Lee Mace/Various Artists "An Evening On Buford Mountain" (Mercury-Fontana Records, 1964) (LP)
(Produced by Anthony A. Buford, Leonard Hall & Martin Peter)
Lee Mace and a band billed as the Ozark Opry Group back singers Jim Symington and Patti Douglas on this folkloric outing, a set packed with old-fashioned country and stringband material, gospel tunes and the like. The liner notes go into great detail about the involvement of cultural preservationists Leonard Hall and Anthony A. Buford, who hosted old-timey "hoedowns" on his farm. Symington was a lawyer working in Washington DC, but also a local kid, being the son of United States Senator Stuart Symington, or Missouri; the younger Mr. Symington also went into politics, elected to the House Of Representatives from 1969-77. Music wasn't new to him: in college he performed in the Whiffenpoofs at Yale; I wasn't able to track down much on Ms. Douglas, but welcome any information.
Lee Mace/Various Artists "Ozark Opry On Stage" (Century Records, 19--?) (LP)
I'm not sure, but I think this was the first Ozark Opry LP, perhaps released in the early 1960s.
Lee Mace/Various Artists "Lee Mace Presents The Ozark Opry" (Stop Records, 19--?) (LP)
Mr. Mace went whole-hog on this fake-live set, getting the Nashville-based Stop Records to press up this album, which for one thing means the sound quality is quite good. The performances are strong as well, particularly those of the steel player and fiddler who, unfortunately, are unidentified (and may well have been studio pros, possibly even the Stop label's head honcho Pete Drake, and perhaps someone such as Johnny Gimble?) Anyway, the producer and musicians are not identified by name, but they were all pretty good. The repertoire, though, could have been more creative... There are a bunch of the sort of concert staples that populate many mini-opry albums -- "Boil Them Cabbage Down," "Johnny Be Good," etc. -- and some stuff nobody really needed to hear again, like the ever-schmaltzy "Danny Boy." There's an over-reliance on the troupe's cornpone comedian, Gooferd, who re-hashes the old Andy Griffith bit, "The Football Game," as well as a sound-effects heavy rendition of "Mule Skinner Blues," and a cover of "Ahab The A-Rab" than just as stunningly un-funny as the original. On the plus side, there's some bright, crisp picking, notably on the version of "Games People Play," as well as a fine version of Marty Robbins' "Tonight Carmen." Lee Mace serves as the album's emcee/narrator, and closes the set with a lengthy rendition of "Touch Of The Master's Hand," which, again, could have been replaced by some other gospel number that might have held up better over time... But it's still a good snapshot of the Ozark Opry formula, sometime in the early 1970s.
Lee Mace/Various Artists "Sings Country" (Ozark Opry Records, 19--?) (LP)
Lee Mace/Various Artists "A Night At Lee Mace's Ozark Opry, v. 1" (Ozark Opry Records, 1973) (LP)
Lee Mace/Various Artists "A Night At Lee Mace's Ozark Opry, v. 2" (Ozark Opry Records, 1973) (LP)
Lee Mace/Various Artists "Some Old Favorites" (Ozark Opry Records, 1973-?) (LP)
One of the more satisfying Lee Mace albums, at least from the perspective of more traditionalist country fans -- lots of bluegrassy banjo and fiddle tunes, gospel numbers, recitations and a few comedic numbers that don't overstay their welcome, including a version of the oldie, "Phhht!! You Were Gone" that really got the audience going. Indeed, this one is notable for its lack of contemporary hits -- when they said "old favorites," they meant it. Like a lot of mini-opry albums, it's hard to pin down the release date, though this seems to have been one of the Ozark Opry's older albums: the back cover only mentions a couple of other releases being available, Night On Buford Mountain and Lee Mace's Ozark Opry On Stage, as well as a 45rpm single that came out on Starday... The back cover also features a photo of Lee Mace playing bass on the set of their weekly program on KRCG-TV in Jefferson City, Missouri and re-broadcast on another station in nearby Sedalia. As with many Lee Mace albums, the liner notes don't tell us who the performers were, though my old copy has a bunch of autographs, some legible and some not, including a few names I recognize, such as Stan Wagganer, a teenage multi-instrumentalist who started his own mini-opry show in the late 'Seventies, and released several albums under his own name. Other names are harder to make out, though they may include Dan Duggan, Roger Fountain, Rose Hulett, Peggy Scroggin(s?), Howard (Hulett?), as well as whoever was playing the role of "Goofer" at the time, and several others whose signatures were too indistinct to decipher. Anyway, I thought this was a very pleasant record, definitely worth a spin.
Lee Mace/Various Artists "Music Down Home Style" (Ozark Opry Records, 19--?) (LP)
Lee Mace/Various Artists "25 Years: Limited Edition Album" (Ozark Opry Records, 1978-?) (LP)
A double-LP set that includes covers of a few modern-day hits, such as a version of "Eastbound And Down" "Something To Brag About," and novelty numbers like "Me And My Big Loud Mouth" and "I'm My Own Grandpa," along with a bunch of hillbilly chestnuts like "Good Old Mountain Dew" and "Mama Don't Allow." As per usual with the Ozark Opry records, the liner notes are pretty minimal, but I'd guess these are tracks taken from earlier albums.
Lee Mace/Various Artists "Ozark Mountain Gospel Songs" (Ozark Opry Records, 1981-?) (LP)
A pioneering figure of the Ozark Mountain tourism scene, Missouri-born bandleader Lee Mace (1927-1985) was one of the first entrepreneurs to open his own musical venue at the Lake Of The Ozarks, which has since become a major hub of the state's live country music industry. An Army veteran, Mace returned to Missouri from Korea in the early 1950s and opened the Ozark Opry in 1953, steadily moving into larger venues as the years went by. In addition to staging live shows year-round, Mace hosted a long-running TV show, from 1956 until his death in 1985, when the private plane he was flying crashed near his home. Despite this tragedy, the Ozark Opry continued to operate until 2006, under the stewardship of his widow, Joyce Mace, who had co-founded the Opry in '53. A number of musicians moved through the show's lineup, although the souvenir LPs seldom mentioned musicians or soloists by name, so that part of the story remains fairly mysterious. Likewise, no release dates on the album art...
Bluegrass Brigade "Happy I'll Be" (Ozark Opry Records, 1981) (LP)
