Merle Travis - Sweet Temptation ~1946

Merle Robert Travis was born November 29, 1917 in Rosewood, Kentucky. He took a liking to the guitar early on and learned to play on one made by his brother. He saved up to buy one he had seen in the window at store and really started learning. He became interested in a style of guitar playing pioneered by Arnold Shultz based on traditional fingerpicking methods. Shultz passed these tricks down to others including Mose Rager and Ike Everly who Travis would acknowledge and express his gratitude toward, and even appeared alongside Rager in a 2002 DVD entitled "Legends of Country Guitar".

At 18, Travis performed Tiger Rag on a local radio amateur show in Evansville, Indiana and quickly received offers to work with other local bands. In 1937, Travis became the guitarist in Clayton McMichen's "Georgia Wildcats", then into the "Drifting Pioneers", cutting his gospel chops (he's also been featured on the channel playing in the gospel group "The Brown's Ferry Four"). His picking style amazed everyone at WLW radio in Cincinnati which led to more and more spots on their daytime programming and even got him a place in their barn dance radio show the "Boone County Jamboree" in 1938. In 1943, Travis and Louis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones would get together and record for the newly founded King Records label under the name "The Sheppard Brothers" whose song would become King's first release.

Merle put his music career on hold and enlisted in the US Marine Corps during the last half of World War II, returning to Cincinnati upon being stateside. The Drifting Pioneers in which he was a part of had left Radio WLW leaving a gospel sized hole to fill, that when The Brown's Ferry Four formed, performing both white and black gospel songs with Merle singing bass. This band became one of the most popular country gospel groups of all time, recording nearly 50 songs for King between 1946 and 1952. During this same time, Travis would make appearances in multiple soundies which were an early type of music video where one could watch the performer in a sort of "video jukebox" while hearing the music being performed. His biggest hits though were still to come. After recording for a slew of small labels, he signed with Capitol Records in 1946 and the hits started coming, all of his own composition. Sadly, most don't really highlight Travis' true skill with a guitar that peeked fellow artist's ears, but they rang just fine with the general public! This same year, he was asked to write an album of folk songs, and taking inspiration from his coalmining hometown, would write the songs "Dark as a Dungeon" which would be later covered by Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, and "Sixteen Tons" which would later become a No. 1 Billboard Country hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955.

He would continue with radio throughout the 1940's and 50's, even hosting his own show "Merle Travis and Company" with his wife in 1953. He was a regular member of the Hollywood Barn Dance broadcast on KNX Hollywood, and of the Town Hall Party on KXLA Pasadena (which would later morph into a television program). Sadly his recording success didn't follow his radio success although it did push him to create and invent new styles, branching into blues and boogie. The previously mentioned success of Sixteen Tons in 1955, and his appearance in the 1953 movie "From Here To Eternity" kept him afloat through the 1950's, long enough to find him a second wind in the folk music revival era of the late 50's and early 60's, leading to a guest spot at a legendary performance of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs at Carnegie Hall in 1962. In the mid-1960's, he would move to Nashville and join the Grand Ole Opry, becoming good friends and hunting partners with Johnny Cash.

Despite multiple run-ins with drug and alcohol addictions, often onset by his need to overcome his severe stage-fright, Travis would always pull out of the nosedive at the last minute, clean himself up, and pick up where he left off. He wasn't perfect, but he was much loved by his peers, evidenced by both Doc Watson and Chet Atkins naming their children "Merle" in Travis' honor. He would continue to make appearance on television throughout the 1970's and appearing on albums of more modern country artists like the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, introducing him to a whole new generation of country fans. In fact, the most prolific point in his career came when he signed on with country label CMH in the late 1970's, releasing multiple albums in quick succession. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977. Travis would pass away in 1983 of a heart attack at his home in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Today's song, "Sweet Temptation", comes from his Capitol period, and is one of the first songs he recorded. It was co-written by Travis and Cliffie Stone. The recording took place in either October or November 1946.