121. "JOLE BLON" - Back in 1945, this was Moon’s first solo hit. The song owed much to Moon’s cajun roots and is probably Moon’s most famous cajun song.
122. "HONULULU ROCKA ROLLA" - A Hawaiian novelty song and a precursor to Elvis Presley’s films. However, this performance is good although the material is weak.
123. "SUGAR BEET" - this novelty swing song benefits greatly from Moon’s superb performance. Like many tracks Moon recorded solo, this harked back to his Western Swing days.
124. "FOGGY RIVER" - The Mississippi and other rivers have been recurrent themes in blues and country music and Moon offers us this excellent blend of country and blues on this theme.
125. "FAREWELL" - an instrumental, this featured a unique hybrid of blues, boogie and ragtime piano styles.
126. "RAGGED BUT RIGHT" - Moon had his last hit with this song. In style, this was a jazzy country-blues and very typical of Western Swing. George Jones would cover this one, later.Also,this is one of the many songs Jerry Lee Lewis did by Moon than has remained unreleased.
127. "MAGNOLIA RAG" - although primarily known for his blues and boogie piano playing, Moon was also an excellent ragtime player as this instrumental will demonstrate.
128. "WABASH CANNONBALL" - many people have recorded versions of this country/bluegrass standard. Roy Acuff had a hit with it and it was also done by The Carter Family and Ricky Skaggs. Moon’s version is the definitive one, though.
129. "PIANO MAN RAG" - a tough blues instrumental.This was also known as "Caberat piano" and mistitled "Bottom of the glass" on some albums.
130. "LOUISIAN" - another instrumental that mixed elements of ragtime, blues and boogie woogie.
131. "GRANDPA STOLE MY BABY" - this is topnotch raunchy blues and could well be Moon’s best performance of this kind. The song was written by blues shouter Roy Brown, who also wrote "Good rockin’ tonight".
132. "WHAT HAVE I DONE THAT MADE YOU GO AWAY" - This song shows Moon’s excellent abilities as regards jazz songs and this one is one of his best. Moon was always the most convincing of the Western Swing singers on material like this. In style, this is very like "Is you is or is you ain’t my baby".
133. "SHOOT THE MOON" - a slow blues instrumental. The bass featured here would be very common in rock ‘n’ roll bands and the like.
134. "GOOD TIMES GONNA ROLL AGAIN" - one of the very few easily accessible live tracks by Moon, this goodtime uptempo country song was recorded live at the Grand Ol’ Opry.
135. "LAY ME DOWN BESIDE MY DARLING" - recorded by Moon in 1941 with the Sunshine Boys. This song was another variation on the blues by Moon - this time, a jazz-influenced blues ballad. Its style owed to the old standard, "St. James' Infirmiry", which also spawned 2 of Jimmie Rodgers' songs.
136. "SUNDOWN BLUES" - recorded in 1940 with the Texas Wanderers without Cliff Bruner.Once more, this song shows Moon's mastery of the blues songs and styles of his times. Moon combined old and new and had one foot in the past and another in the future with this performance. As with all Mullican blues, he excels here both vocally and instrumentally.
137. "MEAN MAMA BLUES" - recorded with Charles Mitchell and his orchestra in 1941,Moon is the featured vocalist and pianist.In style,this song is very much in the "Pipeliner blues" mould and the back-up including trumpet means that Moon has done yet another outstanding and individual 12 bar blues track.
138. "DOWN ON THE BAYOU" - Like Moon,Jimmie Davis was often an exponent of Cajun music.He had,also like Moon,co-written a Cajun-inspired song with Hank Williams.This one showed Moon effortlessly mix Cajun-style msuci with a conventional country ballad style to great advantage.
139. "JUST PLAIN LONESOME" - Throughout his career,Moon always was a prolific exponent of the blues.By the 1960s,when Moon recorded this track,blues had changed meaning a great deal.The hybrid blues form was sweeping all before it in the shape of blues-inspired ballads by people like Elvis Presley and Jim Reeves.This excellent blues ballad by Moon is up there at the top and should have been a big hit for Moon.
140. "LIPS SO WARM, YET SO COLD" - This was a country ballad from Moon that could also have been easily a big crossover hit for Moon in the 1960s.As Kevin Coffey wrote about Moon once: 'Moon knew how to be commercial yet uncompromising'.This is an art that very few artists ever had.Moon was one of a select few.Moon's ballads were more commercial than his blues for sure - yet,the blues feel is always to the fore.
141. "BOTTOM OF THE GLASS" - Moon was one of the top honky tonk singers of all time.Such drinking ballads as this show us the emotion and sincerity that Moon can put across on such tracks.
142. "THERE'S NOTHING LIKE LOVING" - Moon's style was never rock 'n' roll as it is meant today.This performance is one of the many that Moon did that hinted at the genre.Basically,this is a blues and country hybrid without any pop compromise.It is interesting to note as well that 'pop' had changed meaning drastically from the time Moon started out and the dawn of the rock era.In the 1930s,there was no reason why Moon shouldn't be referred to as one of the best exponents of the pop musics of the time.Back then,jazz and blues - Moon's 2 favorite styles - were the influence behind all popular music.In the 1960s,pop music was disposable (something that can never be said about the songs of Bing Crosby,Al Jolson or Frank Sinatra).
143. "MOONSHINE" - this is a different track to his King era "Moonshine blues".It is another blues instrumental,though. Such tracks as these show us that Moon was a much better pianist than often given credit for.
144. "THE WAY YOU'RE TREATING ME" - Another bluesy uptempo country song that also could have been right at home on the Country charts in the 1960s.However,there was something too bluesy about Moon's delivery for the 1960s market.
145. "YOU DON'T KNOW MY MIND" - Jump back to the 1930s,and we have this great blues performance with Moon on vocals and piano on a track issued under the name 'Bob Dunn's Vagabonds'.Dunn was ex-Cliff Bruner and Milton Browne and a great blues guitarist.
146. "CEDARWOOD BLUES" - this instrumental blues was one of Moon's strangest instrumentals - as it was done on electric organ.He did a whole session of electric organ instrumentals at King and this track is only one example.
147. "STOMPIN' AT THE HONKY TONK"
148. "RACKIN' IT BACK"
These 2 instrumentals,dating from his days with the Texas bands,reveal Moon's affinity with jazz and swing.These performances are typical of the interpretation of the Big band style Western swing artists did.
149. "JUST FOR LAUGHS" - this 1966 performance was one of Moon's last.In style,this is a mixture of country and swing and in many ways provides us with a mix of old and new both for Moon and its writer,Ted Daffan.
150. "JACKSON COUNTY" - another Ted Daffan composition,like "Just for laughs" recorded by Moon in 1966,this song has a bluegrass flavour and is a lot like "Sparkling blue eyes" from the 1930s.This reveals how - despite the changes in country music and indeed the backing band (who are not exactly hardcore Western swing or bluegrass here),Moon's style was still intact until the end.
151. "WHEN BABY COMES TO TOWN" - going back again to the 1930s,this was a Modern Mountaineers session for Moon.Moon is featured on vocal and piano on this ode to drink.
152. "SWING,BABY,SWING" - this 1936 performance done with Leon Selph's Blue Ridge Playboys was one of Moon's earliest vocals performances.In style,this was swing with a blues feel.
153. "SWEET GEORGIA BROWN" - Recorded sometime in the 1960s, this was one of the many songs that Moon recorded for Spar Records. In style,this is an instrumental jazz piano outing - not unlike Merrill Moore's 1950s version of the song.
154. "MOON'S BLUES" - this is basically "St Louis blues" (probably as Moon would have played it in Church).It starts off as an instrumental and then Moon sings one verse from "St Louis blues".Also recorded for Spar.All songs from 155 to 161 were also done by Moon at Spar.
155. "CORRINE, CORRINA" - this is another old blues standard,though by the time Moon recorded it on Spar in the 1960s it was also popular with country performers of all kinds.Moon was probably aware of numerous blues and Western swing versions of this song.Cliff Bruner had a version out (before Moon was a member),Bob Wills and Merrill Moore also recorded Western swing versions of the song.The song dated back to at least the 1920s and Frankie Jaxon and J.M Williams both had versions of the song written.Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Boy Fuller also recorded derivatives while Clarence Williams wrote the derivative "My bucket's got a hole in it" (later done by his namesake,Hank Williams). "Midnight special" is a third song that shares the same melody.The song continued to be a favorite of surviving oldtimers into modern times and was a favorite in the 1970s of bluegrass founder,Bill Monroe.The version that had been recorded around the same time as Moon's version was actually by Moon's protege,Jerry Lee Lewis.The piano work on both their versions is very similar.Moon's singing is more rural blues orientated while Lewis' is more in line with Jump blues or boogie on this track.Big Joe Turner's playful version was a big R&B hit in the 1950s and was basically reproduced by Lewis.Lewis did a more serious,Western swing type blues version of the song in 1976.This could well have been based on Moon's version.
156. "MR. TEARDROP" - The title of this country-blues hybrid was Marty Robbins' nickname when he started his career.
157. "LOVE DON'T HAVE A GUARENTEE" - This country ballad was right at home in the 1960s and showed well how Moon could easily adapt to Jim Reeves' style.Of course,Moon's King ballads were an important influence on the vocal style of Reeves.
158. "COLUMBUS STOCKADE BLUES" - It was inevitable that Moon would record this old Hillbilly blues.Probably a traditional song,Darby and Tarlton were probably the first to record it.Moon recorded this song both at King in the 1940s and at Spar in the 1960s.It was also a popular track with Bill Monroe and Jimmie Davis,who also recorded it.
159. "OH LUCKY ME" - This jazzy blues ballad further echoes Moon's heavy leanings towards these genres.
160. "YOU CAN'T TAKE IT ALL WITH YOU" - In many ways,this was an expansion of the theme of "Make friends" and basically is about the difference of doing wrong and having it all in this world and doing right and having it all in the next.
161. "GAMBLIN' BLACKIE" - This type of cowboy story song is the kind Marty Robbins had made his own in the early 1960s.Moon's version is a blues telling the story of a gun-toting,card playing cowboy who kills his rivals (in love and otherwise) with both his guns at lightning speed.Marty Robbins was the undisputed hitmaker with cowboy story song in the 1960s.Others like Mullican,Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash were less successful.This track,however,deserved to be more famous.
162. "SHOWBOY SPECIAL" - this instrumental was recorded by Moon and the Showboys for King in 1946.To all intents and purposes this was the theme tune of the band.
163. "LET ME ROCK YOU BABY" - this unreleased 1946 King performance is one of the most far-seeing blues songs Moon ever sang.This song was a hybrid of traditional Western swing type blues and contemporary black Jump blues.In effect,this could well have been a big hit in the early rock 'n' roll era (when rock 'n' roll was blues overspill).
164. "MOONSHINE POLKA" - another 1946 instrumental that also works as a sort of a theme tune for Mullican.
165. "I DIDN'T THINK YOU'D EVER LEAVE ME" - a nice country ballad with a blues feel,this was another of the many unreleased tracks from Moon's 1946 King sessions.On tracks like this,Moon's vocal is very similar to Jimmie Rodgers.
166. "EVERYONE KNOWS THAT I'M LONELY" - A similar country ballad,also recorded at the same time.Again,this was top class material that went unreleased.
167. "YOU HAD YOUR WAY" - This country song fared much better and was issued in the late-mid 1940s by King on a single.The style is similar to the above 2.
168. "THERE'S A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN EVERYWHERE" - a more jazz orientated offering,this was close to the 1930s work Moon did with the Western swing bands.
169. "I GOT NOBODY BUT YOU" - a blues/jazz/country hybrid that again defines the essence of Western swing. Unlike the above 2,this was unreleased until now.
170. "THERE'S A CHILL ON THE HILL TONIGHT" - Jimmie Davis is an artist who comes up time and time again when we discuss the career of Moon Mullican.Davis was one of the fundamental links between Jimmie Rodgers and Western swing.While Davis is not regarded as a Western swing artist now,he was never the less a collaborator with many Western swing artists such as Mullican,Cliff Bruner,Bob Dunn and the remaining members of Milton Brown's Brownies."There's a chill on the hill tonight" was first done by Davis with Mullican earlier in the 1940s.Moon recorded an outstanding version of this for King around 1947.In style,this is a country ballad with a bluesy feel.
171. "JOLE BLON'S SISTER" - the follow-up to "New Jole blon" and by far the weakest of Moon's 4 "Jole blon' " outings,this was a No. 4 country hit for Moon in 1947.Why such a comparatively weak song did so well while there were Mullican singles of far superior quality at the time that didn't do as well is a mystery.In style,"Jole blon's Sister" is purely a novelty song and was a lot more like Coral-era material like "Wedding of the bugs" than it was like Moon's early King material.Nevertheless,Moon gives this song more conviction than it deserves.
172. "THE END OF THE RAINBOW" - Jumping ahead to 1954,this song was a country ballad of the style that made Moon successful on the country charts.This wasn't as successful as other outings of this nature though the material is of high quality.
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