Donn Reynolds Song Bag Part One

Liner Notes
Donn Reynolds, the world's champion yodeller, and a Canadian. Born in Vancouver, he was winning radio talent contests by the time he was 13 and a year later turned fully professional as “The Yodelling Ranger”. Under this name he toured his own Western band and picked up the majority of the music country material which remains his favourite music today.

After a spell in the Canadian merchant navy and war service with the RCAF and a war department entertainment unit Donn made successful tours of New Zealand and Australia—which included his own radio programmes and a number of films in the latter country. He has appeared in numerous Westerns made in Hollywood.

In 1949, he returned to North America, since when he has starred in many network TV shows and on the theatre circuits with leading Western artists. He has also run a hill-billy record store in Maryland, his own TV show over a string of TV stations in Canada and the U.S. and won that all-American yodling championship! He is in fact the only singer to command a five-tone yodel . . . supplementing his vocal prowess by playing five instruments, chiefly concentrating, however, on guitar and electric bass.

In 1957 and again in 1958 Donn toured Britain, appearing, among other things, on BBC radio and TV, on ITV, on Radio Luxembourg and in leading theatres; he won Joe Loss’ “Bid for Fame” TV contest—and he recorded the four tracks on this record.

Life Of Regret, Donn’s own composition, was “written” while he was sitting in restless mood one day on a park bench in Nashville, Tennessee. “You know it is”, says Donn. “You start thinkin’ and things kinda come back to you, and then you feel sometimes sad, sometimes gay, and . . . well, you know. That’s how tunes come to be written!” In strict contrast is the classic Jimmy Rogers hobo song, Waitin’ For A Train—in which the discerning student may recognise Al Lerner’s Sandy Brown, Jack Fallon and violinist Danny Levan among the “Texans”. Where Could I Go?—the famous spiritual—is delivered in rousing and sincere style. The accompaniment features Eddie Thompson on the “rock” harmonium.

And, finally, Donn gives out with a moving version of the hymnal, In The Garden—a performance, as he emphasises, that is “strictly for listening and not for dancing”. On all four, Donn’s clear, melodic voice and unusual sense of appropriate atmosphere combine to make these C & W performances stimulating as they are expressive.