"We're, the Light Crust Doughboys from Burrus Mill": An Oral History.

"We're, the Light Crust Doughboys from Burrus Mill": An Oral History. By Jean A. Boyd. (Austin: University of Texas Press, c. 2003. Pp. xxviii, 164. Paper, $18.95, ISBN 0-292-70925; cloth, $40.00, ISBN 0-292-70916-1.)

Country music, in all its forms, has an especially rich tradition of amateur history, from personally constructed songbooks and play-lists for performance, through record collections, home recordings, journals, and diaries, as well as scrapbooks of clippings and photos. This book draws extensively on the work of one performer/historian, Marvin "Smokey" Montgomery, the conscientious and meticulous banjo player for the marvelous western swing band The Light Crust Doughboys from 1935 until his death in 2001. Such amateur historians rarely record interviews with themselves or others, and this is where oral historian Jean A. Boyd steps in, effectively presenting a case-study sequel to her The Jazz of the Southwest: An Oral History of Western Swing (Austin, 1998).

This slim volume (118 pages of text) addresses its task directly and brings to life the story, as well as the spirit, of an astoundingly long-lived (1931-present) and seminal band. The book includes 16 pages of photos, an exhaustive discography for 1936-1941, a short bibliography, and a very good index. Along the way, Boyd provides a capsule history of Texan music, including a suggestion that the twin fiddle style originated in the multiple trumpets of mariachi music. She gives a detailed account of the revolving membership of the Doughboys over seventy years and shows connections to other musical styles (even classical). She also offers a knowledgeable treatment of technical elements of musical performance. Thanks especially to Montgomery's recollections and record-keeping as longtime member, eventual leader, as well as sometime producer and agent for the band, the story has depth, precision, and the rounded human feel that oral history, at its best, invariably evokes.

This strength may also be the book's weakness in that the sources of most other information are secondary, making the subtitle of the book a bit of an overstatement. The other sources used are occasionally quite obscure, such as the four articles cited from the JEMF Quarterly. This defunct little journal lit a bright path for country music historians but is not well known outside specialized circles of folklorists. For digging up such gems and using them in an evenhanded way, Boyd is to be commended.

The best read in the book is chapter 4. After a plod through myriad recording and performance details in the previous chapter, there is a "ripsnortin"' feel to this chapter, with great stories about the band and its members at the group's peak. Overall. this is a very readable, well-documented, and nicely presented piece of musical and Texas history that tells well a story well worth telling.

JOCK MACKAY

Vanier College