For two stints, I hosted a late-night blues radio program from 10pm-midnight on WSND FM-88.9 from the station’s studios on the campus of The University Of Notre Dame.  Preparing even a two-hour radio show each week took roughly eight hours of work, as I always strove to make the 120-minute audience listening experience one that was hopefully highly enjoyable, but one that also taught them about different facets of the music.  My thought pattern was that if my valued listeners both had a great time relishing in the music, plus they became more knowledgeable along the way, perhaps their continued investment in the music would assist in ensuring the genre’s viability.  But as I always knew then, and still know, blues and related genre music fans, are some of the most rabid anywhere. 

With so many various blues and related fields of music, there are almost countless artists, regional styles, and instruments used to make the music that I never was at a loss for radio show inspiration.  Of course, I would occasionally hit a dry spot where I just couldn’t for the life of me see where my next show would take me when planning it out, but that notion normally subsided quickly once I put my mind to sketching out the plans for an upcoming show.

One of the types of blues-related music that always elicited excitement among my listeners was jumping, honking saxophone artistry.  You know, that brand of saxophone mania, the screamers and honkers, and the bar walkers, where it seems that the artist, whether it was Sam “The Man” Taylor, Chuck Higgins, Joe Houston, Willis “Gator” Jackson, Plas Johnson, Red Prysock, Alvin “Red” Tyler, Noble “Thin Man” Watts, and Big Jay McNeely or any of the many other practitioners of the upbeat saxophone calisthenics were likely to shred the reeds on their instruments and straighten their bends.  The hair-raising, floor shaking nature of this music always, and I mean always, produced great excitement among my audiences.

One of the saxophonists whose music never failed to strike a thrilling listening experience for my radio listeners was Sil Austin.  In particular, Austin’s songs “Dogwood Junction,” “Wildwood,” “Slow Walk,” “Pink Shade Of Blue,” “Walkin’ And Talkin’,” “Everything’s Shakin’,” and “Yipe” immediately come to mind as tunes that my audiences most eagerly consumed, and those that best represent Austin at his honking and bleating best, with that full, rich, powerful, and “wall of sound” saxophone style of his.  This is not saxophone for the haughty white coat supper club crowd; no, it is meant to get folks off of their butts to shove the furniture out of the center of the room and start dancing! 

Thank goodness, a collection of Austin’s best dynamic work can still be found on the CD entitled Swingsation, a collection on the Verve label (#314 547 876-2).  There is no better place than this CD to start a collection of saxophone blasters.  Each cut on the compilation thrills with its saxophone hysteria!

All this said, I think a brief overview of Sil Austin is in order.  As a result, I hope that you, the reader, may turn your attention to the honking saxophone hysteria that great artists like Austin produced for an excited and eager public.

He was born Silvester Austin in mid-September, 1917 in Dunnellon, Florida, a city in Marion County, a locale in the north central portion of the state in the Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area.  Little is documented about Austin’s earliest formative years, but research suggests that at the age of 12 he began playing the saxophone.  What drove Austin to choose the saxophone as a favored pursuit?  Easy.  He was greatly inspired by the sounds of certain of the major swing music titans of the day, particularly jazz tenor saxophone giants Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins.  So stirred by Young and Hawkins, that while a teenager, he moved to New York City, one of jazz’s major outposts.  In New York City, Austin continued to hone his craft while absorbing as much of the music of the myriad saxophone artists calling the city home.

Austin’s first real way into a more elevated echelon of the music scene was when in 1946 at the age of 29 he won a high-profile talent show at New York City’s famed Apollo Theater with a rendition of none other than the song “Danny Boy.” 

By 1949, Austin had experienced two of his greatest achievements; he both became a performer with jazz trumpeter Roy Eldridge and his band before moving on to what eventually became a three-year stint in the acclaimed Cootie Williams Birdland house band.  Needless to say, these moves offered Austin his utmost visibility in his still fledging musical career.

In 1953 and 1954, Austin had moved forward into the band of Tiny Bradshaw, the well-known R&B and jazz singer, piano player, and bandleader, again offering Austin’s broad saxophone skill set yet another profile with Bradshaw’s devoted fan base.  During this important period, Austin teamed with Bradshaw to compose “Ping Pong.”  This was a very important accomplishment for Austin as it started his songwriting career.

After leaving Bradshaw’s employment, Austin decided that his best move was to work to establish his own calling as a leader, and in 1956 he signed a contract with Mercury Records, releasing “Slow Walk” b/w “Wildwood.”  “Slow Walk” proved to be quite a hit, and the tune achieved “Top Five R&B” and “Top 20 Pop” designations.  Now, Austin’s career was off-and running.  As a follow-up, a later 1956 release, actually a B side to “The Last Time,” “Birthday Party” was yet another smash hit on the Mercury Record label.

It is important to note that Austin also released “Titanic” and “Sil’s Groove” in 1956 on the Wing label, a Mercury Records subsidiary.

Defining Austin’s sound during this initial recording period can be best described as quite exhilarating honking saxophone, raucous in nature, primal, perhaps even somewhat unrefined.  No matter though, Austin and Mercury Records knew that it was what the young record buying kids wanted to hear, and it sold very well.  Was it rock-n-roll?  Perhaps.  But it’s drive moved feet on the dancefloor, and made noise in the cash register.

A 1958 three-song offering entitled Battle Royale with Austin and Red Prysock was released on Mercury Records, and in 1959 Austin released the LP Sil Austin Plays For Pretty People.  Though the LP was wildly successful, including the major hit “Danny Boy,” Austin took a beating in the greater musical realm for what many of his peers and critics thought was an overtly symphonic pop collection.  Nonetheless, the LP continued to raise Austin’s awareness among music fans.

Austin stayed with Mercury Records for quite a few years, releasing singles and LPs.  After leaving Mercury Records, Austin signed on with the SSS International label, one owned by Shelby Singleton, the Nashville, Tennessee music producer and entrepreneur.  With SSS International, Austin released both singles and LPs. 

Austin also saw releases for other labels in the 1970s and beyond including Philips, Hee Jee Records & Trading Co., Ltd, Disky, and Polydor, primarily in Japan. 

About the time Austin began seeing the releases in Japan, he and his family had moved to Atlanta, Georgia.  By 1997, Austin was battling prostate cancer, and after four years of fighting the sickness, he passed away in 2001.  He left behind his wife, the Reverend Vernice Austion, a woman he was married to for 52 years.  He did have children, two daughters, and both numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren.

For my money, Austin was at his best when he was honking and bleating those fiery, sweaty saxophone workouts that moved crazed crowds of young folks onto the dancefloor.  The tunes drip and secrete primal emotions, and are blues in every sense of the word as they tear at the senses and heartstrings of the listening public.  They slash and rip at the core of people, and akin to the blues, raise tension and cause manifestations of thought and action.

Austin’s superb work is very much in bed with the blues.  Check it out for yourselves.