Don’t Say Aloha (Rounder 0080) is a 1978 LP by Bashful Brother Oswald, the stage name of Beecher Ray “Pete” Kirby, who played dobro with Roy Acuff’s Smoky Mountain Boys and came to the Grand Ole Opry with Acuff’s band in January 1939. Oswald plays dobro on most of the album, banjo on “The Girl I Love Don’t Pay Me No Mind” and “Cripple Creek,” and guitar on “That High Born Gal of Mine.” Charlie Collins, a former Smoky Mountain Boys bandmate with whom he worked as the duo Os and Charlie, sings harmony and plays guitar, and Buck White plays mandolin and piano. Onie Wheeler, who joined Acuff’s band in 1962, plays harmonica and sings lead. Lightnin’ Chance and Joe Zinkan share the bass chair, and Sam Bush plays fiddle on “Cripple Creek.” Stacy Phillips and Bonnie Smith wrote the sleeve notes.
The fourteen tracks include Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and “Mansion on the Hill,” Bob Wills’s “Rose of San Antone,” two Wheeler originals, “Bible in the Barn” and “Should I Tell My Wife I’m Dying?,” a Kirby original called “French Song,” the hymns “Amazing Grace” and “The Old Rugged Cross,” and the title song, “Don’t Say Aloha When I Go.” Kirby has said his style grew out of hearing a Hawaiian guitarist play at house parties in Michigan, and his last recording, Carry Me Back, followed in 1999.
Tracklist
- 1 I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry alt version 2:49
- 2 Isle Of Golden Dreams 2:22
- 3 The Girl I Love Don’t Pay Me No Mind alt version 1:57
- 4 You Are The Star In My Blue Heaven 3:06
- 5 Don't Say Aloha When I Go 2:09
- 6 Bible In The Barn 3:05
- 7 Amazing Grace alt version 2:57
- 8 Cripple Creek alt version 2:18
- 9 Mansion On The Hill 3:34
- 10 Rose Of San Antone 3:58
- 11 French Song 2:41
- 12 That High Born Gal Of Mine 2:05
- 13 Should I Tell My Wife I'm Dying? 4:09
- 14 The Old Rugged Cross alt version 2:59
