Pete Sutherland - Poor Man's Dream

Not much to say about this one, it's just a fine bit o' music. Flying Fish had a way of recording these albums that make you feel like you're sitting on a back porch with friends, even when the music is coming from all over the world. Sweet fiddle music and good times...

Raised on a diet of Broadway show tunes,operatic arias and British invasion melodies, Pete Sutherland discovered both traditional music and songwriting in college and like Huck Finn "lit out for the territories". A warm-voiced singer and multi-instrumentalist known equally for his potent originals and intense recreations and ago old ballads and fiddle tunes, his performances "cover the map" and "…shine with a pure spirit, which infuses every bit of his music and cannot fail to move all who hear him". The American Festival of Fiddle Tunes

Bio:

The old timey dance music of the American southern mountains, New England and the Celtic isles are resurrected through the playing of multi-instrumentalist Pete Sutherland. A former member, along with hammer dulcimer player Malcolm Dalglish and guitarist Grey Larsen, of mid-1980s folk trio, Metamora, Sutherland has continued to expand string band traditions as a member of The Clayfoot Strutters and Mac Benford's Woodshed All Stars. Sutherland has also recorded as a soloist and with his wife, Karen. 

Sutherland's earliest musical memories reflect the opera and musical theater albums favored by his parents. Although he played with several teenage rock bands, he most enduring musical outlet has come through traditional folk music. Inspired by Vermont-based fiddler Louie Beaudoin and Appalachian fiddlers Tommy Jarrell and Ed Haley, Sutherland began performing with the Arm & Hammer String Band in 1973. Moving to Burlington, Indiana in the early-1980s, he helped to form Metamora. Together with the band, Sutherland recorded six albums including the score of the Disney film, "Tuck Everlasting." 

"Poor Man's Dream," Sutherland's debut solo album, was released in 1984 and combined traditional fiddle tunes with original material. Shortly after the disbanding of Metamora, in 1989, Sutherland returned to his home state where he currently lives. Craig Harris, Rovi

Pete Sutherland - Poor Man's Dream

Year: 1984
Label: Flying Fish

Originally issued as an LP on the long-gone Flying Fish label, this 1984 recording of original and traditional songs and tunes produced by Metamora bandmate Grey Larsen has been repeatedly called a "folk classic" - featuring "Aunt Sue" and "Shacks and Chalets".

Tracks:
01 Coal Black Morning
02 The Apple Picker's Waltz - The Beautiful Lights of Burlington
03 Leather Britches
04 Coleman's March - Shacks and Chalets
05 Inch Along
06 Aunt Sue - Motleigh - Stone's Throw
07 You Were the One Who Loved Me
08 Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
09 Mad River - Poor Man' Dream

dream on. or alternate link. or other alternate link.
vinyl, cleaned | mp3 >256kbps vbr | w/ scans

Ed Haley

Ok, so this isn't a picture of our man, but it came up on a google search, and was too good not to use ;-)

Ed Haley was, as near as I can figure it, the American equivalent of Michael Coleman. Ferocious fiddling from the dawn of the 20th Century which left its mark on everything that has come to follow. You old-time music-lovers, I really oughtn't have to say anything. As far as fiddling is concerned, this is where it's at. Look at the size of his bow. You know what they say about blind guys with big bows, right?

Ed Haley Bio:

1883-1951 - East Kentucky/West Virginia

James Edward "Ed" Haley was born in 1883 on Hart's Creek in Logan County, West Virginia. Haley, who was a blind professional fiddler, never recorded commercially during his lifetime; he was afraid that the record companies would take advantage of a blind man. However, there were recordings made by Haley's son Ralph on a home disc-cutting machine. When Ralph died, the recordings were evenly divided among the five remaining children. It is believed that the 106 sides which remain are only about one third of those recorded.Most of these have been issued on CD by Rounder Records on two 2-CD sets. The digital rejuvenation of these disks is remarkable.

Haley, who was often accompanied by his wife Martha, who was also blind and played mandolin, traveled to fiddle contests and small towns throughout West Virginia and Kentucky. Before the depression, he made as much as twenty dollars a day. But Haley would also play special requests for people who loved fiddling but had no money to pay for it. One of Haley's lifelong friends was an Ivydale physicial named Laury Hicks. Shortly before he died, Hicks requested that he be able to hear Ed Haley one more time. Ed arrived too late, and it is said that he played over Laury's grave for hours into the night.

In regard to his own fiddling, Haley was not particularly vain, although he was aware that he could put "slurs and insults" into a tune in a manner that set him apart from all other fiddlers. "I like to flavor up a tune," he told Cecil Williamson, "so that nobody in the world could tell what I'm playing.. And he sometimes wished that "someone might pattern after me a little when I'm dead." Today, many young fiddlers such as Brad Leftwich from Indiana and Bruce Molsky from Virginia, have proficiently learned Haley's tunes.

Haley died of a heart attack on February 4, 1951 at his home in Ashland, Kentucky.

Clark Kessinger considered Ed Haley to be the finest fiddler he had ever heard. Molly O' Day says that his playing was unearthly, like music from another world. J.P. Fraley tells how Haley's fingers seemed to possess a life of their own when he played, as if little men were running across the fingerboard of his violin. One old-timer, after hearing Haley play "Bonaparte's Retreat", declared that "if two armies could come together and hear him play that music, they'd kill themselves in piles."

--Excerpted from the original LP liner notes by Mark Wilson and Guthrie T. Meade

Biography by Linda Seida

It would have been a tragedy if the world had been left with no viable recordings of the extremely gifted and influential fiddling of Ed Haley, but that's almost what happened due to Haley's own wariness. The fiddler harbored a healthy mistrust of record companies and was always worried that they would pull a fast one in their dealings with him because of his disability. The Appalachian fiddler, who was born James Edward Haley, lost his sight during a bout of measles when he was approximately three years old. Although he made his living as a professional musician and supported a growing family of six children even throughout the Depression, he refused to deal with any record companies. Luckily, Ralph Haley, one of the fiddler's sons, possessed home recordings of his father that he made over a period from 1946 through the following year. Upon Ralph's passing, his father's recorded legacy was bequeathed to his siblings. In 1975, almost a quarter century after Ed Haley passed away from a heart attack at his home in Ashland, KY, Rounder Records put out a 14-track LP, Parkersburg Landing, that documented his wickedly good fiddling. But this album wasn't enough to capture Haley's repertoire adequately. Rounder went on to put out a pair of double-CD sets, Forked Deer in 1997 followed by Grey Eagle a year later. Haley, who never attended school, did not have an easy childhood. An aunt helped raise him after the death of his musician father in 1889. When food was in short supply, wild onions made up his meal. A kindly neighbor of the budding musician constructed a cornstalk fiddle that Haley tinkered with before he could own a real one. The fiddler wed Martha Ella in 1914 and the newlyweds made their home in Ashland, KY. Like Haley, his wife was blind. She did, however, receive the benefit of a formal education. After graduating from the Louisville School for the Blind, she went on to teach piano and she later played the mandolin as her husband's accompanist.

Rounder Records released two incredible double CDs of Ed Haley's fiddling: Volume 1 (Forked Deer) and Volume 2 (Grey Eagle). These are home recordings that had deteriorated dramatically, but thanks to the efforts of Bob Carlin & Rounder, they have been lovingly restored. A few of the tracks are unavoidably rough, but it's well worth it to hear Haley's astounding fiddling.

Ed Haley - Vol. 1 - Forked Deer

Year: 1997

Label: Rounder

This will be my second copy of Forked Deer - I gave my first to a Mando friend. To me, this is an essential source for anyone who really loves old time fiddle playing. The sound quality is a bit poor, like any source, but you will soon be hearing beyond the limits of the recording equipment of the day once you get into Ed Haley's incredible groove ( enhanced by some kick butt Mandolin playing by his wife).

Ed Haley plays the tunes with such buoyancy and spirit. Once you think you have it down, he starts adding these mind blowing variations - all delivered with lightness, agility and an almost scat singing- like consonance at the front of the bow strokes. Doot dah doot da doot. Listen and see what you think!

Disc: 1

1. Soundbite

2. Forked Deer

3. Ida Red

4. Indian Ate the Woodchuck

5. Brushy Run

6. Indian Nation

7. Humphrey's Jig

8. Green Mountain Polka

9. Sourwood Mountain

10. Man of Constant Sorrow

11. Love Somebody

12. Dora Dean

13. Soundbite

14. Bluegrass Meadows

15. Cacklin' Hen

16. Flop Eared Mule

17. Salt River

18. Brownlow's Dream

Disc: 2

1. Soundbite

2. Indian Squaw

3. Dunbar

4. Lost Indian

5. Jenny Lind

6. Chicken Rebel

7. Cherry River Flag

8. Cripple Creek

9. Done Gone

10. Soundbite

11. Yellow Barber

12. Stacker Lee

13. Brushy Fork of John's Creek

14. Red Apple Rag

15. Wake up Susan

16. Three Forks of Sandy

17. No Corn on Tygart

18. Stonewall Jackson

Brushy Green Woodchuck. (new link 8-6-2011)

~96 vbr (but higher wouldn't give you much more music) | no covers

* out-of-print

Ed Haley - Vol. 2 - Grey Eagle

Year: 1998

Label: Rounder

Amazon Review

In John Hartford's extensive and enlightening liner notes, he compares the old-time fiddler Ed Haley to jazz cornetist Buddy Bolden and Kentucky guitarist Arnold Shultz (an associate of Bill Monroe's Uncle Pen): legendary, enormously influential musicians who were not recorded and are therefore underappreciated. Luckily, Haley was captured by his son Ralph in a series of home recordings from the late-1940s, 32 of which are presented on this two-CD compilation. (This collection follows the other two-disc Rounder companion, Forked Deer.) Born in 1883 West Virginia and blind since the age of three, Haley's fiery approach combines an unrefined aggression and a forward-moving drive with subtle hints of sophistication. His unique (in modern terms) playing style--holding the fiddle against his upper arm and chest--allows him to move the fiddle as well as the bow, increasing his range and dexterity. While the sound quality varies, the musical quality does not. --Marc Greilsamer

Disc: 1

1. Soundbite

2. Grey Eagle

3. Cabin Creek

4. Silver Dagger

5. Wilson's Jig

6. Wild Horse

7. Half Past Four

8. Ox in the Mud

9. Cluck Old Hen

10. Chinese Breakdown

11. Soundbite

12. Sally Will You Marry Me

13. Bonaparte's Retreat

14. Money Musk

15. Garfield's Blackberry Blossom

16. Hell up Coal Holler

17. Arkansas Traveller

Disc: 2

1. Soundbite

2. Cumberland Gap

3. Parkersburg Landing

4. Flowers of the Morning

5. Cuckoo's Nest

6. Cuckoo's Nest

7. Boatsman

8. Old Sledge

9. Paddy on the Turnpike

10. Soundbite

11. Catlettsburg

12. Fire on the Mountain

13. Poplar Bluff

14. Sally Goodin'

15. Cherokee Polka

16. Pumpkin Ridge

17. Mississippi Sawyer

18. Kiss Me Quick

19. Rebel Raid

Kiss the Horse's Jig

Alternate Link *added 9-11-2010

~96 vbr (but higher wouldn't give you much more music) | no covers

* out-of-print

oh, and if you want to hear another Fiddlin' Originator, check out Eck Robertson - Famous Cowboy Fiddler over at the Down Home Radio Show

Michael Cross - Child Prodigy

This is a really fun, engaging, entertaining album. The picking & fiddling is fantastic, the singing definitely above par, and the songs are laced with enough humor and good spirit that even a song about undertakers can be cheery. It is the sort of thing that perfectly exemplifies the 70s spirit of acoustic American music. Fiddle tunes, slide guitar, driving finger-picking, and electric bass combine to give the album a great deal of diversity and fullness of sound. There's nothing dazzlingly unique here; a lot of people were doing similar things at that time. And nothing particularly subtle either. But it's just got something so solid and pure and enjoyable about it. And come on. Look at that guy. How could you not have fun listening to him?


On this record, we proudly present a flaming new asteroid in the darkening sky of contemporary music, Mike Cross. This young man is clearly "born to play," for though he is only eight and a half months old, his instrumental and vocal interpretations already display a musical finesse and an understanding of the human condition which one would only expect to find in a person at least half a decade in age. The first signs of young Cross's gift were displayed just a few hours after his birth. His father, having come to the hospital to bask in the excitement of seeing his new-born son, was chagrined to observe that when he handed the young boy a baseball bat and a ball, Mike tore the threads from the baseball, tied them to each end of the bat, and began to play booming bass runs. To complete the effect, the precocious boy launched into a highly charged vocalization of a tune he was later to call "Bassinette Blues." Within days his father made him his first guitar out of a crush-proof cigarette box and a popsicle stick, using laminated cobwebs as strings.

Cross practiced fanatically, soaking up new ideas like a disposable diaper, and soon his talent was in demand and frequently on display at local baby showers. The gut level savagery of his vocal delivery, when juxaposed to the gentle nuances of his guitar work in such pieces as "Mama Let Me Down," hacks new pathways into the forests of pathos, and never fails to bring tears of subliminal understanding to his listeners everywhere. But the drama and excitement of his live performances is more than just words and music united in a passionate embrace. To see his chubby body hunched over his guitar and to watch his tiny fingers flying up and down the finger board like frightened roaches running across a lunch counter is to witness the external struggle of existential man trying desperately to leap across the void between what is and what should be. The message is simple, direct, and yet somehow elusive. This album attempts to capture a little of that. Grab quickly, friends, lest it get away.

Mike Cross - Biography

There was a time when only a handful of students and alumni in Chapel Hill, NC, showed up faithfully when entertainer Mike Cross played a local club.

Now, thirteen albums, numerous network radio and television appearances and hundreds of concerts later, things are rapidly changing. Whether he is appearing at Symphony Hall in Boston or an outdoor music festival in California, people across the country look forward to seeing their favorite fiddling storyteller and sharing the fun with friends.

Everything about Cross and his music is one cut above fantasy; his show, his music, his beginning as a musician. "The gist of it is, I got sick in a snowstorm during my junior year in college and ended up spending the night in a friend's dormitory room," as Cross tells it. "It turned out his roommate played the guitar." That roommate spent the next two days teaching Cross his first chords and songs.

Now, over 20 years later, he still plays guitar - and fiddle as well - traveling coast-to-coast delighting audiences with 12-string bottleneck blues, fiery Irish jigs and a wealth of his own music and stories filled with backwoods humor characteristic of a Mark Twain or Will Rogers.

Born in Maryville, Tennessee in 1946, he grew up in the Appalachian mountains, a region well known for storytellers and songwriters. The fact that Cross originates songs and stories in this tradition is one of the few logical parts of his tale. But the logic ends here.

"The ironic thing about this is, although I grew up around a bunch of talented musicians, my great addiction in life was golf. I was a hard-core golfer from the time I was about 10 years old until I went off to college."

"I was going to go to college and play golf on a scholarship, but I fell in love with a high school sweetheart. I thought I'd go off to college and study to be a doctor; do something solid and secure so she'd marry me."

"We broke up when I was a freshman. I'd given up my golf scholarship and even sold my clubs, so I had to find something to replace them. I think that's why I took up the guitar. I needed a new passion in life."

"I've been incredibly fortunate to make a living at playing music, because there's no logical reason why I should be able to do it, starting out so late, not having any idea of how to perform for an audience, having a tin ear and a scratchy old voice that behaves half the time. Sometimes I come home at night and I'll lie back in bed and think--I just can't believe all those people came out to see me storm around on stage for a couple of hours."

Establishing a rapport with an audience is essential to Cross . "I want people to leave a show of mine saying, 'Boy, I had a good time'."

Following the release of two new albums and a "Best of Mike Cross" CD on Sugar Hill, the future means more writing and recording, and many more miles of highway and skyway, constantly coming into contact with new people and places. Picking, fiddling and joking, Mike Cross lives to delight and entertain.

Michael Cross - Child Prodigy

Year: 1975
Label: TGS Records

Tracklist:
1. Tanner's Farm (2:40)
2. Big City Rambling (2:40)
3. Elma Turl (2:01)
4. Pumpkin Thyme (1:02)
5. Little Ditches (2:52)
6. Blue Ridge Lake (3:22)
7. Wisdom Or A Drink (3:10)
8. Better Times (2:32)
9a. Old Mother Flanagan (0:42)
9b. The Scotsman (2:38)
10. Leon McDuff (6:07)
11a. Last of Calahan (1:00)
11b. Lord Let Me Die (3:06)
12. The Wind That Shakes The Barley (1:44)

what they don't wear.
vinyl rip, cleaned, w/ little blips here & there | mp3 >256kbps vbr | w/o covers

see www.mikecross.com for other releases, upcoming concerts etc.

George Pegram

Here's one for anybody that liked the Obray Ramsey, or banjo/old-time music in general. Like Ramsey, he played banjo in the 3-finger style, but not quite bluegrass. He was as unique as a blue chicken, and twice as friendly. Whether you view him as "A grizzled, bowlegged, illiterate manual laborer with only one good eye" or "a broadaxe-finished mountaineer under a ten-gallon hat," he was the real thing allright - raw as a chewing-switch. Why do I love these guys? Because they're crazy and fun and just plain confound the mind to do anything but step aside and let the folksoul take over with tapping stomping feet and crowing hoarse throat and somehow a tenderness emerges like a soft pale foot from a dinged-up leather boot. So shoot!

Biography by Jason MacNeil
George Franklin Pegram was born and raised in Guilford County, a farming community that was rich in traditional music. Growing up as a teenager, the musician purchased his first Silvertone banjo for $15. He also met Zack Whitaker, a local promoter who organized fiddlers' conventions and showcases while Pegram was growing up. Also influenced by his uncle Clyde Pegram, George Pegram began perfecting the "double-thumbing" style of banjo playing, a three-finger movement that used single notes. At the age of 26, Pegram married Dorothy Louise Dick in Guilford County, then moved to Statesville. Upon entering the navy during the Second World War, Pegram lost one eye during the attack on Pearl Harbor. After working a variety of odd jobs in sawmills and furniture factories, the musician met Bascom Lamar Lunsford, a promoter of folk and "mountain" dance festivals. Needing additional acts to fill various folk festivals in North Carolina, Lunsford signed Pegram and recorded some of his material. Throughout the 1950s, he performed with Clegg Garner, Okie Mountain Boys and Corbett Bennett and His Mountain Dudes. In 1955, Pegram played with Walter "Red" Parhorn and more touring and performing continued. In 1957, Kenneth Goldstein recorded the duo for Riverside Records. Known for his dynamic and exciting live show, Pegram won a series of annual awards at the Galax Fiddlers' Convention, including the Outstanding Individual Performer in both 1966 and 1969. In 1970, he released his self-titled debut album. The album was the first album ever released on the Boston-based Rounder Records. Pegram continued playing until 1974, with the Asheville Folk Festival that year being his last performance. In September 1974, Pegram died from bone cancer.

George Franklin Pegram - Banjoist

The first time I saw George Pegram he was holding forth in his own inimitable, gravity-defying manner. The usual crowd had gathered at his feet. He wore a smile of unadulterated bliss. Bobbing and weaving his head, he and a guitarist, accompanied by two female singers, were tearing along in high style on that great reliable, 'Old Time Religion.' " Anne Gilbert

Banjoist and folklorist Art Rosenbaum described Pegram's playing as a "raucous, hell-for-leather, driving style." Robert Black further mentions, to achieve this effect "George Pegram uses a technique much like the well known 'double-thumbing' style. It is a three-finger movement employing single notes; the melody is picked with the thumb and the drone Is alternated between the first and second strings, using the index and the middle fingers."


George Franklin Pegram, Jr. was born August 5, 1911 and raised near Oak Ridge in Guilford County, the son of George (12/20/1881 or 1883-11/5/1955) and Phebe D. Henley Pegram (_1892-?). This farming community in North Carolina's Piedmont region was rich in stringband music.

Zack Whitaker (2/9/1876-11/3/1950), who taught music at the Oak Ridge Institute, was active in organizing area events. Whitaker promoted fiddlers' conventions and dances throughout George Pegram's upbringing, and, probably, it's those conventions that George attended when growing up. One of Zack Whitaker's musical compatriots was George's uncle, fiddler Clyde Pegram. A lifelong bachelor, Clyde Pegram lived at home with his mother and worked the family farm. George claimed that Clyde helped start him in music and that the two played together once George became musically proficient. George Pegram tells several different stories of acquiring his earliest instrument. Either his first banjo, which he started playing around the age of nine, was one discarded by his grandfather, or a cigar box banjo, which George made. Pegram continues: "My grandma drew a pension from the Civil War. I stayed with her, and she gave me a patch for tobacco. I said the first thing I was going to do when I sold my crop of tobacco, I'm going to buy me a banjo. I went down to Winston-Salem to a music store and paid $15 for a banjo a Silvertone. "I got to watching other banjo pickers. I'd pick it up. I'd go to school commencements, where there would be playing, and to fiddling conventions. I'd pick it up listening to others. "The first money I ever made in my life was for pickin' a banjo all night. I was just a barefoot kid and they gave me 15 cents. I tied it up in the end of a handkerchief and took it and gave it to my Momma." George evidently had fond memories of Oak Ridge. He would return there each year to perform at the horse show/fiddlers' convention that began in 1946. At the age of twenty-six, George Pegram married Dorothy Louise Dick (b. 1920) of Guilford County and moved to Statesville. The couple eventually had four children. Pegram professed to having served in the Navy during World War II, and to losing an eye in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. To support his family, George worked in the tobacco fields, sawmills and furniture factories of North Carolina and Virginia. " never paid enough to live on, and Pegram moved his family from job to job, from one small town to another, wherever he could find work and 'play a little music,' " reported the Winston-Salem Journal/Sentinel. The man who would change Pegram's life was musician, folk song collector and festival promoter Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Lunsford had founded the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in June of 1928 as a part of Asheville's Rhododendron Festival. "In 1948," says Bascom Lunsford's biographer Loyal Jones, "Lunsford was invited by Dr. Ralph Steele Boggs of the English Department to start a folk festival at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which was held in June. In the same year Lunsford also established a festival for the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh, in the month of August. Both of these festivals became popular events and made it necessary for Lunsford to locate new performers from places in North Carolina other than his native mountains. He traveled the hot and dusty roads of the Piedmont and Coastal Plain of the Old North State, seeking talent for his new festivals." Pegram, possibly living in Denton at the time, recalled his first meeting with Lunsford: "The old man discovered me. Oh, it was 1949, I believe it was. He came down there and he had car trouble. He wanted to spend the night. I said yes I'd be glad for him to. He didn't know that I was a banjo picker a musician. He had one of these recording things to make records. We eat supper and all. I asked him what his business was. He said folk music. I told him that I played the banjo a little bit once in a while. He said, 'Go get your banjo then.' I got my banjo and played 'Cumberland Gap' and different ones. He said, 'Why, that sounds just fine. Just fine. Let me record that.' He did, and I was invited to the festival." This account seems likely, although some of its details aren't correct. Since Pegram appeared at the first Festival, Lunsford must have visited George in 1948. Hoyle Bruton, publicity director for the 1948 festival, described talent scouting trips with Lunsford in the spring, and thinks that Lunsford had heard about Pegram before he went to see him. Arthur Palmer Hudson, reviewing the 1948 Carolina Folk Festival in the Southern Folklore Quarterly, mentions Pegram, "a broadaxe-finished mountaineer under a ten-gallon hat" as vying "with Clegg Garner of Randolph for honors as banjo soloist. George's 'Good Ol' Mountain Dew' a 'special request' number on every program after the first. A natural clown, with an excellent repertory of banjo songs and solo dance numbers, and with an inexhaustible fund of showmanship, George was the individual star of the Festival." Pegram also played "John Henry." The Asheboro Courier-Tribune reported that "One member of Garner's band, tall and lanky George Pegram, brought down the house with his rip-roaring rendition of 'Good Ol' Mountain Dew,' a number written by Lunsford in the style of the authentic folk songs. The large crowd, stacked up in the north side of Kenan stadium to the back wall, city folk and all, got the swing of folk music as George sang and whole assembly was soon clapping and swaying in rhythm." This event seems to be, outside of local community events, one of Pegram's first appearances as a professional musician. Although George Pegram would continue to work at a variety of manual labor jobs, from this point on, he would attempt to make a part of his living at music. Subsequent newspaper photos and recollections of area residents show Pegram still playing with Clegg Garner's band for dances at Denton (Davidson County) and Farmer (Randolph County) in the 1950s. And, a recording of the Okie Mountain Boys made at the 1948 event sounds like Pegram was also a member of that aggregation. In the late 1940s, George Pegram additionally performed with Corbett Bennett and His Mountain Dudes, both in public appearances and over radio station WTNC-Thomasville. Throughout his musical career, no matter what Pegram's band affiliation, George was always straining to take the spotlight. Pegram was such a singular performer, with his own style, that it was hard to play and share the stage with him.

The Pegram family moved to Union Grove at Bascom Lunsford's instigation around 1951, to a small white house off NC 115 near the Wilkes County line. With some of Lunsford's relatives living close by, Bascom may have been trying to take care of George or to keep an eye on him. By that time, George Pegram had become a favorite performer of Bascom Lamar Lunsford, who used him on the many events he later organized in the 1950s. Pegram played at the State Fair, the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival and the Burlington Centennial Festival (in 1949). He was a regular at the Carolina Folk Festival until its demise in 1956. And Lunsford subsequently put Pegram together with harmonica player Red Parham. Walter "Red" Parham ran Bascom Lunsford's farm and played at Bascom Lunsford's many events, including the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. Pegram and Parham had begun performing together by 1955, when they appeared at the Carolina Folk Festival. In 1957, Red and George were recorded by Kenneth Goldstein for Riverside Records at Lunsford's home in South Turkey Creek, Leicester, NC. George Pegram and Red Parham also appeared on several Riverside Records anthologies: Banjo Songs of the Southern Mountains and Southern Mountain Folk Songs and Ballads. The act ceased active performing when booking decreased, and financial necessity caused Parham and Pegram to appear on their own. No matter how much Lunsford valued George as a performer, the latter's lack of constraint caused friction between the two men. Loyal Jones relates that, "For a while, he would not have George Pegram on the festival. Pegram became so popular that the crowd would often break into chants of 'We want George,' and Pegram, somewhat heady over this popularity, might just come forward without Lunsford's nod. This was the sort of thing that Lunsford, creator and boss of the festival, would not tolerate. However, Pegram held an affection and respect for Lunsford." By the late 1950s, George became a fixture at both the Galax, Virginia and Union Grove, North Carolina Fiddlers' Conventions. At these events, he was often associated with Wayne Johnson's Brushy Mountain Boys of North Wilkesboro, featuring fiddler "Lost John" Ray (_1917-?). Pegram's first award at the Galax came in 1959, when he won first prize for the "Novelty" category. One of the pieces he played that year was "On Top of Old Smokey." He took second prize on banjo in 1960, and first in 1961, rendering "John Henry" for his first place win. The Brushy Mountain Boys took third prize in the band competition for 1960 and 1963, performing "Turkey in the Straw" and "Hitchhiker's Blues" during the later year's convention. In 1963, Pegram also played on the program, executing "John Henry," "Arkansas Traveler," and "Old Rattler." The Band possibly attended the 1966 event, when George won "Outstanding Individual Performer," which he won again in 1969. George's Galax performance of "John Henry" from either 1961 or 1963 was recorded for the Folkways Records' 1964 release, Galax, Virginia Old Fiddlers' Convention . The Brushy Mountain Boys appeared at the 1961 Union Grove Fiddlers' Convention as a seven-member band. The band was included on the 1962 Folkways album The 37th Old Time Fiddlers' Convention At Union Grove North Carolina, and were mentioned as "one of the wilder bands and the winner of this year's (1961) band contest" in the album's notes. It is unclear if Pegram was with the Brushy Mountain Boys at this convention. Photos of the band, which at least sometime included Wayne Johnson's sons, show a different banjoist. However, the banjoist on the Folkways recording of "Hitchhiker's Blues" closely resembles George. George Pegram also appeared with fiddler Lost John Ray at the 1967 Union Grove Convention. Wade Walker financed the record, featuring George and Lost John, for his "Wade" label. The issued tunes were "Mississippi Sawyer" on one side of the record, backed with "Cumberland Gap" and "Arkansas Traveler." Sometime in the mid-to-late 1950s, Wade Walker had became acquainted with Pegram at the Farmer Grange dance, where George was playing. Pegram and Walker became good friends, and George was a regular at Wade Walker's music sessions from then on until George Pegram's death. Beginning at this time, as Mark Walker, Wade's son reports, "Pegram worked for the Southern Railroad as an entertainer at their conferences and meetings, traveling all over the country and even to Hawaii. They bought him a banjo, one of the last ones that he had. But I think he pawned it off when he got hurting for money. It was one of the Earl Scruggs models. They'd buy him new clothes, you know, before they'd take him on those trips. He wouldn't even have decent clothes, you know, to take with him. And when he'd come home, he might come into work at the sawmill or somewhere with them good clothes on and they'd have to buy new ones again then." By the late 1960s, the Pegram family had migrated once again, living for several years near Galax, Virginia. The following article appeared in the Galax Gazette, July 24,1969, and aptly describes Pegram's public appearances. "A perennial favorite at the convention is George Pegram of nearby Fries, Virginia, located like Galax, near the line separating Carroll and Grayson Counties. "Pegram, grizzled and balding and with only one good eye, is a virtuoso of the bluegrass banjo style. He is a showman, too, likely to put aside his instrument and dance into a loose-joined shuffle. "As he attacks the chorus of 'Cumberland Gap,' his lean old body tilts backward from the knees until his beaten black hat stands parallel to the ground and he is face to face with the August moon. He hoists his banjo high, fingers plucking louder and louder around the melody and a guttural hum hurtles from his throat into a piercing howl guaranteed to boil the blood: "'MmmmmYeoww! Way down yonder in Cumberland Gap!'" David Holt, the well-known banjoist and host of radio and television shows (including Mountain Stage), also witnessed his first Pegram performance that summer. "I will never forget the first time I saw George Pegram play. It was 1969 at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina. He came out on stage grinning from ear to ear, eyes darting around the auditorium like he was getting ready to play a hugh practical joke. He was bowlegged and slightly stooped from the weight of his banjo hanging around his neck. You sensed right away this guy was the 'real thing.' "Harmonica player Red Parham blew a couple of high, piercing notes to start 'Cindy.' George grabbed at the strings of his banjo as though he were trying to catch up with Red. Then all of a sudden they hooked into each others timing and were in perfect sync. It felt like an electric current went through the audience. Spontaneously the entire crowd began hollering and hooting. The music was so raw, so real and so damn good, you couldn't help it. They played through the tune like they were trying to hold onto an out of control freight train. It was one of the most exciting musical experiences I've ever had. And to this day, every time I play 'Cindy' I think of how George Pegram made that song come alive." The recordings heard on this compact disc were made by Charles Faurot (called "Farout" in the original album notes), well known for his tapes for County Records of Carolina/Virginia stringband music. Originally offered to Ken Davidson's Kanawha label for release, this became the first record on the fledgling Rounder label in 1971. Ken Irwin and Bill Nowlin, two of the three current partners in Rounder, had become interested in traditional music during the early 1960s through the recordings of Pete Seeger and the Kingston Trio. As undergraduate roommates, they followed music in the Boston area, often attending shows at the Club 47 in Cambridge. In 1966, their senior year in college, they both began attending the southern fiddler's conventions at Union Grove and Galax. After one such Galax event, Irwin was picked up hitchhiking (those were the days!) by Ken Davidson. He spent a few days at Davidson's home in West Virginia, visiting area musicians. Davidson's Kanawha operation made a favorable impression, and, upon his return to Boston, Irwin commented to Nowlin that they, too, should start a record label. In 1969, in the company of the third Rounder, then Marian Leighton, Ken again visited Ken Davidson, now relocated to Florida. Davidson played the tape of George Pegram heard here, and mentioned that he wasn't going to put it out. Since Irwin and Leighton were familiar with Pegram from his earlier lp with Parham and his star status at Union Grove, they jumped at the chance to acquire the tapes for their new record label (for $125!). Fred Cockerham (11/3/1905-7/8/1980), at the time living in Low Gap, North Carolina, is the best known of the musicians accompanying George Pegram on this disc. A fiddler and banjoist famous through his association with Tommy Jarrell and Kyle Creed, Fred can be heard on many County releases. Jack Bryant, nineteen years old when these recordings were made, was an auto body repairman from Galax, Virginia. Clyde Isaacs, a musical compatriot of Fred Cockerham in the Virginia-Carolina Ramblers, and a retired painter from Galax, was sixty-seven years old on the occasion of these sessions. Around the fall of 1969, the Pegrams relocated to Cedar Grove Township outside of Asheboro, North Carolina. The move took George closer to his friend and patron Wade Walker, and to a job with the State Dept of Transportation, overseeing gravel spreading crews for Randolph County. About this time, George Pegram reunited with Red Parham, and the duo played the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, Berea College and the Union Grove Fiddlers' Convention. One of George's last appearances was with Parham at the Asheville Folk Festival, in August of 1974. A late 1973/early 1974 show by Pegram at Gardner-Webb College is described by Mark Walker: "He played before the Mission Mountain Wood Band. But George just put on a real good show and I remember after the show there, he went down one side of the bleachers there and I believe he kissed or hugged every girl on that one side down there. And the crowd really did like him." "But just, you know, sitting in the living room playing, I mean, he was a different person, almost, the way he'd play. But he would put on the dog in front of a crowd, especially if they got to hollerin' some for him and all. That just egged him on then." George Pegram died September 12, 1974, of bone cancer. He is buried at the Back Creek Church in Randolph County. "Wade" relates his son Mark, "went to a lot of people that we would invite when was at our place a playin', and so many enjoyed hearing him play and went to all these people and asked them if they would give a little donation toward buying George's stone and some of Wade's family, they all give a donation and pretty soon, why, they had enough to buy it." "He was just, you know, one of the best entertainers, I guess. About anywhere he would go, he would just make a crowd go wild."

Source: Excerpts from liner notes by Bob Carlin, Lexington, NC, 9/15/94 With permission of the author and Rounder Records; From the CD notes to Rounder 001.

George Pegram - George Pegram

Year: 1970

Label: Rounder [001]

Review by Pemberton Roach

The first solo album by bluegrass/old-time banjo picker George Pegram is historically important not only in the context of Pegram's work and the art of banjo playing in general, but because it was the first album ever released by the now-legendary folk label, Rounder Records. In fact, the acquisition of the George Pegram tapes by Rounder founders Bill Nowlin and Ken Irwin played an important role in inspiring the two folk fans to establish the label. Musically, the album could not have been a better starting point for a company that would revolutionize the business of folk while maintaining a healthy respect for the music's traditions. George Pegram was as real and raw as they come. A grizzled, bowlegged, illiterate manual laborer with only one good eye, Pegram here plays with an intensity reminiscent of blues legends Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf. His voice on these recordings is horse and ragged, yet capable of a broad range of emotional inflection. Pegram was by all accounts a highly entertaining and comedic live performer as well, but little of little of his flair for goofy humor is readily apparent here. These recordings consist simply of excellent music played with purity and passion rarely heard in the modern age.

Review:

A favorite at festivals and music conventions, George was a driving banjo picker and a natural performer, and it's easy to hear why he was Rounder's first ever recording artist. "Rounder Records was started (in 1970) to release these recordings of a North Carolina banjoist/singer described in 1948 as 'a broadaxe-finished mountaineer under a ten-gallon hat.' Discovered by singer/folklorist Bascam Lamar Lunsford in the 1940s, Pegram cut a dashing figure at North Carolina folk music gatherings till his death in 1974. The recordings that comprise this release were acquired by Rounder's founders in 1969 for $125.00 and became the label's debut vinyl offering. Along with Pegram's forthright three-finger banjo style, he sang in an amiably hoarse bellow, accompanied on several tracks by legendary fiddler Fred Cockerham." --Mark Humphrey, Record Roundup

Tracks:

1. Mississippi Sawyer

2. Workin' On A Building

3. Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane

4. John Henry

5. Where Could I Go But To The Lord?

6. Wildwood Flower

7. Never Grow Old

8. Reuben

9. What A Friend We Have In Jesus

10. Over The Waves Waltz

11. Johnson's Old Grey Mule

12. In The Sweet Bye and Bye

13. Are You Washed In The Blood?

14. Just Because

where could he go but to the mule?

vinyl rip, cleaned | mp3 >256kbps vbr | 70mb

apologies in advance for the noise at the beginning of track 8.

You can get his great album 'Pickin and Blowin' with harmonica-player Walter Parham at Hard Luck Child'd Juke Joint or Allen's Archive

and get the LP 'Banjo Songs of the Southern Mountains' featuring both Obray and George at Down Home Radio Show!

Jean Ritchie - The Most Dulcimer

And - can you face it - one more dulcimer album! By the queen of the dulcimer, princess of the folk revival herself, Jean Ritchie. One of the only people who could be deep, authentic, and totally appalachian while still being clean, pretty, and acceptable-to-city-folkies. Thus, she had a big impact on the folk scene, along with Doc Watson (the two shared an album recorded at Folk City in the early '60s. You could probably get it around somewhere...). Though she's familiar with (& wrote the book on) all manner of dulcimer styles and forms, she plays in her endemic, traditional style, held in her lap, strumming across the 3 strings with a feather.

Biography by Steve Leggett

Jean Ritchie was born into a large and musical family in Viper, Kentucky in 1922. The Ritchie family was very much a part of the Appalachian folk tradition, and had committed over 300 songs (including hymns, traditional love songs, ballads, children's game songs, etc.) to its collective memory, a tradition that Ritchie has drawn on (as well as preserved and maintained) for the entire length of her performing career. She grew up in a home where singing was intertwined with nearly every task, and the beautiful,

 ephemeral nature of these mountain songs and fragments was not lost on her. After graduating from high school, Ritchie attended Cumberland Junior College in Williamsburg, Ky., moving on to the University of Kentucky, where she graduated in 1946. She accepted a position at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City and soon found her family's songs useful in reaching out to the children in her care. Her singing, although she never had a strong pop sort of voice, was perfect for the old ballads, especially when she accompanied herself on lap dulcimer, and the ancient modal melodies of her family felt fresh and airy in her hands. Ritchie soon found herself in demand in the New York coffeehouses, and her official career in music began. After hearing some casually recorded songs by Ritchie, Jac Holzman, who was just starting up Elektra Records, signed her to the label, eventually releasing three albums, Jean Ritchie Sings (1952), Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family (1957) and A T

ime for Singing (1962) at the height of the folk revival. Although she never reached the household name status of Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, Judy Collins or the Kingston Trio, Ritchie maintained her Appalachian authenticity, and her subsequent albums worked to preserve the rich folk tradition of the Southern Appalachians. Among her many releases are two from Smithsonian Folkways, Ballads From Her Appalachian Family Tradition and Child Ballads in America, None but One (which won a Rolling Stone Critics Award in 1977), High Hills and Mountains, Kentucky Christmas, and The Most Dulcimer. Married to the photographer George Pickow, the couple has re-released many of her albums on their own Greenhays Recordings imprint.

Jean Ritchie - The Most Dulcimer

Year: 1992

Label: Greenhays

Review by Steve Leggett

Although Jean Ritchie is associated with the Appalachian lap dulcimer, an instrument she largely introduced -- along with Richard Farina -- to the emerging folk revival of the 1960s, she seldom features it on more than a handful of Tracks on her many albums. As she tells it, this led to her forever being asked at performances and appearances, which album has the most dulcimer? Well, this one does, which is why it is called Most Dulcimer, and it has been assembled to present that aspect of Ritchie's talent. And having the most dulcimer, it is probably, therefore, the most immediately accessible of her records, and definitely the best introduction yet to her particular vision of the Appalachian folk music tradition. Airy and modal, Most Dulcimer has the kind of built in mountain nostalgia that anyone can relate to, but in this case, it's earned, rather than an affectation, since Ritchie grew up in the Cumberlands and learned these songs from her friends, family and neighbors in the truest expression of the oral tradition, before the various modern communication mediums (like radio, records, television, the Internet) all but swept that tradition away. Charming, chiming and calming, the songs on Most Dulcimer add up to a wonderfully cohesive sonic tour of the Appalachian song tradition, part riddle and game, part art song, part jubilee. Highlights include the two gems that open the sequence, "Over the River to Feed My Sheep" and "Pretty Saro," as well as two well-written Ritchie originals, the elegant "Wintergrace" and the funky (for a dulcimer, anyway) "Movin' on Down the River."

Tracks:

1 Over the River to Feed My Sheep - Ritchie - 1:30

2 Pretty Saro - Ritchie Family, Ritchie - 2:45

3 Edward - Traditional - 3:47

4 Killiekrankie - Ritchie - 1:29

5 The Haven of Rest - Gilmour, Gilmore, Moore - 2:45

6 Wintergrace - Ritchie - 3:56

7 Locks and Bolts - Traditional - 2:28

8 Mourning Tears - Ritchie - 4:15

9 Movin' on Down the River - Ritchie - 2:53

10 Dabbling in the Dew - Traditional - 2:09

11 Jubilee - Traditional - 2:01

12 Four Marys - Traditional - 2:44

13 Aunt Rhodie R.I.P. - 4:50

14 The Parson's Farewell - Ritchie - 2:27

15 Come You Home Again - Ritchie - 2:10

16 The Soldier - Ritchie - 1:45

the most dulcimer (well, most of it...).

and track 3

mp3 192 (160 on a few tracks) | w/ scans | 56mb

and get her 1st album for Elektra just posted at Times Ain't Like they Used to Be.

John McCutcheon - 2 albums

And, just to show you that I don't have anything against nice, pleasant music (so long as it's done well and not too sappy), here's some fine heart-warming strings and things. Usually the separating question is: have they gone deep enough into the traditional music to understand its subtle depth, or have they merely skimmed its harmonious overtones? In McCutcheon's case, I believe the former is true. Even when making children's music, he stands apart from the crowd in making music that doesn't belittle the innate intelligence of children. But these two albums come before his childrens phase, when he was just making lovely glistening bits of folk.

Biography by P.J. Swift

One of the most prolific and respected children's artists, John McCutcheon has consistently produced quality children's albums (and folk albums) since the early '70s. McCutcheon is first and foremost an instrumentalist. Like thousands of others in the '60s, McCutcheon, a Wisconsin native, taught himself how to play a mail-order guitar and joined the local folk scene. His interest became more serious, however, when he sought to find the roots of this music. McCutcheon headed for Appalachia and learned from some of the legendary greats of traditional folk music. Along the way, he became adept at a multitude of instruments, including fiddle, banjo, guitar, autoharp, jaw harp, and especially the hammered dulcimer. McCutcheon is considered one of the undisputed masters on the hammered dulcimer and adapts much of his music around the instrument. 

from his website:

By the time of his first album, How Can I Keep from Singing in 1974, McCutcheon as a young man had already drunk deep from America’s well. Born in Wisconsin, he enrolled at St. John’s University in Minnesota and almost immediately felt the call to seek a broader curriculum beyond the classroom walls. “I had discovered these old Folkways records of people like Roscoe Holcomb and Clarence Ashley,” he remembers, noting just two of the many American folk artists who piqued his imagination. “And when I realized that they were still alive, I decided I wanted to learn all I could about them. From them.”

This meant, he continues, “walking out to the end of the college drive as a 19-year-old kid and sticking out my thumb. I thought I was going off on a three-month, independent study to find banjo players. Even then, I knew it was the ultimate in cultural denial to play banjo in Minnesota,” he remembers, laughing. “What I didn’t realize was that this music needed to be learned in its context. After all, I’d come out of academia, where they compartmentalize life into boxes like Biology 101. But you learn about this music by going into people’s homes and going with them when they play at dances, in churches or on the picket line. And the more I did this, the more I understood that this music isn’t just about putting your finger on the right part of your instrument, singing the right note or writing the right word.”

John McCutcheon - Wind That Shakes the Barley

Year: 1977

Label: Rounder

Review by Matt Fink

Originally released in 1977, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, McCutcheon's second release, was a groundbreaking recording for hammer dulcimer music. Having established himself in folk circles for his instrumental prowess, McCutcheon, having only himself picked up the instrument two years prior, broadened the horizon of the hammer dulcimer as a popular folk instrument. The innovation he brought to traditional jigs, reels, rags, as well as American folk and bluegrass, was, and still is, truly breathtaking. Joined by a cast of friends on guitar, concertina, fiddle, mandolin, and banjo, these songs fill out amazingly well, providing a perfectly adorned stage for McCutcheon's mesmerizing playing, as well as providing excellent harmony vocals on Carter Stanley's "Who Will Sing For Me?" Following up a swinging "Dallas Rag" with Bach's "Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring" certainly isn't common pairing, but McCutcheon expertly blurred boundaries on this release. Overall, for fans of hammer dulcimer music, and most fans of traditional folk music in general, this is an absolute must.

Tracks:

1 Wind That Shakes the Barley, Morpeth's Rant, Saten Island - Traditional - 3:30

2 Planxty George Brabazon, Si Bheag Si Mhor - OCarolan - 5:47

3 Every Bush and Tree - Pierce - 2:57

4 Dallas Rag - Traditional - 2:53

5 Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring - Bach - 2:14

6 Carter Store Medley: Wildwood Flower/Red Wing/Wake up Susan/Temperance - Traditional - 3:56

7 Sculley's Reel, Morrison's Jig - Traditional - 3:56

8 If I Were a Featherbed - McCutcheon - 2:44

9 St. Anne's Reel/Cricket on the Hearth/Kitchen Girl/Mississippi Sawyer - Traditional - 4:06

10 Sally in the Garden/Wild Rose of the Mountain - Traditional - 4:10

11 Who Will Sing for Me? - Stanley - 3:18

12 Hangman's Reel/Campbell's Farewell to Red Gap - Traditional - 4:51

13 Greensleeves - Traditional - 1:56

he puts the 'dango' in fandango.

nmr | mp3 160kbps | w/o cover | 52mb

John McCutcheon - Fine Times at our House

Year: 1982
Label: Greenhays

Review by Steve Leggett
John McCutcheon's love for traditional Appalachian music is apparent on all of his many albums, but Fine Times at Our House, recorded for Jean Ritchie and George Pickow's Greenhays label, is particularly neo-Appalachian in feel, featuring several fiddle medleys and McCutcheon's own bright and airy hammer dulcimer playing. Among the many highlights here are the opener, "Wild Rose of the Mountain," a fiddle reel that makes the heart soar, and a wonderful segue that puts two traditional melodies, "Lonesome John" and "Fine Times at Our House," together in one basket. Most of the tracks are instrumentals, but McCutcheon's appropriately creaky singing on the haunting dirge "Times Are Not What They Used to Be" is particularly moving. A bright joy seems to permeate every inch of this record, and its offhand, easy flow makes it a wonderful introduction to McCutcheon's considerable body of work.

Tracks:
1. Wild Rose of the Mountain/Wild Rose of the Mountain
2. Hale's Rag
3. Nancy Ann/Hey, John D., Where'd You Get Your Britches?
4. Lonesome John/Fine Times at Our House
5. Amelia's
6. Samanthra
7. I Am the Bravest Cowboy/Cowboy's Dream
8. Times Are Not What They Used to Be
9. Grandpa's Waltz/Clarinet Polka
10. Sally Ann
11. Back Side of Albany/Cooley's Reel
12. Carolan's Farewell to Music

fine and dandy.
mr | vinyl, cleaned | mp3 >256kbps

and you can also download mp3s from his website (not sure how he got to have "folkmusic.com" but he must have got in early...)

The Philadelphia Folk Festival 1972 & 1977

Following on the heels of Michael Cooney, here's a festival he's been very involved with throughout its 40-year history. It's one of the top folk festivals in the country, or at least it seems so based on the talent they bring. I've never gone, so I suppose I don't know. I'm giving you 2 things here: one is a out-of-print vinyl that I just ripped, of the festival from 1977. It's a mixed bag stylistically, but top quality throughout. A highlight is definitely Michael Cooney's rendition of the old British ballad "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight." Grisman fans will want to check out Lew London's very swinging mandolin take on "The Glory of Love" and compare it to Joseph Spence's wild grunting version.

The other share is a 20-minute bootleg of John Hartford & Norman Blake performing at the festival in 1972. I haven't said anything about Hartford on the blog so far, and I'm not going to start right now; but perhaps he'll be the subject of a future post, who knows. Anyways, I probably don't have to say too much about this music. If you know the artists, you know it's good...


John Hartford & Norman Blake - Philadelphia Folk Festival (1972)

Recorded: 08/25/72
Philadelphia Folk Festival
Old Poole Farm
Schwenksville, PA

Tracks:
01 - Old Joe Clark (6:01)
02 - Instrumental (2:30)
03 - You Can Do Anything (3:28)
04 - Randall Collins Is My Name (2:54)
05 - Skippin' In The Mississippi Dew (3:56)
06 - Orange Blossom Special (2:05)

you could be down there when the glory rocks.
sbdmr>dat>wavelab>cdr>eac>shn>320kbps mp3.


The Philadelphia Folk Festival (1977)

Flying Fish Records FF-064 (LP, USA, 1978)

Recorded at the Old Poole Farm, Upper Salford, PA, August 26-28, 1977

An Amazon customer said:
This record features a solidly strange cross-section of folk songs and musicians from the mid-1970s, when the "folk revival" was well past, Dylan's electric turn old news, and the hipsters had moved on. Notable names include Odetta, Kate Wolf, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, and Norman Blake -- often thought of as a leader of the "bluegrass revival" in the 1970s. Plenty of bluegrass does pop up, of course, but the sounds are diverse across the record and include many traditional songs alongside more original/new material. Other highlights include Debbie McClatchy's version of the racy "A Little Piece of Wang" and a Gershwin cover by the Lew London Trio.

Tracks
Side 1
1. Bruce Martin: Scots Piping
2. Paxton: Did You Hear John Hurt?
3. Norman Blake: Jerusalem Ridge
4. Michael Cooney: Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
5. De Danann: Irish Dance Medley: The Boys of Ballisodaire / The Longford Collector
6. Kate Wolf: Then Came the Children
7. John Jackson: Step It Up and Go
8. Odetta: I Gotta Be Me

Side 2
9. Dave Van Ronk: Green, Green Rocky Road
10. Lou Killen: All for Me Grog
11. Roger Sprung, Hal Wylie & the Progessive Bluegrassers: Wild Goose Chase
12. Debbie McClatchy: A Little Piece of Wang
13. Lew London Trio: The Glory of Love
14. Highwood String Band & The Green Grass Cloggers: Dance All Night

step it up.
fresh vinyl rip | mp3 >256kbps vbr | w/o cover

oh, and one of the featured artists on this set is Roger Sprung, Hal Wylie & the Progessive Bluegrassers. If any of you have anything else by them, particularly the album 'Grassy Licks', I would love to hear it.

Michael Cooney

"The nation's most consumate, versatile interpreter of traditional music... an encyclopedia of songs and stories. This one-man folk festival is a must to see." - Chicago magazine

Small wonder that Michael Cooney is nicknamed "the one-man folk festival." With his carload of instruments and 500-song repertoire, Michael can singlehandedly explore almost every facet of American and British Folk Music." - The Lansing Star

I hope you liked Michael Coleman. Here's another great Michael C: Michael Cooney. Sounding something like the most successful combination you could imagine of Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, Dave Van Ronk, and Lou Killen, he was one of the greatest folk performers in America in the 60s and 70s, but is sadly forgotten now. He plays a great armful of instruments, each with a degree of mastery that is rarely encountered. He is a good singer, a great storyteller, and a consummate entertainer. He is also one of very few people who has mastered that rarest of forms, the story-song, complete with changes in tempo, dynamics, color, and evocative sound effects. His repertoire spans old-time banjo-ballads, British sea-shanties, folk-blues from the ragtime era, primordial country, vintage jazz, and pretty much that could fall under the heading 'folk'.

On first listen his repertoire and energetic treatment recall a certain unpleasant side of the early years of the folk revival, when bands like the Kingston Trio, Brothers Four, We Five, and Chad Mitchell Trio threatened to turn folk music into acoustic pop music in a sweater with strummed banjos and tight harmonies. But any more than a cursory listen will clearly set Michael apart from the pack. For one thing, he can actually play his instruments to the level that the music demands. He's been known to spend 12 hours at a time learning to play a bass run like Leadbelly, and his flawless fretless-banjo-frailing didn't come overnight, let me tell you. Also, he does the real folklorist's work, delving into the history of the songs, listening to early and obscure recordings of them and learning the full verses that were too strange to be understood by the 50's mentality and so dropped off of more popular versions. He shows that you can be happy and upbeat without being cheesy, and that you can be slow and mournful without being morose.

Basically, if you like folk music of any variety, you will like Michael Cooney. He's the real thing. I defy you to listen to his 12-string slide-guitar version of John Henry or his epic story-song version of Cumberland Mountain Bear-Chase and not be awed and delighted. Go on, try.

"Michael Cooney is a vast reservoir of folk stuff; he spans entire histories and traditions."

- The Tech, M.I.T., Cambridge, Massachusetts

"Like Pete Seeger, he can turn a whole auditorium into a living room."

- The New York Times

"Usually when I hear glowing reviews about a movie, play or concert artist, I am always a little disappointed in the final product - expecting too much, I suppose. Michael Cooney has changed all that and renewed my faith in performers. He WAS everything promised and MORE."

- The Times

Biographical Notes

Michael Cooney's father, Bernard ("Barney the Hat") Cooney, was born and raised in Cicero, Illinois -- headquarters of famous prohibition mobster, Al Capone. When he was 14 he would sometimes tell his mother he was going to church, then get his guitar from the woodshed and sing in "speakeasies". Gangsters would cry and shove money into his guitar. Later he sang table-to-table at restaurants with his brother on violin. By then he knew hundreds of songs and had a reputation for being able to sing any song requested. (His brother later played violin for two years in the Detroit Symphony before they figured out he couldn't read music.) Maybe that's where Michael got his ability to sing hundreds of songs of all kinds and play a whole carload of instruments.

Michael was born in 1943 in Carmel, California and grew up (mostly) in Tucson, Arizona (where his dad moved to manage the NBC radio station). His parents divorced early and Michael spent much time in foster homes and the orphanage there and in California during his early years. Hardly was he out of high school when he took to the road, hitch-hiking and riding freight trains for two years -- to Boston and back, up the west coast, to Colorado (where he spent a few months in Denver and Boulder, recovering from the broken leg he got his first time skiing), ending up in California.

In 1963 Michael was quite popular in one club, "The Top of The Tangent" in Palo Alto, where a local high school band that came regularly on amateur nights learned several songs from him. That band went on to perform some of those songs as The Grateful Dead.

But the lure of the "Mystic East" was irresistible, and in 1964 Michael went to New York, then Boston. Since then he has lived in various parts of the northeast, plus seven years in Toronto. In 1987, realizing a life-long dream, he moved to Maine where he now lives in the small lobster-fishing village of Friendship, on the rocky coast.

Michael learned his music from hundreds of people, well-known and unknown. He credits Pete Seeger and Sam Hinton for his interest in traditional folk music and the history behind the songs. Also for his wanting to "help others to feel what I feel when I hear this great old stuff". He credits Sam, and his old travelling partner, Grady Tuck (now deceased) for his relaxed ("Perry Como school of folk music") performing style.

Michael has been helping others to experience the beauty, power and humor of old and new songs for over 35 years, in countless halls, clubs, coffeehouses, etc., in the US, Canada, Mexico, Great Britain and Europe. He has performed, lectured or done residencies at hundreds of US and Canadian colleges and schools of all levels. He has performed at most of the major North American folk festivals (some many times), including The National Folk Festival, Smithsonian, Newport, Mariposa, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Monterey, Berkeley, San Diego, Hudson River Revival, Old Songs. He has been a performer and mc at the Philadelphia Folk Festival semi-regularly since 1966 and for 15 the last 21 years.

Michael was six years on the board of the National Folk Festival in Washington, DC., in 1984, artistic director of Canada's Mariposa Folk Festival, in 1986, Artistic Director of Philadelphia's "Maritime America Festival" (part of "We The People 200 - the National Celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the United States Constitution"), and a consultant to many other festivals. He was a member of the Music Panel of the Maine Arts Commission for four years and head of the panel in 1992-93. For twenty years Michael was a director of, contributor to, and columnist for the US's oldest national folk music magazine, Sing Out!

Though he claims to be slowing down, Michael's tours in 1998 took him to Hawaii and back with many stops along the way, and the year before saw him in Antarctica, on the first passenger ship (a Russian icebreaker) ever to sail completely around the continent. Michael as the ship's entertainer, visited a dozen research bases and many other sites of historical, zoological and geological interest during the two-month circumnavigation.

In 1993 Michael founded The Friendship Letter, "a neighborhood newsletter for people who don't live near each other". After six years of publication, he reports subscribers in 48 states, 3 Canadian provinces and the Canary Islands. (And subscriber Garrison Keillor has bought 32 gift subscriptions in the last few years.)

At home Michael likes to putter in his workshop, mess around with computers, musical instruments, books, and boats. He says he ever seeks "neat songs" plus good and fun stuff (and subscribers) for The Friendship Letter.

-- Walter Eagle

Michael Cooney - Michael Cooney or "The Cheese Stands Alone"

Year: 1968
Label: Folk-Legacy

Tracks:
1. Turkey in the Straw
2. Worried Blues
3. Fannin Street
4. Jim Crack Corn
5. Rigs of the Time
6. Creole Belle
7. John Henry
8. Nu Grape
9. Apple Pickers Reel
10. That Crazy War
11. Red Cross Store Blues
12. The Bankers and the Diplomats
13. Cumberland Mountain Bear Chase
14. The Engineer

it's old blue!
vinyl, cleaned, mild skippage | mp3 >256kbps vbr | no cover

Michael Cooney - Still Cooney after All these Years

Year: 1979
Label: Front Hall

Tracks:
1. Cocaine Rag
2. Whoa Back Buck
3. The Brisk Young Butcher
4. The Mermaid
5. Sir Patrick Spens
6. Waterbound
7. Sloop John B
8. "Oops" & Me and My Shadow
9. Poor Cotton Weaver
10. Old Reuben
11. Cripple Creek
12. Deep Elem Blues
13. Candy Man
14. Spanish Flang-Dang

along comes sally with her nose all tore.
vinyl, cleaned, mild skippage | mp3 >256kbps vbr | no cover

note: I was pretty sure these albums were OOP when I ripped, uploaded and wrote about them. It turns out, they're mostly being reissued. However, seeing as you probably wouldn't have heard about Michael or known how wonderful he is without the post & music, I left them up. That being said, he has a new album out which you should hastily go and buy at his website.

Also, check out his essays on "What is a Folk Song" and "A Case Against Fame"

Sounds of the South, recorded by Alan Lomax

Well I seem to be on a roll of 4-cd box sets featuring expired musicians from the roots of the great tree of American music. I see no reason to reverse that trend now... and in fact this is one of the best box sets you can get. Except that you can't get it, because it's out-of-print (unless you want to spend $240!). But like I said, this is a great box set, and chances are you've already heard a few of the pieces, in a slightly-altered form. I don't just mean that countless artists have covered the traditional material on here, though they have. I'm referring to the curious fate of a few of these songs, which ended up being vaulted into the top-10, on the triple-platinum-selling album 'Play' by the vegan techno-hack Moby. Yes, Moby lifted entire songs from this set, tacked on a lame synth riff and a 16-bar repetetive beat, and watched as the cash rolled in. And though he espoused a supposedly 'non-commercial' stance, Play was the first album in history to have every single track (18 in all!) used in a television ad. And despite the revenue from this and from selling over 3 million copies, he didn't pay a dime to the Lomaxes or performers. Ha. Hairless invertebrete hack of a syphilitic contemptible whore. You can read about the whole fandangle here.

Hobart Smith & Bessie Jones

But back to the music, it's a really terrific mix of raw roots recordings, from folk ballads, old-time hymns and proto-bluegrass, to delta and mountain blues to spirituals and work-songs, with a whole cd of children's music thrown in to boot! Names you should recognize: Hobart Smith, Bessie Jones, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Vera Hall, Sid Hemphill, Estil C. Ball, Almeida Riddle. If you don't know about them yet, you will. And you won't be the same afterwards. Particularly after the fife'n'drum rendition of Chevrolet (pretty vastly different from the take by Geoff & Maria Muldaur with the Kweskin Jug Band).

Now some info on "That old bugger Lomax" (as Son House described him)

Alan Lomax - biography

Musicologist, producer, and writer Alan Lomax (b. Austin, Texas, 1915) spent over six decades working to promote knowledge and appreciation of the world’s folk music. He began his career in 1933 alongside his father, the pioneering folklorist John Avery Lomax, and in 1934 the two launched an effort to develop the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress, which had been established in 1928. They gathered thousands of field recordings of folk musicians throughout the American South, Southwest, Midwest, and Northeast, as well as in Haiti and the Bahamas. Inspired by such a wealth of traditional music, the Lomaxes published several popular and influential collections of American folk songs, beginning with American Ballads and Folk Songs (New York: Macmillan, 1934). They also collaborated on one of the first serious studies of a folk musician in American literature, Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly (New York: Macmillan, 1936), which African American author/historian James Weldon Johnson called “one of the most amazing autobiographical accounts ever printed in America.”

After completing a philosophy degree at the University of Texas in 1936, Alan and his wife, Elizabeth Lyttleton Harold, spent several months in Haiti, conducting field research and recording local musicians. The next year, Lomax was appointed Assistant in Charge of the Archive of American Folk Song; by 1939, in addition to doing graduate work in anthropology at Columbia University, he was producing the first in a series of national radio programs for CBS. American Folk Songs and Wellsprings of Music for the CBS School of the Air and the prime-time series, Back Where I Come From, introduced vast audiences to traditional music, giving exposure to such figures as Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Aunt Molly Jackson, Josh White, the Golden Gate Quartet, Burl Ives, and Pete Seeger. Lomax built on the interest created by his books, records, and broadcasts with numerous concert series, including The Midnight Special at Town Hall, which introduced 1940s New Yorkers to blues, flamenco, calypso, and ballad singing, all still relatively unknown genres. “The main point of my activity,” Lomax once remarked, “was... to put sound technology at the disposal of The Folk, to bring channels of communication to all sorts of artists and areas.”

After his work with Lead Belly, Lomax hoped to further explore the genre of oral biography. His conversations with New Orleans jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton, which produced the 1938 Library of Congress recordings, also formed the basis for the book Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and “Inventor of Jazz” (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1949). A remarkably picaresque document closely based on Morton’s narrative, it has inspired two Broadway musicals. Lomax’s oral historical portrait of “Nora” in The Rainbow Sign (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1959) was drawn from 1948 49??? Recordings of Alabama folk singer, Vera Hall. Blues in the Mississippi Night, Lomax’s 1946 recording of music and frank talk by Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy Williamson, remains a classic recorded document of African American musical history (it was reissued by Rounder in 2002). “Every time I took one of those big, black, glass-based platters out of its box,” Lomax wrote of the recording process, “I felt that a magical moment was opening up in time… For me the black discs spinning in the Mississippi night, spitting the chip centripetally toward the center of the table...heralded a new age of writing human history...”

A joint field trip conducted by the Library of Congress and Fisk University in 1941 and 1942 , described in his 1993 memoir, The Land Where the Blues Began, took Lomax even deeper into the musical and cultural world of the African American South. In Mississippi, he became the first to document several extraordinary African-derived musical repertories, such as Hill Country fife-and-drum and quills (panpipes) music. While there he interviewed a 29-year-old singer and guitarist named McKinley Morganfield, later known to the world as Muddy Waters. In 1947 Lomax returned to Mississippi with the first portable tape recorder to make recordings at the notorious State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm.

In the 1950s, Lomax set his sights beyond North America and the Caribbean. Basing himself in London, he conducted recorded surveys of European folk music in Britain, Ireland, Italy, and Spain, through which he exposed scores of listeners to folk music on a series of BBC radio programs. His collaborations with Diego Carpitella in Italy, Seamus Ennis in Ireland, Peter Kennedy in England, and Hamish Henderson in Scotland helped to inspire folk-song revivals in those countries. During this period, Lomax compiled an 18-volume LP series anthologizing world folk music for Columbia Records, a project which anticipated a similar UNESCO world music series by several years.

Returning to the United States in the late 1950s, Lomax set out on two more long field trips through the American South, resulting in 19 albums issued on the Atlantic and Prestige International labels in the early ‘60s. He also published the groundbreaking collection Folk Songs of North America (New York: Doubleday, 1960), which revealed his theoretical interest in music and culture and eventually led to a program of systematic research in human expressive behavior . Along with colleagues at Columbia in the 1960s, Lomax developed Cantometrics, Choreometrics, and Parlametrics, methodologies designed for analyzing song, speech, dance, and speaking cross-culturally. Initial results of this project were published in Folk Song Style and Culture (Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, Publication No. 88, 1968; reprinted by Transaction Books, New Brunswick, NJ).

Subsequently, Lomax published numerous journal articles, recordings, films, teaching materials, and television programs. Cantometrics: An Approach to the Anthropology of Music, first published in 1976, was used to help students understand and analyze world musical styles. Three teaching films, Dance and Human History, Step Style, Palm Play, published in the 1970s, introduced students to Choreometrics and its anthropological analysis of dance. The Longest Trail (1986) combined historical data and Choreometric analysis of movement and dance to demonstrate cultural unities among the Amerindians of North and South America. As musical consultant for the disc accompanying the 1977 Voyager space probe, produced by Carl Sagan, Lomax saw to it that a worldwide chorus of human musical expression was carried to the stars with the blues and jazz of Blind Willie Johnson and Louis Arrnstrong, Andean panpipes and Navajo chants, a Sicilian sulphur miner’s lament, polyphonic vocal music from the Mbuti pygmies of Zaire and Caucasus Georgians, the works of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, and more.

American Patchwork , Lomax’s prize-winning five-hour television series on American musical regional cultures, aired on PBS in 1990. The Land Where the Blues Began (New York: Pantheon, 1993), a reflection on Lomax’s encounters with African-African musicians and on the Jim Crow South in the 1940s, won the National Book Critics Award for non-fiction. Sounds of the South, a four-CD set of Lomax’s 1959 stereo recordings of Southern musical traditions, was reissued by Atlantic Records in 1993, and the Alan Lomax Collection, a CD series anthologizing Lomax’s six-decade recording career, begun by Rounder Records in 1997, will ultimately number over 100 volumes.

After 1991, Lomax and a team of researchers and developers began compiling his most last big project, The Global Jukebox, a multimedia interactive database which looks at relationship between dance, song, and social structure. Lomax intended the database to serve both as a medium for scientific research into human expressive behavior, and as a tool for social science, arts and humanities education. With the Jukebox, he also hoped to further “cultural equity”—a concept created by Lomax call attention to the importance of giving all local cultures, worldwide, a valid forum in the media and in educational curricula , for the meaningful display of their arts and values.

Alan Lomax retired in 1996, and passed away on July 19, 2002. He was 87 years old.


...and for all that, he was still a bugger, paying musicians in Coke bottles instead of cash...


VA - Sounds of the South
A Musical Journey from the Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta
recorded in the Field by Alan Lomax

Year: 1993
Label: Atlantic

Amazon Review:
Alan Lomax received funding from Atlantic Records in 1959 to head into the Southeast with the latest in stereo field recording technology, and this set collects the original eight records issued as a result of that trek in 1961. The sound quality is brilliant, the performances uncompromisingly raw, vibrant, plaintive, and real--everything the Greenwich Village folk movement tried to be is encapsulated on these slices of rural sound. Because of its high fidelity and the immense character found within the performances, this is the Lomax document to own if you absolutely have to pick a single one. Deep delta slide blues, enthusiastic shape-note singing from the Sacred Harp song book, lined-out hymnody, children's songs, mountain bluegrass music, juke-joint barrelhouse blues--it's all here and much more. This is vibrant, pure American music at its finest. --Mike McGonigal

Review by Lindsay Planer
The music on this anthology has been derived from several notable albums of field recordings by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax gathered in the South during the early 20th century. The primary components include the long-players Sounds of the South (1960), Blue Ridge Mountain Music (1960), Roots of the Blues (1960), Blues Roll On (1960), Negro Church Music (1960), White Spirituals (1960), and American Folk Songs for Children (1960). In Lomax's 1993 written introduction, he reveals that the four and a half hours housed in the package were "culled out of eight hours of field tapes" documented during a two-month tour in the summer of 1959 that began in Virginia and progressed into the Ozarks, the Mississippi Delta, and then the Georgia Sea Islands. While he goes on to explain the significance of his research, the authenticity of the living aural history really speaks for itself. Artists and songs of possible familiarity to enthusiasts of folk and blues are scattered throughout. Mississippi Fred McDowell's "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning," "Shake 'Em on Down," and "Drop Down Mama," the Mountain Ramblers' "Cotton-Eyed Joe" and "Shady Grove," and Estil C. Ball & Orna Ball's "Jenny Jenkins" are taken from the Sounds of the South and Blue Ridge Mountain Music entries. The trio of Boy Blue (vocal/harmonica), Willie Jones (guitar), and Joe Lee (drums) provides a seminal reading of "Boogie Children," while Lonnie Young (vocal/bass drum), Ed Young (cane fife), and Lonnie Young, Jr. (snare drum) unleash a variation of "Sittin' on Top of the World" from Roots of the Blues and Blues Roll On. Negro Church Music and White Spirituals' sacred selections are highlighted by a "Sermon Fragment" from the Reverend G.I. Townsel as well as a "Sermon and Lining Hymn" featuring Reverend I.D. Back with his congregation and a stirring solo rendition of "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" by the previously mentioned Estil C. Ball. Perhaps most fascinating are the American Folk Songs for Children, as they transcend race or religious creed. Almeda Riddle's "Froggie Went A-Courtin'," Bessie Jones' "Hambone," Hobart Smith's "The Arkansas Traveler," the Mountain Ramblers' "Liza Jane," Mississippi Fred McDowell's "Freight Train Blues," James Shorty/Viola James & Congregation's inspired "This Little Light of Mine," and a rare confab between Felix Dukes and Mississippi Fred McDowell on "Motherless Children" all surpassed their era.


Disc 1 - Blue Ridge Mountain Music

1 The Banks of the Arkansas/Wave the Ocean - Neil Morris - 1:59
2 Hen Duck - Ed Young - 3:05
3 The Farmer's Curst Wife - Ball, Estil C. - 2:59
4 Bollweevil Holler - Vera Hall - 2:03
5 Jesse James - Mountain Ramblers - 2:16
6 Jesse James - Neil Morris - 4:54
7 Kenny Wagner - Bob Carpenter - 2:35
8 Trouble So Hard - Vera Hall - 1:38
9 Baptizing Scene - Donaldson, Reverend W.A. - 1:36
10 Is There Anybody Here That Loves My Jesus - Donaldson, Reverend W.A. - 3:02
11 Windham - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers - 2:00
12 Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 2:45
13 Come On, Boys, Let's Go to the Ball - Sidney Hemphill, Lucius Smith - 2:04
14 Join the Band - John Davis - 1:03
15 Lucky Holler - Ed Lewis - 2:21
16 I Be So Glad When the Sun Goes Down - Ed Lewis - 2:36
17 Cotton Eyed Joe - Mountain Ramblers - 2:32
18 Big Tilda - Mountain Ramblers - 2:14
19 Jennie Jenkins - Ball, Estil C., Orna Ball - 2:42
20 John Henry - Mountain Ramblers, Cullen Galyen - 3:46
21 Rosewood Casket - Mountain Ramblers, Eldridge Montgomery - 3:01
22 Silly Bill - Mountain Ramblers - 2:27
23 Big Ball in Boston - Mountain Ramblers - 2:20
24 Chilly Winds - Wade Ward - 2:12
25 The Old Hickory Cane - Mountain Ramblers - 4:31
26 John Brown - Hobart Smith - 1:52
27 Poor Ellen Smith - Hobart Smith - 2:01
28 Shady Grove - Mountain Ramblers - 2:18

Disc 1


Disc 2 - Roots Of The Blues - The Blues Roll On

29 Jim and John - Lonnie Young, Ed Young - 3:06
30 The Wild Ox Moan - Vera Hall - 1:03
31 Been Drinkin' Water Out of a Hollow Log - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 2:55
32 All Night Long - Miles Pratcher & Bob Pratcher - 3:33
33 Shake 'Em On Down - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 3:19
34 Levee Camp Reminiscence - Forrest City Joe - 5:16
35 Chevrolet - Lonnie Young, Ed Young - 4:04
36 Levee Camp Holler - Moore, Johnny Lee - 2:46
37 Eighteen Hammers - Moore, Johnny Lee - 2:38
38 Drink on Little Girl - Forrest City Joe - 2:51
39 Drop Down Mama - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 2:49
40 Boogie Chillen - Boy Blue - 2:54
41 She Lived Her Life Too Fast - Forrest City Joe - 3:20
42 Sitting On Top of the World - Lonnie Young - 2:40
43 Cool Water Blues - John Dudley - 3:02
44 She Don't Love Me That Way - Forrest City Joe - 3:21
45 Stop Breaking Down - Forest City Joe - 2:50
46 Joe Lee's Rock - Boy Blue - 3:36
47 Bullyin' Well - Hill, Rosa Lee - 3:22
48 When You Get Home, Write Me a Few Little Lines - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 3:24
49 Red Cross Store - Forrest City Joe - 3:37
50 Forrest City Jump - Forrest City Joe - 2:55

Disc 2


Disc 3 - Negro Church Music & White Spirituals

51 Death Have Mercy - Vera Hall - 1:50
52 I Want Jesus to Walk with Me - James Shorty - 3:43
53 Jesus Is Real to Me - Mary Lee - 3:14
54 I Love the Lord - R.C. Crenshaw - 2:47
55 A Sermon Fragment - G.I. Townsel - 3:02
56 I'm Goin Home on the Mornin' Train - R.C. Crenshaw - 2:48
57 Power - Mattie Wigley - 2:34
58 On That Rock - Viola James - 2:56
59 Jesus on the Mainline - James Shorty, Viola James - 3:37
60 I'm Gonna Sail Like a Ship on the Ocean - Henry Morrison & Saint Simon's Island Singers - 2:39
61 Blow Gabriel - John Davis, Bessie Jones, Henry Morrison - 2:24
62 What Do You Think About Jesus (He's All Right) - Bernice McClellan - 2:58
63 Tribulations- Ball, Estil C. & Blair Reedy - 2:48
64 When I Get Home - Ball, Estil C. & Blair Reedy - 2:55
65 The Poor Wayfaring Stranger - Ball, Estil C. - 3:14
66 Baptizing Down by the Creek - Mountain Ramblers - 2:49
67 Sermon and Lining Hymn - I.D. Back - 3:32
68 Antioch - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers - 1:35
69 Calvary - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers - 1:39
70 Please Let Me Stay a Little Longer - Ball, Estil C. & Lacey Richardson - 2:41
71 Father, Jesus Loves You - Ball, Estil C. - 2:09
72 Lonesome Valley - Ball, Estil C. - 2:45
73 Father Adieu - Ball, Estil C. - 2:09
74 The Old Country Church - Mountain Ramblers - 2:29
75 The Cabin on the Hill - Ball, Estil C. & Lacey Richardson - 3:06

Disc 3


Disc 4 - American Folk Songs For Children

76 Johnson's Old Gray Mule - Mainer Band - 2:14
77 My Little Rooster - Almeda Riddle - 1:49
78 Whoa Mule - Mainer Band - 1:29
79 Froggie Went A-Courtin' - Almeda Riddle - 2:48
80 Glenn's Chimes - Mainer Band - 1:53
81 Chick-A-Li-Lee-Lo - Almeda Riddle - 1:17
82 Old Joe Clark - Mountain Ramblers - :52
83 Go Tell Aunt Nancy - Almeda Riddle - 4:02
84 Train III - Mainer Band - 3:00
85 Johnny Cuckoo - Bessie Jones - 3:02
86 Mama Buy Me a Chiney Doll - Almeda Riddle - 2:27
87 Soldier, Soldier - Hobart Smith - 1:43
88 Mary Mack - Pratcher, Jesse Lee & Mattie Garder - :45
89 Hambone - Bessie Jones - 1:06
90 Banging Breakdown - Hobart Smith - 1:35
91 Green Sally, Up - Pratcher, Jesse Lee & Mattie Garder - :43
92 Sometimes - Bessie Jones - :54
93 The Arkansas Traveler - Hobart Smith - 1:48
94 Paper of Pins - Ball, Estil C. - 2:15
95 The Little Dappled Cow - Texas Gladden - 1:38
96 Go to Sleep Little Baby - Bessie Jones - 1:14
97 Paddy on the Turnpike - Wade Ward - 1:46
98 Jimmy Sutton - Spencer Moore - 2:34
99 Liza Jane - Mountain Ramblers - 3:08
100 Oree - Lonnie Young, Ed Young - 2:37
101 Train Time - Forrest City Joe - 4:31
102 Freight Train Blues - Mississippi Fred McDowell - 3:03
103 This Little Light of Mine - James Shorty, Viola James - 2:39
104 Motherless Children - Felix Dukes - 2:49
105 Little Moses - Neil Morris - 3:24

Disc 4
all mp3 192kbps | w/ covers

* out-of-print