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MUSIC THAT SELLS |
The greatest saloon piano player of all time
A musical re-creation by Charles M. Von Rosa
The year is 1938, the place -The Alamo Bar in



the folks at the Alamo Bar .............................. Omaha Slim & Marjorie Winslow.......... Buffalo Pete
across the alley from the alamo, dannyboy, my gal sal, dardanella, im confessing, irish lullabye, little rock getaway, cold cold heart, sweet georgia brown, tennessee waltz
(total time approx. 28 min.) © 2002 Croscrane™ All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable law.
Photos by John Vachon.
Notes by C. M. Von Rosa
Omaha Slim was the name he
went by, and was the only name that I knew him by. We were working a little
joint just south of Hoboken. Slim walked in one night and took a seat at the
bar. When you've been in this business as long as I have, you can spot a hard
luck story a mile away, and it was obvious that Slim was carrying a heavy one.
Be that as it may, Slim seemed to enjoy our music and graciously bought us a
round, so I sat with him at the bar and chatted a bit, knowing that I risked
hearing the story of his life, which came out in bits and pieces, mostly pieces,
I guess, but it wasn't as boring as most hard luck stories, and it yielded the
information that led to the music on this disc.
It seems that once upon a time, Slim was in the feed storage business, a job
that required spending a lot of time on the road. In the fall of 1938, while
visiting a customer in North Platte, Nebraska, Slim happened to stop by the
Alamo Bar for a drink. An entertainer by the name of Mildred Irwin was playing
the piano. Having seen Mildred perform back in Omaha, Slim was pleasantly
surprised. Mildred had a way of making the customers feel good with her romping
piano style and warbling voice. On this particular evening, another woman was
sitting on the piano bench next to Mildred and joining her in playing four
handed duets. It was this other woman who caught Slim's eye and subsequently
broke his heart and ruined his life. The other woman's name was Marjorie
Winslow. Marjorie was in North Platte researching the life of Buffalo Bill for a
Hollywood movie company. It appears that Buffalo Bill hailed from North Platte,
which was a surprise to me because I thought that Buffalo Bill was from Buffalo.
Not so, according to Omaha Slim, who said that I was probably thinking of
Buffalo Bob or his mother, Buffalo Emma.
In any event, Marjorie captured Slim's heart that night at the Alamo Bar, but
the romance wasn't to be because Marjorie was affianced to some big wheel at the
movie studio, which meant that Slim didn't stand a chance from the gitgo. But,
fool that he was, Slim courted Marjorie anyway. Eventually, of course, she shot
him down, but not before they had some good times at the Alamo Bar, Marjorie
playing duets with Mildred, Omaha sitting in on an old drum set, and a local
bass player by the name of Buffalo Pete rounding out the rhythm section.
(Buffalo Pete wasn't from Buffalo either. He was from Woonsocket, Rhode Island.)
From the way Slim told it, Mildred Irwin was not just your ordinary run of the
mill saloon piano player. An admirer of Stravinsky and Schoenberg, Mildred
sometimes played far out variations on the popular tunes of the day, leaving her
listeners somewhat befuddled and the boss scratching his head. But her
popularity never waned. Her fans remained loyal and the Alamo Bar was generally
packed whenever Mildred performed. Marjorie tried to persuade Mildred to come to
Hollywood, but to no avail. Mildred loved her gig at the Alamo Bar and her room
next door at the Palace Hotel. Marjorie did succeed, however, in getting Mildred
to cut some piano rolls, and from those rolls we were able to re create the
music on this compact disc.
We are extremely grateful to Omaha Slim for providing us with the photographs of
Mildred and the piano rolls. We dedicate this recording to Slim, wherever he may
be. He left one evening as we were playing the Tennessee Waltz, the only song he
ever requested, and hasn't been seen since. Whether Mildred Irwin ever played
the Tennessee Waltz, we don't know. It was not among the tunes on the piano
rolls, but we include it here for Slim, and for Marjorie, without whose help
Mildred Irwin's piano artistry would have remained faded echoes in the chambers
of the Alamo Bar. - Charles Maria Von Rosa
DISCLAIMER The music on this compact disk is a studio re-creation. It is not an actual recording. We do not wish to mislead anyone into believing that Mildred Irwin -- a real entertainer who played the piano at the Alamo Bar, a real bar in North Platte, Nebraska -- actually played the music you hear on this disk. She did not. As described in Charles M. Von Rosa's notes included in the booklet inside, this music was re-created using the limited information available. Like the bulk of the music heard on the radio these days, this music is fake. However, as our purpose is to honor a long neglected fabulous entertainer, here it is. We sincerely hope you enjoy this recording as much as we enjoyed putting it together. - Croscrane™
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