Mystery Tunes Trivia Contest

We Have A Winner!

Veronica Austerman of Mountain Lake, MN is our latest winner of Mystery Tunes Trivia! She correctly identified the tune as "Windy" and the artist as Paul Gayten. Veronica wins the jackpot of $45 and bragging rights for this round of our contest!

As we mentioned in the hints, this tune has an interesting history, as does the artist. Paul Gayten was born into a musical family in Louisiana, in 1920. One of his uncles was blues pianist Little Brother Montgomery. Gayten and his bands spent years on the nightclub circuit around New Orleans, recording dozens of songs for Deluxe, Regal and Chess Records. Gayten served as a talent scout for Chess and, in 1960, opted to stop performing and start running the Chess Records office in Los Angeles, until it was sold in 1969. Gayten retired from the business soon after and died in 1991. (See this site: Black Cat Rockabilly Europe and his Wikipedia entry for more information about Paul Gayten)

The song is an example of "kwela" or tin whistle jive, popular in South Africa in the late 1950s. According to The Magazine for Traditional Music throughout the world, "Windy" is actually "a faithful rendition" of a tune released as "Tom Hark" in 1958 in the UK by a group of African musicians, Elias and the Zig Zag Jive Flutes. "Windy" charted at #78 in the United States. And, interestingly, The Magazine claims that it wasn't even Paul Gayten's Orchestra playing on "Windy" - that it was the Ramsey Lewis Trio!

Just one more gap to fill in regarding our hints: The title of our Mystery Tune is the nickname for a major city in the United States. (Chicago - the "Windy City")

Thanks for playing along with us on Mystery Tunes Trivia and Congratulations, again, to Veronica Austerman! Stay tuned for Round 12, coming soon!