoma Night Riders
Ozark Jubilee Band

Merle Lindsay Salathiel (1916 – October 12, 1965), better known as Merl Lindsay, was one of the premier American Western swing musicians from the 1930s to the mid-1960s and founder of Merl Lindsay and His Oklahoma Night Riders. [1]

Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and California during the 1930s and 1940s until a federal war-time nightclub tax in 1944 contributed to the genre's decline.

Contents

Life and career

Merle Lindsay Salathiel was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Clarence Earl and Louella Salathiel, early pioneers of the Oklahoma Territory. He began his music career in 1936 playing fiddle in his father (C.E. Salathiel)'s ballroom, Salathiel's Barn. In 1937 he formed his first band, the Barnyard Boys. In 1947, he created a larger band and added a female singer, calling the group Merl Lindsay and His Oklahoma Night Riders. During the 1940s, he owned a ballroom in Compton, California, and broadcast over a four-station radio hookup in Hollywood and Long Beach. He also performed with Jimmy Wakely in Western B-movies.

Fiddle musical instrument

A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres including classical music. Although violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a "brighter" tone, compared to the deeper tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (folk) styles, which are typically aural traditions—taught 'by ear' rather than via written music. Fiddling refers to the act of playing the fiddle, and fiddlers are musicians that play it.

Compton, California City in California, United States

Compton is a city in southern Los Angeles County, California, United States, situated south of downtown Los Angeles. Compton is one of the oldest cities in the county and on May 11, 1888, was the eighth city to incorporate. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 96,456. It is known as the "Hub City" due to its geographic centrality in Los Angeles County. Neighborhoods in Compton include Sunny Cove, Leland, Downtown Compton, and Richland Farms. The city is generally a working class city with some middle-class neighborhoods, and is home to a relatively young population, at an average 25 years of age, compared to the American median age of 38.

Jimmy Wakely American Country-Western singer and actor

James Clarence Wakely was an American actor and country Western music vocalist, and one of the last singing cowboys. During the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, he released records, appeared in several B-Western movies with most of the major studios, appeared on radio and television and even had his own series of comic books. His duet singles with Margaret Whiting from 1949–51 produced a string of top seven hits, including 1949's number one hit on the US country charts and pop music charts, "Slippin' Around." Wakely owned two music publishing companies in later years and performed at the Grand Ole Opry until shortly before his death.

In 1957, Lindsay joined ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee , taking over the ten-piece Ozark Jubilee Band. His group adopted the name when the TV program's title was changed to Country Music Jubilee the next year. During later years he toured the US and performed at his ballroom, Lindsayland, in Oklahoma City.

American Broadcasting Company American broadcast television network

The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network that is a flagship property of Walt Disney Television, a subsidiary of the Disney Media Networks division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California on Riverside Drive, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building, But the network's second corporate headquarters and News headquarters remains in New York City, New York at their broadcast center on 77 West 66th Street in Lincoln Square in Upper West Side Manhattan.

Ozark Jubilee is a 1950s United States network television program that featured country music's top stars of the day. It was produced in Springfield, Missouri. The weekly live stage show premiered on ABC-TV on January 22, 1955, was renamed Country Music Jubilee on July 6, 1957, and was finally named Jubilee USA on August 2, 1958. Originating "from the heart of the Ozarks", the Saturday night variety series helped popularize country music in America's cities and suburbs, drawing more than nine million viewers. The ABC Radio version was heard by millions more starting in August 1954.

Many famous Western swing musicians performed with Lindsay's bands over the years. Two of his female singers were Wanda Jackson [2] and Norma Jean. [3] His brother, Doyle Salathiel (1920–1976), played with Lindsay's bands as well as others, and was a composer who wrote the words for the band's signature song, "Water Baby Blues". Lindsay's nephew, Max Salathiel (1935–2006), an accomplished Oklahoma City guitar player, also worked with his band in the 1950s, as did his sister Alojah Salathiel.

Wanda Jackson American singer, songwriter, and musician

Wanda Lavonne Jackson is a retired American singer, songwriter, pianist and guitarist who had success in the mid-1950s and 1960s as one of the first popular female rockabilly singers, and a pioneering rock-and-roll artist. She is known to many as the "Queen of Rockabilly" or the "First Lady of Rockabilly".

Norma Jean (singer) American musician

Norma Jean Beasler, better known as Norma Jean, is an American country music singer who was a member of The Porter Wagoner Show from 1961–1967. She had 13 country singles in Billboard's Country Top 40 between 1963 and 1968, recorded twenty albums for RCA Victor between 1964 and 1973, received two Grammy nominations, and was a Grand Ole Opry member for a number of years.

"Water Baby Blues"/"Water Baby Boogie" is a Western swing instrumental first recorded in 1946 by Merl Lindsay and which became his signature song. Often recorded as "Water Baby Boogie" it became a popular dance tune.

Other band members included Robert "Buddy" Ray, Rudy Martin, Frederick "Freddie" Loveland, Louvenie Loveland, Ted Haff, Mike Hugo, Clarence Bailey, Homer Bean, Gerald "Buster" Magness, Gene Jones (steel guitar) and Sonny Rogers.

Lindsay was married to Doris Salathiel. He had three children, Merlynn Salathiel, Denzel Salathiel (1952-2016) and Jackie Merle Phillips (1934-2000). Lindsay died in Oklahoma City from cancer on October 12, 1965. He is buried in Sunnylane Cemetery in Del City, Oklahoma.

Compositions

Lindsay wrote many songs that became hits for himself and other Western swing artists. Among them:

Notes

  1. ↑ Boyd, The Jazz of the Southwest, p. 177: "... the famed Merle Lindsey [sic], whose big western swing band out of Oklahoma City was one of the best in the Southwest. ..."
  2. ↑ Wolfe, Country Music Annual 2002p. 193: "Jackson first performed on KLPR radio in Oklahoma City at the age of fifteen. She also joined the Merle Lindsey [sic] and Hank Thompson bands while in high school in Oklahoma City."
  3. ↑ Tribe, Country: A Regional Exploration, p. 102: "... Merle Lindsey [sic] and the Oklahoma Night Riders, which did well in the early and mid-50s, furnishing a place of apprenticeship for country girl Norma Jean Beasler, who as 'Pretty Miss Norma Jean' became one of the new breed of female country stars in the 1960s."

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References

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