Jerry Heist, being a collector of records, puts great stock into what some people might consider obscure record labels. For instance, he traded me a bunch of Mercury Big Bopper 45s for one copy of "Chantilly Lace" I had on a less-well-known label. Jerry regularly makes the local junk stores hunting records and some months ago came up with a real find. It was (1) a local label—from Las Vegas, New Mexico—and (2) a good contemporary country recording. J. Ben-Isaac and the Waterbears on Blue Canyon Records.

A few days later, Jerry discovered J. Ben-Isaac had appeard at Rosa's in Algodones and he found a poster for that show—a very strange photograph of what might have been the classic punk band all crowded into a bus-station photo-booth.

When Jim Terr of Blue Canyon Records finally showed up at my door one Sunday afternoon, I asked about J. Ben-Isaac and discovered the connection between Jim and J. Ben-Isaac was fairly definite and ill-defined. More than talking about J. Ben-Isaac, Jim was interested in playing a tape of his new single. "Railroadin' Johnny" b/w "The Roses I Remember" by Jay Wise, late of San Antonio, Texas.

I asked Jim Terr how he got on to Jay Wise and he explained that J. Ben-Isaac had been casting about for a guitar player, so Jim called his friend, Roger Friedman— Kinky Friedman's brother—and Friedman put him on to Jay Wise—who was an old friend of the Friedmans and a songwriter of some note. Kinky Friedman, in fact, co-produced the record with Jim.

Both sides of the single deal to some extent with rodeo, which I found, is a kind of obsession with Jay Wise. Jay Wise has written a whole (un-recorded) rodeo concept album for Tompall Glaser. Jay told me he sees rodeo more as a symbol of life in general than as a sporting event.

Jay Wise told me his folks have been around San Antone since the 1830s; that an ancestor of his was the first Rabbi in Texas. He's been an anthropologist and a somewhat revolutionary urban social planner. He has a horse ranch at Dale near Lockhart, Texas.

The Blue Canyon record is getting a lot of radio play. "Railroadin' Johnny," the plug side, isn't my favorite kind of song. It's about an old man in San Antone who's done some railroading and rodeoing in his time; rambling songs aren't usually my favorites. It has a steel track of railroad sounds which is performed by Wayne Gaily, the steel player for Albuquerque's Swamproot band, and is very well done—but not too necessary. The other side I like a lot better—I find it closer to the clean, modern version of traditional country production on the J. Ben-Isaac record (which Jim Terr as chief cook, etc. at Blue Canyon also produced).

I've heard a demo tape of several other Jay Wise songs which I think is very good. It's literate (a historically accurate song about several mountain men) and has the proper attitude and approach to country music. He writes songs which are aimed at a country sound and country audience, but they—like the best of the new country songs—don't try for any obvious consciousness (which, when tried, usually comes out more simplistic than authentic). He writes narrative songs (which I like, as a form) about cowboys and mountain men and such—which are some of my favorite subjects.

Jay Wise calls himself an entertainer—as opposed, I expect, to a performer—and that's accurate. His stage act is professional and funny. Off stage, his conversion is likely to be diagonal rather than linear. When the microphone is turned on, he watches himself, and the diagonalities take direction. Where the microphone makes most people nervous, it aids Jay; it justifies and gives purpose to his performance— which goes on most all the time anyway—off stage as well as on. I never saw him as an anthropologist nor urban planner—but as an entertainer, he's an entertainer through and through.

Jay Wise shares the Blue Canyon catalogue with J. Ben-Isaac and one other group. While that doesn't make for something the size of Columbia Records, it's well balanced. Where J. Ben-Isaac and the Waterbears are into an almost smooth sound (J. Ben-Isaac can be considered a smooth singer, I think), and Jay Wise is into more artistic (and less smooth) songs—but original—the third group does a lot of other people's material and comes on as a honky-tonk dance band. Which it is.

The Last Mile Ramblers—whose first album While They Last has just been released—formed several years ago in Santa Fe as a bluegrass band. Bluegrass seems to have an appeal to young New Mexico audiences—which are not in any normal sense country audiences. The Last Mile Ramblers have a very large following among those folks, and as the band has moved beyond bluegrass to other forms of country, a lot of them have followed. In some kind of real sense, the band has proved to be a country music education for that group of people.

Brandy at Rosa’s says people will call up and ask if a bluegrass band is playing; she’ll say The Last Mile Ramblers are playing; they’ll say that’s who they meant. Brandy will give them a short lecture on the difference in bluegrass and country.

Of a Sunday afternoon at the Golden Inn just south of Golden, New Mexico, where they do a regular gig every Sunday afternoon, their fans are legion. On a typical muddy fall afternoon enough mud is tracked onto the dance floor that there hangs a pall of dust at least to knee level and usually to ceiling level. The Golden Inn is going under new management and there’s a promise for an exhaust fan.

It’s a mixed crowd at Golden—predominantly bearded and bluejeaned/booted and long-dressed—but also a smattering of what might be considered a traditional country crowd. Some others with leather clothes and a lot of expensive turquoise and silver jewelry. More than a few clean-cut-looking kids.

With the exception of Billy Joe Shaver’s “Black Rose” and some Waylon Jennings material, I’ve rarely heard them perform anything newer than a dozen years old. They all express a good deal of reverence for the masters (and past masters) of country music. Their knowledge is extensive, almost scholarly—they say they greatly enjoy hearing an old record, and then being able to re-create it. All of them seem to like bluegrass best, but their reverence includes all the music they do.

Every member of the band sings. George “Bullfrog” Bourque plays flattop guitar; Spook James plays bass. J.B. Brown, lead and steel; Steve Keith, banjo and fiddle. Charlie “Relleno” Jobes is the drummer. Charlie once told me I should mention the name of the 13th Floor Elevators with reverence.

Which goes to show Charlie knows his music—the 13th Floor Elevators was the Austin and Kerrville, Texas band which invented psychedelic music, the term as well as the sound. Listen to an old Elevators’ record and hear what Big Brother and the Jefferson Airplane did two or three years later. Janis Joplin was set to sing with them when she got the offer from Chet Helms to sing with Big Brother.

Once at Rosa’s, The Last Mile Ramblers announced they were going to do an Al Dean song—which surprised me considerably. I have a talent for thinking nobody but me and a few other people know anything—of course it could be that The Last Mile Ramblers are a few of the few other people. Al Dean and the All Stars is a South Texas band of some longevity which is also well known in Central and West Texas (and maybe East Texas, too, for all I know). They are perhaps the best of the regional Texas country bands.

It was probably at that exact moment—when they announced an Al Dean song— that I decided The Last Mile Ramblers were worth paying attention to.

Which of course means they are a band worth listening to in the same sense Asleep at the Wheel is worth it, or Commander Cody. They are as interesting for their knowledge as for their interpretation. But where Asleep at the Wheel has staked out swing and Commander Cody has staked out fiftyish rock and roll country, I really can’t see what territory The Last Mile Ramblers might call their own. They don’t seem primarily interested in either of those fields—or, for that matter, in any particular field. And if they were, I’m not sure it would exactly be the right direction. I’m not sure anybody really needs another recording of either “Take Me Back To Tulsa” or “Twenty Flight Rock.”

As a dance band, they can, of course, use that whole spectrum. But the best of the dance bands—Bob Wills comes to mind—created their own material. And that’s what I’d like to see The Last Mile Ramblers do. With the kind of knowledge (and skill) they have, I think a solid block of original material could move them from being probably the best honky-tonk dance band in the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area to God-knows-how-far.

Their Blue Canyon single is original material. “The Hurrier I Go (The Behinder I Get)” is a truck-driving song written by Jim Mares, a truck-driver friend of theirs from Houston. That record also stars Slim Pickens doing a couple of lines. The other side is called “Come A Little Closer” and is written and sung by J.B. The truck- driving song got encouraging airplay nationally and is mostly about the energy crisis and the lowering of the speed limit. It’s almost a novelty tune and with my prejudice against novelty tunes, I prefer the other side. J.B.’s side is a classic mournful slow dancing song.

Both sides of the single and two other originals are on the album—along with a balance of non-original dancing pieces. The first cut is probably my favorite; it’s a vastly up-tempo—almost rock—and eerie “Ghost Riders In The Sky.” Spook does the vocal; Spook also does the vocal on his own “The Golden Inn Song”—which is a tribute to their Sunday afternoon bar and audience. Spook has a deep voice with an urgency to it something on the order of Waylon Jennings. His third vocal is Waylon and Willie Nelson’s “Good-Hearted Woman.” J.B. does the other deep-voice material, but his voice comes on more like, say, Dave Dudley than Waylon Jennings. He does a couple of truck-driving songs: “Phantom 309” and “Diesel Smoke (Dangerous Curves)” –as well as his own “Come A Little Closer.” George does the vocal on the other truck song—“The Hurrier I Go.” George is the member of the band usually most interested in talking about their music. George’s father had a country band back east, Slats and the Prairie Rangers, and he has an extensive background in country music. George also sings “Out Of Control” and “Future On Ice”—both pretty much traditional radio-type songs from a few years back.

I told George once that a lot of people in Texas seem to think Al Dean wrote “Cotton-Eyed Joe” and George told me that in a lot of ways, he did. That the version Al Dean recorded is so much different from the traditional fiddle tune that it could almost be considered new. “Cotton-Eyed Joe” is on the album as well as another instrumental,“Fresh Fish,” which Steve wrote with Mason Williams. Steve and J.B. arranged their version of “Cotton-Eyed Joe.” Of all the Ramblers, Steve’s voice and approach seems to me to be the most nearly bluegrass. He does the vocal on a bluegrass “Nine-Pound Hammer”—and, of course, supplies banjo on the rest of the album.

Charlie sings on the other bluegrass-like vocal, “Tennessee”—and a very affective “Roly Poly.” Though I’d stick by my original contention that the world’s already heard Bob Wills do “Roly Poly” and that’s about the only one we need, I think “Roly Poly” is second only to “Ghost Riders” on the album.

While They Last was recorded at the Blue Canyon Studiol in Las Vegas; at John Wagner’s in Albuquerque; live at Liberty Hall in Houston; and live at the Golden Inn. It’s a good showcase of the kind of thing you can hear of a Sunday afternoon at Golden and at the other area bars where the Ramblers play—and that’s high— energy, good-humored and serious country music. — by R.G.