Review by O.J. Sikes

album: Sons of the Tumbleweed

artist: Bill Barwick

Bill Barwick is The Voice of the Westerns Channel. If you're a Channel subscriber, you know his speaking voice. With his band, he's also the cowboy who sings the Channel's "Six-Gun Salute" to a different movie star each month.

So Westerns watchers have already heard Bill's remarkable voice. The rest of you are in for a treat! He's recorded a number of CDs but this one is my favorite. It contains 11 songs and a narration from Civil War days, "Sullivan's Letter."

Narrations, of course, are Bill's forte as a TV announcer/narrator, but there's also lots of great music here. Most of it is new, but there are some older pieces too, e.g. "San Antonio Rose," "The Redheaded Stranger" and the late Hoyt Axton's "Della & the Dealer" (there's remarkable similarity between Bill's and Axton's voices, making this entry particularly appropriate).

My favorite western tunes here are Bill's own "Carolyn in the Sunset" and Jon Chandler's "Through the Gap," but I also liked the non-western originals "All You Got's Your Name" (co-written w/Stan Rood) and "George's Rule." In addition, there's a beautiful fiddle instrumental by Johnny Neill, "Tumbleweed Waltz" from the motion picture Conagher.

The title of this collection comes from a very enjoyable poem about Bill and the band, written by Jeff Hildebrandt. The poem's lyrics are printed in the liner. Another nice job by Bill Barwick and the boys. $15 ppd from Bill Barwick, P.O. Box 100852, Denver, CO 80250-0852 or www.BarwicksVoice.com <http://www.BarwicksVoice.com> (you can sample Bill's music on the web site).

O.J. Sikes reviews western music for the Western Music Assn. and 'Working Cowboy' magazine, and can be reached at osikes@nj.rr.com