Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Wilmer Watts and the Lonely Eagles


Here is a near complete collection of Wilmer Watts' Paramount Recordings. I am missing two sides: Chain Gang Special and Take This Little Bunch of Roses. If anyone has these, please let me know as I would love to obtain copies of them. I sincerely apologize for the poor quality on some of these sides: When the Roses Bloom Again in particular. This is actually a pretty good copy, but it was just a sorry pressing by the record company. Paramount also owned a furniture factory and they mixed finely ground sawdust into the shellac that they pressed their records on to make the material go further. This is a major contributing factor as to why Paramount's records sound so bad.

Also I will mention: I DO NOT believe in using ANY TYPE of filters to remove hiss or clicks. These devices do nothing but hurt the integrity of the frequency range of the music. I will sometimes use an equalizer, but only in severe cases such as When the Roses Bloom. I get cds and downloads sometimes and it is obvious that the recordings have been filtered in some way. To me, once this is done, I'd just about rather not listen to it at all. The clarity of music is in the high frequencies and you lose that with these blasted filters. And one other thing I need to mention: some of the recordings in this download have been filtered before they came to me, so that is not my doing. Okay, I'm off the soapbox. Enjoy Wilmer!

Special thanks to Robert and Kinney for providing most of these sides.

April 1927 Paramount Session
6 sides

October 1929 Paramount Session
14 sides
 

7 comments:

  1. These would not be the same without surface noise

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  2. There is a 1927 recording of "Chain Gang Special" by Watts & Wilson available on a Shanachie CD. Is it the one you're looking for?

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  3. Ahhh...Wilmer Watts - so good.

    I have Chaing Gang Special and Little Bunch of Roses.

    Let me know if you're still lacking those and we'll work something out.

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  4. Hello I am The Granddaugter O Wilmer Watts and I would love to have a copy of his songs. please email me at bindoweedoe@hotmail.com

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  5. Am doing a genealogy workup for the above Belinda and sure would love a copy of the above picture of her Grandfather to go on the Ancestry.com site. I know I could have just saved a copy, but wanted to ask first. Please contact me at jans884@bellsouth.net

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  6. This is such a wonderful resource. Enjoyed your concert in Charlotte tonite, Cotton Mill Blues is running around my head, and now I stumble on this!

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