Listen to part one of my 11/20/13 radio show here.

Listen to part two of my 11/20/13 radio show here.

An album by Bud and Travis (titled “Naturally: Folk Songs for the Present”) that I bought up in Phoenix the other day piqued my curiosity, so I started searching the web, including Ebay and Amazon to find more of their material.  I also checked Youtube  to see if there were any videos posted  of them performing together. It turns out that their careers are well documented at budandtravis.com.  Youtube contains a number of very interesting live performances, and many of their recordings and other related material are available both on Amazon and Ebay.

I decided to  gather up all of the recordings in my own library at home–lps, a cassette, and some cds– and it didn’t take long to figure out that there was only one lp the the duo recorded together called “Spotlight on Bud and Travis”  that I didn’t have. I had forgotten that I also have some solo recordings of both singers. I even have duplicate copies of at least three of their albums! There were some double cds of a few of these albums available on Amazon, and I purchased two of them, including one that contains the “Spotlight on Bud and Travis”  recording. With the acquisition of these cds, I’ll have acquired a significant portion of their catalog. Of course, I don’t have everything, particularly their solo material, but all in good time!  I love these guys. Their voices blend so well together, and their guitar work is superb. Here’s a link to their discography: http://budandtravis.com/discography.html

Travis Edmunson grew up in Nogales, and was an Arizonan through and through. He sang lots of songs in Spanish, and with his singing partner Bud Dashiell, recorded an entire album in Spanish called The Bud and Travis Latin Album, as well as a number of other songs in Spanish scattered throughout  the various recordings that they made together.  One of their best recordings is of the traditional son jarocho, La Bamba. I also like El Abandonado. Here’s a live version of La Bamba that they performed on the Ozzie and Harriet Show:

Post Radio show notes:

I just had to play a song by these guys on my next radio show. The song I chose was Malaguena Salerosa. It was in my opening set, and was  sandwiched in between Lola Beltran’s “Del Cielo Cayo’ Una Rosa, and Martha Gomez’s lovely version of “Cielito Lindo”.  It was a great little set, and I even got a  phone call from a listener who let me know he enjoyed it very much. That was nice!

Here’s Del Cielo Cayo’ Una Rosa, by Lola Beltran:

Here’s Malaguena Salerosa, by Bud and Travis:

Here’s Cielito Lindo by Marta Gomez:

The rest of the show also turned out well, which was a pleasant surprise, because I changed my plans midstream, and had to “wing it”, which meant picking and choosing what to play during the show itself (I usually have every song planned out beforehand!). I was originally going to play a bunch of songs that were about betrayal, anger, hurt and loss , since I had recently been through an unpleasant experience, but then I thought, why subject everyone else to these unhappy feelings? I want my show to be an uplifting experience, not a drag. I ended up playing two songs by the Grateful Dead and two by Bob Dylan, as well as some rancheras and salsa. Towards the end, I included two songs that expressed disappointment, but they didn’t dominate the mood. Overall it was an upbeat show, one that I thought turned out well, especially since it was one of those “spontaneous creations”.