"Times ain't like they used to be"

New home and name for this blog

2011-02-06T06:51:00.000-08:00

Dear readers and listeners of this blog,

I moved all the content of this blog to a new adress on Wordpress. The reason for this is that i already have my two other blogs there (Old weird America & The World's Jukebox) and i feel blogging is easier and more functional there. I took the opportunity to give the new adress a new name also: "Cornbread, molasses & sassafras tea". I took it from an old song called "West Virginia Gals" and just love how this words sound, very old-timey i presume...The new place will probably have more diverse contents than here, with some reviews of new cds, some research about tunes and songs origins and variants and of course out-of-print records. All this depending most of all on the time I'll have to handle all this projects so be patient with me...

All the best,

Gadaya

Brad Leftwich (with Dan Gellert, Linda Higginbotham...)

2011-01-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

Here are two out-of-print records featuring old-time fiddler Brad Leftwich, one with fiddle and banjo player Dan Gellert and the other with his wife and musical partner Linda Higginbotham. Brad is well-known as a musician and teacher of appalachian fiddle and banjo music. He learned directly from old-time fiddlers giants like Tommy Jarrell and has spread his love and skills for the idiom ever since, both as a solo artist and with fellow musicians like Tom Sauber and Alice Gerrard (Tom, Brad & Alice).

The first record, called "A Moment in Time", was issued in 1993 in the tape format by Marimac and was never reissued. And it's a shame because it's one of the best old-time fiddle record I ever heard. The playing here is astonishing, especially on the many fiddle duets, an art in itslef, and the rest is all fiddle and banjo music of the highest order. Brad and Dan's styles are very complementary and blend perfectly together. I would come back to Dan Gellert's music in a future post as he's one of my favorite contemporary old-time musician...

The other record was issued in 1984 on County Records and features Leftwich with his wife and musical partner Linda Higginbotham (and Mark Richie and Bob Herring on guitars). It's a great mix of fiddle tunes and songs (with three originals by Linda) and sounds as fresh and charming today as it sure was more than 25 years ago...

-Dan Gellert & Brad Leftwich "A Moment in Time" (Marimac tape 1993)

1.Johnson Boys

2.Indian Nation

3.Fiddler's Dram

4.John Brown's Dream

5.Leather Breeches

6.Ruben

7.Nancy Rowland

8.Hell on the Nine Mile

9.Paddy on the Handcar

10.Kansas City Rag

11.Molly Put the Kettle on

12.Danced all night with a bottle in my hand

13.Sandy Boys

14.Old Joe Clark

15.Prairie Dog

16.Ryland Spencer

17.Crystal Stream Waltz

18.Echoes of the Ozarks

Click here to download

(and here's a pdf of the liner notes, giving the tunings and the sources of the tunes)

-Leftwich & Higginbotham "No One To Bring Home Tonight" (County Lp, 1984)

1.No one to bring home tonight

2.Breaking Up Christmas

3.Dry and Dusty/Bonaparte's Retreat

4.Deep Elm Blues

5.Back to Scholl Blues

6.Tom and Jerry

7.Jack of Diamonds/The Lost Child

8.Ozark Mountain Home

9.I want more out of life than a broken heart

10.Rio Grande

11.Poor Girl's Story

12.John Lover's Gone

Click here to download

Kentucky String Band Music Update

2011-01-29T13:11:00.000-08:00

I have corrected the tags on the tracks for the lps "Wish I Had My Time Again" and "Way Down South in Dixie" and also everything should be in correct order now....

Old-Time Fiddle Band Music From Kentucky

2011-01-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

This three lps were issued in 1980 by Morning Star Records, a short-lived record company owned by Richard Nevins, who would continue Nick Perls' work with Yazoo Records a few years after. It's a superb compilation of 78rpm records of Kentucky string bands made in the 1920's and 1930's for Gennett. Like Nevins said: "As the Mississippi Delta is to Blues, Kentucky is to fiddle music, banjo playing, and classic old ballads and songs". The emphasis here is on string band music, with a few songs included as well. The Gennett 78 records are famous for their bad quality pressing and it shows here with lots of surface noise and scratchs. But the music is excellent all the way through, especially the fiddle playing on the dance numbers, with great fiddlers like Doc Roberts, Leonard Rutherford, Andy Palmer or Jim Booker. Booker was the only black fiddler who recorded with a hillbilly string band (Taylor's Kentucky Band) back then but many of this white Kentucky musicians talked about black fiddlers who were sharing the same repertoire of old-time tunes in the region.

The liner notes were written by Guthrie Meade, who made a lot of detective work to find out about all this musicians. Remember that during the 78rpm records aera only the name of the band or singer was written on the disc and it took a lot of leg work and talking with old musicians to bring some informations about this rare recordings.

A few years ago, Yazoo Records released other great compilations of Kentucky old-time music. First there were two cds called "The Music of Kentucky" which included the two most important Kentucky old-time fiddlers ever recored , William Step and Luther Strong, along with recording by banjoists B.F Shelton, Hayes Sheperd, John Hammond and other great artists. Then, there was a box set of 7 cds called "Kentucky Mountain Music" which contained most of the recordings on the 3 lps (I counted only 9 tracks on the lps that aren't included on the boxset) plus many other by the same string bands, many Buell Kazee tracks and a lot of great field recordings of fiddlers, banjo players and ballad singers. All this is of course is highly recommended...

-Download here the booklet of liner notes in pdf format

"Wink The Other Eye"

1.Gate to go through Jimmie Johnson's String Band
2.Wink the other eye Hack's String Band
3.Soldier's joy Taylor's Kentucky Boys
4.Richmond Blues Rutherford & Foster
5.Soap in the washpan Jimmie Johnson's String Band
6.Monroe County Quickstep Rutherford & Foster
7.Grey Eagle Taylor's Kentucky Boys
8.Cumberland Gap Rutherford, Burnett & Moore
9.B-Flat Rag Madisonville String Band
10.Old blind dog Jimmie Johnson's String Band
11.Let her go i'll meet her Rutherford & Foster
12.Washington Quadrille Jimmie Johnson's String Band
13.Pretty little girl Hack's String Band
14.Forked Deer Taylor's Kentucky Boys
Download here

"Wish I Had My Time Again"
1.Fire in the mountain Ted Gossett's String Band
2.The Fate of Ellen Smith Green Baily
3.Brick Yard Joe Doc Roberts
4.Going across the sea H.L Bandy
5.Fox Chase Ted Gossett's String Band
6.Black Snake Moan Cobb & Underwood
7.Wish I had my time again Hatton Brothers
8.Eight of January Ted Gossett's String Band
9.Knoxville Rag Taylor, Burnett & Moore
10.If I die a railroad man Green Baily
11.Old Buzzard Doc Roberts
12.Sail away ladies H.L Bandy
13.Bow legged Irishman Ted Gossett's String Band
14.Wild hog in the woods Lonesome Luke and His Farm Hands
Download here

"Way Down South In Dixie"
1.Cuttin' at the point Charlie Wilson & His Hayloft Boys
2.New Money Doc Roberts
3.Old Voile Blue Ridge Mountaineers
4.Lost Love Asa Martin
5.That's my rabbit... Walter Family
6.Way Down South in Dixie Doc Roberts
7.Five Up H.L Bandy
8.Shaker Ben Walter Family
9.Glide Waltz Green's String Band
10.Old Flannagan Blue Ridge Mountaineers
11.Monkey Show H.L Bandy
12.StovePipe Blues Kentucky String Ticklers
13.And the cat came back Doc Roberts
14.We'll understand it better... Kentucky Mountain Choristers
Download here

The Hammons Family

2010-12-14T01:21:00.000-08:00

This lp, subtitled "A study of a West Virginia's family tradition", is an attempt to describe with sounds, words and photographs, the life and folklore of a rural appalachian family, whose ancestors came from Britain and were early pioneers and settlers in Kentucky and the Allegheny mountains. Music was an important part of the family life and the album includes many banjo and fiddle tunes along with ballads and stories. The recordings and research were done by Alan Jabbour, Carl Fleischhauer and Dwight Diller in the beggining of the 1970's for the Library of Congress in Washington.

-I uploaded the cd version of the lp (thanks to Tobias Enevoldsen for providing me this) which has combined the original tracks with another lp from The Hammons Family called "Shaking down the Acorns", released on Rounder.

-This recordings came with a huge booklet of more than 30 pages, that tells the history and background of The Hammons family along with notes on the recordings and photographs.

-Click here to download the booklet in pdf format

Part 1: The Hammons Family

Old Sledge
Camp Chase
Three Forks of Cheat
The Yankee and Marcum
Sugar Grove Blues
Turkey in the Straw
The Route
Fine Times at Our House
Jimmy Johnson
Parsons Rock
In Scotland Town
Little Omie
Young Henerly
Muddy Roads
Bringing Back the Sheep
The Sandy Boys
Wilson's Clog
Sugar Babe (version 1)
We're Marching Around the Levees
Riddles
Mercian Tittery-ary-a
Jay Legg
When This World Comes to an End

-Click here to download the tracks from "The Hammons family" lp

Part 2: Shaking down the Acorns

Shaking Down the Acorns / Hink Cogar's Deer Ride
Cranberry Rock
The Panther in the Sky
Sugar Babe (version 2)
The Lonesome Pines
Johnny Booger
Walking in the Parlor
Singing Birds
Old Man, Can I Have Your Daughter
The Haunted Wagon
Rocky Mountain Goat
Who's Been Here Since I've Been Gone
Lost Indian
Hard Times in the Charleston Jail
Ireland's Green Shore
The Big Scioty
Greasy Coat

-Click here to download the tracks from the "Shaking down the Acorns" lp

-Click here to download the "Shaking down the Acorns" booklet

The Old Virginia Fiddlers-Rare recordings 1948-49

2010-11-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

Here's an out-of-print lp from County Records issued in 1977. The old Virginia Fiddlers were John Watts "Babe" Spangler and his cousin Dudley Spangler from Meadows of Dan, Virginia. The two learned their fiddling style from John Watts' father, Wallace Spangler, a reputed old-time fiddler from the region. The numbers on these lp were private recordings made by the artists to preserve their music except two tracks (Midnight Serenade and Patrick County Blues) that were issued on a 78rpm records. The sound is a bit scratchy but this is great fiddle music. Enjoy!

-Be sure to read the booklet for more informations on the players and the tunes (Click here for the PDF file)

-Click here to download

The Irish Pipes of Finbar Furey

2010-11-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

Here are two lps from the Nonesuch Explorer series featuring the Irish Pipe (and whistle) playing of a then, very young Finbar Furey (i believe he was only 23 when he recorded this) with his brother Eddie who adds some guitar and bodhran here and there. While i'm not a big fan of the more folky stuff he recorded after, i do love his bagpipe playing here, and i believe this were the first pipe lps i bought some years ago so it's good to return to them again...

1.Rakish Paddy

2.The Hag with the money

3.Castle Terrace

4.Madame Bonaparte

5.The Young Girl Milking her Cow

6.Fin's Favourite

7.Peter Byrne's Fancy

8.O'Rourke's Reel

9. Roy's Hands

10.Planxty Davy

11.The Bonny Bunch of Roses

12.Eddy's Fancy

13.The Silver Spear

14.The Spanish Cloak

15.Sliabh na mBan

16.Graham's Flat

17.Piper's in the Meadow Straying

18.Rocking The Baby

19.Colonel Fraser

20.Pigeon on the gate

21.Eamonn an Chnuic

22.Tattered Jack Welch

23.The Fox Chase

Download here

Melodic Clawhammer Banjo Tab Book

2010-10-06T02:23:00.000-07:00

Update: Download here the tab book for the lp

(thanks to Steven from The Banjo Hangout)

Melodic Clawhammer Banjo

2010-09-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

Here's a mid-seventies out-of-print lp issued by Kicking Mule devoted to a then, new genre of clawhammer banjo, the melodic style. Since the folk revival of the 50's/60's there were two major schools of clawhammer banjo in the US. One, initiated by Pete Seeger, was mostly an adaptation of the older techniques of down-picking suited to accompany all kind of folk songs and the other was the traditional way of accompany the fiddler for Southern instrumental dance tunes. In the 1970's in New-York, a few players worked out a solo style of clawhammer where the banjo would play the complete melody of a tune whitout loosing the rhyhtmic drive of the instrument. Their repertoire would include a lot of Irish fiddle tunes, Reels, Hornpipes and Jigs along with the usual old-time Southern tunes. In this lp, the first devoted to the new style, we have the masters and creators of melodic clawhammer banjo reunited: Ken Perlman, Bob Carlin, Henry Sapoznik, Andy Cahan and one track by Dana Loomis. Ken Perlman is whithout a doubt the most important melodic clawhammer player here, not only for his amazing playing but also as a great teacher of the style. His instruction books and videos helped many players to extend the possibilities of clawhammer banjo playing. Bob Carlin is also a great player and teacher, but more oriented toward the traditional appalachian styles than Perlman. Henry Sapoznik was a major melodic clawhammer player in those days but he also studied classical banjo and initiated the Klezmer revival in New-York as well. Andy Cahan, like Carlin, is a folklorist and great player of the old-time Southern styles.

The tune selection on this lp is diverse and representative of the melodic style with an emphasis on Northern and Irish melodies. The guitar and piano back-up on many tracks is delicate and let the banjo be the lead instrument here.

Enjoy!

Track list:

1.Greenfields of America Andy Cahan

2.Trip to Sligo Ken Perlman

3.French Canadian Medley: St Anne's Reel/Gaspe Reel Henry Sapoznik

4.Picking up tea leaves Andy Cahan

5.Bonaparte crossing the Rocky mountains Bob Carlin

6.Green Willis Bob Carlin & Henry Sapoznik

7.Sligo Maid Ken Perlman

8.Flying Cloud Cotillion Bob Carlin

9.Snowflake Reel Andy Cahan

10.Speed the plough Henry Sapoznik

11.Battle of Aughrim Andy Cahan

12.Ships in the cloud/Folding down the sheets Bob Carlin

13.Off to California Henry Sapoznik

14.Coleraine Andy Cahan

15.Fiddle Head Reel/Dubuque Bob Carlin

16.Flowers of Edinburgh Ken Perlman

17.Irish Spring Dana Loomis

18.Staten Island Hornpipe Henry Sapoznik

19.Chief O'Neil's favorite Andy Cahan

Download here (Lp in MP3 tracks)

Norman S. Edmonds-"Train on the island"

2010-08-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

Here's an out-of-print lp issued by Davis Unlimited of Old-Time fiddler Norman S. Edmonds. People who love Harry Smith 's Anthology of American Folk Music (see my blog "The Old Weird America) may know and love already Edmonds's fiddling from the track "Train on the island", a great fiddle and banjo driving piece of music. Born in 1889 in Virginia, Edmonds recorded only a ccouple of tracks in the 1920's with banjo player J.P Nestor, but appeared in many fiddler's conventions in Virginia and North Carolina, often with his band called The Old-timers. He was a genuine old-time fiddler, playing in the archaic style of the mountains and with driving rhythm, the old traditional dance tunes.

-You can hear other performances from Edmonds on a cd released by the Field Recorder' Collective label.

-Go to the Old-time fiddlers Hall of fame page to read a more extensive biography of Edmonds.

Track list:

01-Walking in the parlor

02-Black-eyed Susie

03-Train on the island

04-Breaking up Christmas

05-Lucy Neil

06-Hawks and Eagles

07-Cricket on the earth

08-Ships in the clouds

09-Angeline the Baker

10-Pretty little girl

11-Old Cotton-eyed Joe

12-Chinquapin Hunting

Download here (I didn't took pictures of the lp cover this time because the lp folder I have is totally black, whitout any informations, except for the tracks's name)

Update

2010-08-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

Hi there, just to let you know that i'll continue posting here as well as on my other blogs... And i may have another project/blog coming on as soon as i'll find time to work on it....A new post is on the way, a lp of old-time fiddler Norman Edmonds (the one who plays on "Train on the island"on the Harry Smith Anthology)...

New blog's coming...

2010-08-17T04:33:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, i wanted to let you know that there won't be other posts here because i'm thinking about a new place to post some music and research as well as some out-of-print lps like i've done here. I'm getting tired of working on three different blogs and it's time to have one unique place to write and share some of my interests.

So thanks to all and see you soon...

John Miller-"Let's go riding"

2010-06-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice out-of-print lp by guitar player (and here banjo and fiddle player as well) John Miller. John is well known for his wonderful playing (and teaching) of Country Blues guitar in the style of the masters of the 1920's and 1930's like Furry Lewis, Robert Wilkins, Bo Carter, Blind Blake, etc... but he's an accomplished musician in other kinds of musical traditions as well (I personnaly love his arrangements of George Gershwin's tunes). This is, i believe one of his first record, issued by Rounder in 1973 but recorded a couple of years before when John was still a student at the university. The first side of the lp is devoted to John's wonderful country Blues guitar playing and his ability to create his own arrangements from classic country Blues recordings is amazing. The second side is a unique opportunity to hear John's venture into old-time music, with many banjo tunes and some fiddle as well. He says in the liner notes that he's been playing banjo for only one year at the time of this recordings and it's quite hard to believe when hearing his excellent numbers on the instrument. John had invited some good musician friends to play with him and among them the excellent guitar flatpicker, Russ Barenberg.

-You can check his website to learn more about his work and teaching.

Download here

P.S: Sorry for the bad quality of the pictures but my usual camera is in the repair shop...

Virginia Traditions:Non-Blues secular black music

2010-05-13T05:40:00.000-07:00

This record comes from a collection published by The Blue Ridge Institute documenting the folk music of the Virginia State. This one focalize on the kind of folk and dance music black virginians played in rural areas, before Blues became so popular that it eclipsed other kind of secular music. To listen to non-Blues material played by blacks during the 20th century, we must turn to field recordings as very few examples were recorded by phonograph companies. We must be thankful to people like the Lomaxes for example, who recorded a lot in the South for more than 30 years and brought back some outstanding performances. (See especially the collections "Black Appalachia" on Rounder or "Black banjo songsters" on Folkways)

On this record, you'll hear banjos, fiddles, guitars, accordeon, harmonica played by a bunch of players recorded mostly in the 1970's by Kip Lornell and some recorded in the 1930's by John and Alan Lomax. If you want to hear more performances by these players, you should go to The Digital Library of Appalachia, a goldmine of wonderful recordings of appalachian music.

Update: A reader told me that this record is avalaible in cd format or digitally through Itunes. I really appreciate the work of the record company who made avalaible this collection again (Global Village) so I strongly recommend that you buy a copy for yourself. I just offer you the booklet in pdf format...

DOWNLOAD HERE (pdf document of the booklet)

Aunt Molly Jackson-Library of Congress Recordings

2010-05-05T06:10:00.001-07:00

This recordings of Aunt Molly Jackson were made in 1939 by Alan Lomax for The Library of Congress. This remarkable woman, nicknamed the "Kentucky coal mining diva" or "Pistol Packin' Mama" was both a singer and union activist, who used the traditional mountain songs and singing style of her Kentucky mountains to sing about the hard times and injustices suffered by the mountain people and coal miners durings the 1930's and beyond. She came frequently to New York City and was part of the radical and folk revival movements of these years and had a big impact on Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie.
These recordings are a bit rough and the sound is very bad sometimes but the powerful singing of Aunt Molly make this collection an important one, both historically and artistically.
To learn more about the extraordinary life of Aunt Molly Jackson, you can visit this beautiful website dedicated to preserve her memory.

Download Here (photos of the booklet included as a pdf file)

Emmett Lundy-Fiddle tunes from Grayson County, Virginia

2010-04-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

These recordings of legendary old-time fiddler Emmett Lundy were made for The Library of Congress By Alan and Elizabeth Lomax in 1941. Lundy was a venerated fiddler in Grayson County, a region that gave us so many fine musicians (Ernest Stoneman, the Ward family...) and his playing represent an old fiddling tradition of this area.

As usual i included a pdf document of the nice 12-page booklet that goes with the lp, so you can read in lenght about the Lundy family and his fiddling style.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Snow on the roof, Fire in the furnace (Cincinnati area traditional musicians)

2010-03-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

I'm back finally from my travels and ready to post a new lp of my collection. This time it's a very eclectic and diverse collection of tunes and songs from traditional musicians from the Cincinnati area. Recorded at the end of the 1970's, produced by two young folk musicians (Malcom Dalglish and Grey Larsen) and issued by June Appal Recordings, "Snow on the roof, fire in the furnace" (love that title...) is a very enjoyable journey through folk and popular music. Here you'll hear a brass band playing marches, a black piano player talk and play some fine Blues, a wonderful fiddler, a old tenor banjo player singing German songs and old pop tunes, a superb Oud player originally from Lebanon, and a accordeon player doing Irish tunes. All this vernacular and ethnic music represents the diverse immigrants who settled in the Cincinnati Area and the musical traditions they brought with them.

So relax and enjoy the music and yourself (it's latter than you think)!

Download here (I've included a pdf document of the booklet which present the musicians on this record)

Old Originals Vol.1 & 2

2010-02-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

Here's a two-offer this week, two out-of-print lps from Rounder Records called "Old Originals" and subtitled "Old-time instrumental music recently recorded in North Carolina and Virginia".

It's a great collection of field recordings made by Tom Carter and Blanton Owen in 1976, who went to The Blue Ridge Mountains in search of old-time musicians. The selections are mostly fiddle or banjo (and sometimes the two together) but ther's also some fife and drum music, harmonica, autoharp, and some really nice old-time piano (the best i heard since Hobart Smith).

Lovers of real and authentic old-time music should enjoy this two records very much.

I provided in the zip file a pdf document of the booklet for each disc, with notes, photographs and tuning.

Download Here vol.1

Download Here vol.2

P.S:There will be no other posts here and on my other blogs until March because i'll travel in India for the next few weeks, so see you and enjoy the music...

Almeda Riddle-Granny Riddle's Songs & Ballads

2010-01-28T03:51:00.000-08:00

Readers of this blog know that i love american traditional singing and that Granny Riddle is one of the greatest traditional singer of all time. So here's another Almeda Riddle lp for you, after the one i posted last year (Go here). The previous lp was entirely devoted to the Hymns and religious songs that made a big part in Almeda's repertoire but this one includes her versions of well-known traditional ballads and songs, with also a few religious ones. So you'll hear her renditions of "Frog went a courtin", "Tom Sherman's Barroom" (known also as "The unfortunate Rake", "St James Hospital"), "Poor Wayfaring stranger", "Barbara Allen", "Texas Rangers", "The Oxford Girl", "The water is wide" etc...

Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD HERE

Great Big Yam Potatoes (Anglo-American fiddle music from Mississippi)

2010-01-19T08:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a great old-time fiddle lp presenting field recordings made for the Library of Congress in 1939. You'll hear the music of 10 old-time fiddlers from Mississippi playing in a beautiful archaic southern syle. On many tracks, the fiddlers are accompanied by someone beating straws on the fiddle neck, an old way of providing a back-up rhythm to fiddle music.

I made a pdf file of the 16-page booklet that goes with the lp, with many photographs, notes on the musicians and the tunes they played and some musical annotations.

Enjoy!

Download here (zip file of the lp cut in MP3 tracks with pdf of the booklet)

Old Mother Hippletoe-Rural and urban children's songs

2009-12-30T02:52:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting lp that compiles recordings from The Library of Congress by the Lomaxes and others to present an overview of children's songs in both rural and urban America. Songs were collected from different ethnic groups,mostly blacks and whites from the South, but also Cajuns, Mexicans, native americans... Some performers are well-known to folk music fans: Almeda Riddle, E.C Ball, Uncle Alec Dunford, Bessie Jones from the Georgia Sea islands singers, Vera Hall...In reading the liner notes (included as a pdf file) we understand that children's songs are a very important part of a folk tradition, one where spontanious creativity is best represented and also a strong link to the adult's world. A good part of the material on the record is in fact sung by adult singers who remember songs from childhood.

Enjoy and happy new year...

DOWNLOAD HERE (zip file including pdf of the liner notes)

The Delta Sisters- Music From The Old Timey Hotel

2009-12-08T09:26:00.000-08:00

I bought this lp a few weeks ago just because i loved the sleeve and the title and was not disappointed by the music also. In fact it's a great record, issued in 1981 on Rooster Records, from a duo of two girls who sing in harmony and play guitar and fiddle some very fine cajun, old-time country, Delmore Brothers numbers. They are accompanied by friends from the west-coast old-timey/folk/bluegrass community and among them, surprise, some of my all-time favorite musicians, Jody Stecher and Eric and Suzy Thompson who provide their vocals and instrumentals excellence on some tracks.

Enjoy!

Click here to go to the Delta Sisters website page to buy a cd re-issue of the lp with bonus tracks

Jean Ritchie- Elektra LP

2009-11-30T05:59:00.000-08:00

This is one of the oldest Jean Ritchie lp, issued by Elektra Records in the 1950's. Coming from a very musical family from Viper, Kentucky, Jean Ritchie came to New York to study in the 1950's and introduced many people there to the traditional music of the Appalachian mountains. With her sweet voice and gentle dulcimer playing, many fell in love with this type of music and the great folk revival was on his way... On this lp, her very first recordings, she sings her usual repertoire of old ballads, play-party songs and dulcimer pieces. It includes her most popular pieces like Shady Grove, The Cuckoo (2 versions here) or Black is the color...

Enjoy! (this lp is more than 50 years old so it includes a few clicks, pops and crackles...)

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eight-Hand Sets & Holy Steps- Early Dance Tunes and Songs of Praise From North Carolina Tradition

2009-10-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

The lp i'm introducing today is a beautiful document of black folk music from the North Carolina region. It's a sampling of the rich and diverse music blacks were playing around the middle 1800's through the early years of the 20th century. It was recorded in North Carolina in the 1970's, at a time were you could still here this kind of music among older black musicians or by their children who kept the tradition alive. The first side of the lp is devoted to dance tunes, also called rags and reels, that were played at social gatherings with guitar, banjos, fiddle, harmonica, bones etc... The second side features songs of praise and spirituals played either by groups or individuals. Some of the musicians are well-known by fans of pre-Blues and Black String-band music ( The duets of Joe and Odell Thompson on fiddle and banjo for example).

In addition to the digitalized version of the lp cut in MP3 tracks, i added a pdf document of the 25-page booklet that goes with the lp (including photographs, notes and lyrics)

ENJOY!

DOWNLOAD HERE

Benny Thomasson-Country Fiddling from The Big State

2009-10-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

We continue this week with fiddle music, this time from Texas, with one of the best fiddler from the Big State, Benny Thomasson. Texas fiddle music is a bit more sophisticated than in the rest of the South, with longer bow strokes, variations and the influence of Fiddlers Contests and popular music. This will eventually give birth to a genre of music called Western Swing in the 1930's and Benny was an adept fiddler in this style too but on this lp he plays mostly old-time fiddle tunes (it contains maybe the most beautiful rendition of the haunting "Midnight on the water"), with a few rags in between. He learned the old-time tunes at a very eary age with his father Luke and his uncle Ed, both excellent fiddlers and soon was competiting and winning many a fiddle contest with his own variations on the old tunes. He did record commercialy in 1929 but the two sides were never released by Okeh. Rediscovered in the 1970's, he recorded and participated in many fiddlers contests and many young fiddlers learned from him, and was remembered not only for his skills on the instrument but also for his generous and warm personnality.

-Go here to read a article about Texas Fiddle and Benny's music

DOWNLOAD HERE

John W. Summers-Indiana Fiddler

2009-10-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a great and out-of-print lp by Indiana fiddler, John W. Summers. Issued by Rounder Records in 1984, it was recorded by banjo player, painter and folklorist Art Rosenbaum and by Summers's fiddling friend, Judge Dan White. I took pictures of the booklet that came with the record so that you can read extensively about this great fiddler.

Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD HERE

CD Review- Casey Joe Abair and Hunter Robertson "If you want to sleep, go to bed"

2009-09-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick review for an excellent new cd i received a few days ago. Under the evocative title "If you want to sleep, go to bed" (A saying by banjo-player Charlie Lowe, who was a major figure of the Round Peak old-time musical tradition and who liked his music fast...) it contains almost exclusively fiddle and banjo duets by two young musicans, Casey Joe Albair and Hunter Robertson. The fine art of fiddle and banjo duets is the core of american old-time music and the two musicians gives us an excellent and energetic selections of instrumental tunes, some well-known, some more obscure, along with a few old-timey songs sung in the expressive and rough vocal style of banjo player Hunter Robertson. The contrast with the delicate voice of his wife Fereale who join him on three numbers makes a delightful combination (it reminds me of some Blind Willie Johnson numbers where the rough street singer sings with a woman).

An elegant and tasty packaging along with some fine liner notes (the source and tunings are provided for each track) to boot makes this cd a must-have for every fan of authentic and deep appalachian old-time music.

-Go to Hunter Robertson's website to hear some samples of it. You can order the cd directly from the website or from various places like ITUNES, AMAZON, ELDERLY...

Mike Seeger-Fresh Oldtime String Band Music

2009-09-04T00:53:00.000-07:00

This is my tribute to Mike Seeger who passed away this summer... Mike was one of the greatest revivalist musician that came out of the folk revival and a passionate advocate of american old-time music for more than 50 years, alone and with the New Lost City Ramblers. He played on almost every folk stringed instruments: Guitar, banjo, autoharp, fiddle, mandolin, dulcimer... and was a model for a lot of people(including myself) to learn and play authentic old-time country music.

The lp i'm offering today was recorded for Rounder in 1984 and was the result of a project Mike had to present old-time string band music played with new ideas, settings and combinations. He took his more adventurous musical friends along with him, including Norman and Nancy Blake, Alan Jabbour, Kirk Sutphin, Paul Brown and members of new old-time string bands of the time like The Stepping Stones from Washington D.C, Tha Agents of Terra and The Horseflies from Ithaca N.Y.

This recordings sounds as fresh and exciting now as it should have been 25 years ago.

Enjoy!

Download Here

Fields Ward-Bury me not on the prairie

2009-07-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

Well, already a month passed without uploading a new lp... So, hoping that quality is better than quantity, i offer you today an out-of-print lp by Fields Ward, issued by Rounder in the 1970's.

Fields Ward was a superb singer and guitar player from Virgina (he could play the banjo too... Listen to "Cotton Blossom" on the lp) who was part of a talented musical family. His father was Crockett Ward, a fiddler who recorded in the 1920's and his uncle was Wade Ward, the famous old-time banjo and fiddle player. Fields recorded with his father Crockett, Wade and Uncle Eck Dunford as The Bogtrotters, a great old-time band that was recorded by The Library of Congress in the 1930's. The present lp includes many fine songs and instrumentals and a moving acapella rendition of the cowboy song "Bury me not on the Lone Prairie". The fiddler on the disc is Jerry Lundy, grandson of the famous old-time fiddler Emmet Lundy and Fields's wife Nancy sings with her husband on a couple of tracks. I strongly recommmend that you read the liner notes on the back of the lp for more informations about the Ward Family and their music.

(On the back of the lp it says that side 2 has 7 tracks but in fact there's 8, they ommited the song "Alas my darling")

Enjoy

DOWNLOAD HERE

Erik Darling

2009-06-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

Erik Darling was a fine folk singer, banjo and guitar player that emerged during the Folk Revival and passed away last year at the age of 74.. In the 1950's, he formed the Tarriers, a succesful folk group that created a calypso craze with "The Banana Boat Song". He later joined the Weavers to replace Pete Seeger and formed another succesfull band called "The Rooftop Singers" who made a hit with the old jug band song "Walk Right In".He played on many sessions with other folk singers, including Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Judy Collins, Jean Ritchie, etc... He recorded also some fine solo lps and wrote an autobiography which tells of his experiences and aventures during the great days of the Folk Revival, including the famous folk music sunday sessions on Washington Square in New York.

You can visit his website and order the book (which contains a cd with 24 songs) here.

Here's is first solo lp for Elektra Records.

DOWNLOAD HERE (my copy is a bit scratchy but i hope you'll enjoy this nice folk lp from the 1960's)

The World's Jukebox

2009-06-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

The World's Jukebox, my blog devoted to ethnic and regional musical from all around the world is taking a new direction. Since i started it, i would post once in a while some tracks from cd reissues of ethnic music that i loved, hoping it would give to people interested in the music the desire to eventually buy this records and learn more about the musical traditions that i find fascinating. I want now to do more than that and present entire lp records from my collection that features one country's musical traditions. I'll start by posting some volumes of a serie edited by Alan Lomax called "The World Library of Primitive and Folk Music". Issued in the 1950's and 1960's by Columbia Records, its a pioneering project to present the world's musical traditions on long playing records, with extensive liner notes. I'll try to post a new volume every week, depending on the time i have,between working on my other blog "The Old, Weird America", my job, my family and playing music... Of course, i'll continue to post from time to time Old-time, folk and Blues lps here... See you soon, and enjoy the music...

Holly Tannen & Pete Cooper- Frosty Morning

2009-06-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks far from home i'm back for a new post, another fine folk lp from my collection that i want to share with you. "Frosty Morning" is a collaboration between an american dulcimer player and singer, Holly Tannen, and a english fiddle player, Pete Cooper. (Martin Simpson plays guitar on some tracks also);It was recorded in England in 1979 and issued by Plant Life Records. The record is a good mix of musics i love: American and Irish fiddle tunes, traditionnal ballads and old-timey american songs, an elizabethan lute piece played on the mountain dulcimer, etc... The duo had recorded only this album together but you can check their websites (click on their names) to learn more about them and their music.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Dykes "Magic City" Trio

2009-05-04T07:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a lp that compiles all the 78rpm records by Dykes "Magic City" Trio, an old-time square dance band of the 1920's. The band was in fact a trio with in his center the appalachian fiddler John Dykes. The guitar player was Hubert Mahaffey and the autoharp player, Myrtle Vermillion (a cousin of Sara Carter). The trio came from the Virginia region and recorded two sessions in the 1920's, thanks to Dock Boggs, who introduced them to the record company. Their records apparently had some success in their time but the band did not record again.

All their music is dance oriented, due to the driving sound of John Dykes's fiddling, one of the best mountain fiddler recorded in the 1920's but they recorded also a few "murder" ballads (Frankie, Poor Helen Smith) and two religious numbers.

-Be sure to read the liner notes to learn more about them (sorry for the bad shape but you can manage to read)

DOWNLOAD HERE

John Molineux-Douce Amère

2009-04-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a really beautiful folk lp from 1978 by John Molineux, musician and instrument-maker, featuring his invention, the dulcichord, a kind of sophisiticated dulcimer. John was born in America but lives in France since the 70's (in Britain, not so far from where i live). He was a member of the John Renbourn Group for a few years and released two lps on his own. This is his first one, and it includes a good selection of traditionnal tunes and songs from Ireland, England and France. The irish harp tunes in particular, (from O'Carolan and others) sounds beautiful on the dulcichord. It features also some of my favorite ballads (Rosemary Lane, Lowlands of Holland), so, in brief, it's a record i cherished for many years and i wanted to share it with you...

-John, who is also a story-teller, has a website you can visit here

-You can buy a compilation cd of his first two lps here (french record company's Kerig)

Download here

Mike Seeger-Music From True Vine

2009-04-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

This is an out-of-print lp released in 1972 by Mercury Records by Mike Seeger, one of my favorite american roots music revivalist. Mike can play on most of the folk instruments and always delivers refreshing versions of old ballads, string-band music, country blues... On this lp he plays guitar, banjo, autoharp, mountain dulcimer, jaw's harp, fiddle and sings a delightful unaccompanied version of the ballad "Black is the color of my true love's hair". He also plays a really nice tune/song on the banjo called "Little Betty Ann" which is a variation of the "Shady Grove" melody.

Enjoy

DOWNLOAD HERE

For Jeff of "Deep Creek Strings"

Africa and The Blues

2009-03-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

"In 1969 Gerhard Kubik chanced to encounter a Mozambican labor migrant, a miner in Transvaal, South Africa, tapping a cipendani, a mouth-resonated musical bow. A comparable instrument was seen in the hands of a white Appalachian musician who claimed it as part of his own cultural heritage. Through connections like these Kubik realized that the link between these two far-flung musicians is African-American music, the sound that became the blues.

Such discoveries reveal a narrative of music evolution for Kubik, a cultural anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. Traveling in Africa, Brazil, Venezuela, and the United States, he spent forty years in the field gathering the material for Africa and the Blues. In this book, Kubik relentlessly traces the remote genealogies of African cultural music through eighteen African nations, especially in the Western and Central Sudanic Belt.

Included is a comprehensive map of this cradle of the blues, along with 31 photographs gathered in his fieldwork. The author also adds clear musical notations and descriptions of both African and African American traditions and practices and calls into question the many assumptions about which elements of the blues were "European" in origin and about which came from Africa. Unique to this book is Kubik's insight into the ways present-day African musicians have adopted and enlivened the blues with their own traditions.

With scholarly care but with an ease for the general reader, Kubik proposes an entirely new theory on blue notes and their origins. Tracing what musical traits came from Africa and what mutations and mergers occurred in the Americas, he shows that the African American tradition we call the blues is truly a musical phenomenon belonging to the African cultural world.

Gerhard Kubik is a professor in the department of ethnology and African studies at the University of Mainz, Germany. Since 1983 he has been affiliated with the Center for Social Research of Malawi, Zomba. He is a permanent member of the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, London."

This week, my post is the companion cd of the book descibed above, 36 tracks of excerpts from both afro-american Blues and african music that illustrates the theories of Gerhard Kubik regarding the vocal and instrumental patterns that occurs in the two musical styles. A fascinating listening experience...

I included photos of the liner notes inside the zip file but to really appreciate this disc, you'll have to read the book...

DOWNLOAD HERE

To Nicolas, of "River's Invitation"

Paul Anastasio, Joe Holley and Frank Hicks-We Ain't Misbehavin'

2009-03-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a superb album of fiddle swing jazz by two masters of two genrations: Paul Anastasio, the younger one, have been playing fiddle since he was 9 years old, classicaly trained first, he turned afterwards towards the world of jazz and country music, assimilating a lot of different styles, from western swing to old-time, and studied with the great Joe Venuti. The older fiddler here is Joe Holley, who was a member of Bob Wills's Texas Playboys, one of the finest western swing band ever. The guitarist who accompanies them, Frank Hicks, played with various western swing and jazz bands but also with Any Old Time String Band and Jean Ritchie. (For further informations on the musicians, you'll have to read the liner notes above).

The playing here is hot and tasteful and the dialogue between the two fiddlers is marvelous.If you like the music of Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang or Django Reihnardt and Stefane Grappelli, you'll love this record.

Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD HERE

Jody Stecher & Friends-Snake Baked a Hoecake

2009-03-05T02:24:00.000-08:00

"Snake baked a hoecake" is Jody Stecher's first lp, issued by Bay Records in 1974. In my previous Jody Stecher's post ("Rasa" with sitarist Krisna Bhatt") i already told how great musician he is and how he manages to pick up the best from every musical traditions he goes into. On this album, there's a mix of american and irish/celtic tunes and a awesome song with a indian flavor (Leela,leela...every time i listen to it, it makes me want to sing and dance and go live in an ashram). Jody is playing with a bunch of friends and the whole atmosphere of the lp reflects the good time they have playing together. On his next album, "Going up on the mountain" (one of my favorite lp of all time), he would continue in a more bluegrass vein, with more singing than on this one. There would be also the first duets with Kate Brislin, her wife and musical partner with whom he made some superb records ever since.

Acoustic disc, the record company run by David Grisman have reedited in cd "Going up on the mountain" a few years ago and half of the tracks of "Snake Baked a Hoecake" were on it...

Now you can listen to the whole record, enjoy!

Download here (zip file of vinyl rip cut in mp3 tracks+photos of the liner notes and covers)

Georgia Sea island Songs

2009-02-24T05:13:00.000-08:00

This week's lp is recordings made in the Georgia sea island by Alan Lomax of both religious and secular traditionnal songs. You'll have to read the liner notes that i provide in the zip file to learn about these ancient black traditions that remained for so long in these island and you'll know how wonderful these performances are by listening to it. In a way it reminds me a lot of another group singing, those of the Bahamas islands from which Joseph Spence comes from.

You can hear the same performers in many other recordings by Aln Lomax, notably in the Southern Journey cd series.

DOWNLOAD HERE

(zip file of the vinyl rip cut in mp3 tracks with pictures of the record sleeves and inside liner notes with the lyrics of the songs)

Enjoy

Almeda Riddle-How Firm A Foundation

2009-02-10T08:02:00.000-08:00

This week i post a lp by the great traditionnal singer, Almeda Riddle. Born in Arkansas in 1898, Almeda was considered a national treasure by american folklorists. She knew hundreds and hundreds of old ballads and songs and was a very important figure of the folk revival. Many came back to the tradition of unaccompanied ballad singing after they heard her performed at a folk festival in the sixties. Unfortunately, there's not many records available today of her, apart for a few tracks on the "Southern Journey" collection by Alan Lomax. But there's a website dedicated to the collection of John Quincy Wolf, the folklorist who discovered her, that features more than 80 recordings of Mrs Riddle along with many other perfomers from the Ozarks. Check it out, it's a great resource for those interested in american traditionnal traditions.

The lp "How Firm a Foundation" was the last she recorded before her death and features only the religious material from her repertoire. Almeda's singing here is as strong and intense as ever and the songs were an important part of her life, and you can feel how deep her spiritual life was listening to this recordings.

-Here, you'll read her biography and on the "Folkstreams" website (An important collection of movies concerning folklore and many marvelous ones about music) there's a documentary about her.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Tony Mac Mahon- Legendary Irish Button-Accordion Player

2009-02-01T08:04:00.000-08:00

I noticed that many of my previous posts featured guitar or banjo players (maybe because that's my main instruments) so i decided to post something different today. This is the first album of Tony Mac Mahon, a famous button-accordion player from County Clare, Ireland. A true master of his instrument, deeply rooted in his tradition and in the same time very innovative and emotive player, he's reknowed for his playing of slow airs, as you will hear on this lp, but the lively tunes are wonderful as well.

Enjoy

DOWNLOAD HERE

Rev. Pearly Brown "It's a mean old world to try to live in"

2009-01-25T07:37:00.000-08:00

Reverend Pearly Brown was a blind street singer and preacher, like Reverend Gary Davis, with a simple but effective guitar style and a very soulful voice. His repertoire, while purely religious was very large; Spirituals, Holy Blues, gospel,traditionnal slave songs, etc...

This lp was first issued in 1975 and is available again through Rounder Archive with six aditionnal tracks. There's another album from him on the Arhoolie label.

-This is my rip of the original lp-

Enjoy

Download here

Just Dave Van Ronk

2009-01-13T01:27:00.000-08:00

Here's an lp from 1964 by the great folk/blues singer Dave Van Ronk. A major figure in the New-York folk scene of the early sixties and an inspiration for the young Bob Dylan, Van Ronk remained somewhat an outsider all his life and never gained popular success. A Singer with a strong voice, and a fine fingerpicking guitarist, he was one of the few white man who could sing the Blues with real passion and authenticity. New-Orleans jazz was his first musical love and he was the first one to play ragtime pieces on the guitar. During 40 years he stayed true to his music and beliefs, and his autobiography, "The mayor of Mac Dougall", that he wrote with the help of Elijah Wald just before his death, is the finest and funniest portrait of Greenwich Village and the folk scene of the sixties ever written.

Track list:

1.Candyman

2.Frankie's Blues

3.Bad dream Blues

4.Pastures of plenty

5.Didn't it rain

6.Wanderin'

7.God Bless The Child

8.Blue Monday

9.Baby let me lay it on you

10.House of the rising sun

DOWNLOAD HERE

Norman Blake-Directions

2008-12-31T06:55:00.000-08:00

Let's end this year with a wonderful lp by Norman Blake, one of my all-time favorite american musician. It's called "Directions" and have been issued in 1978 by Takoma records, a label founded by guitarist John Fahey. It seems it never have been reissued on cd and it's too bad because it's a very good one. It includes a mix of instrumentals and songs, played on guitar mostly but also on mandolin ("Thebes" is a superb mandolin piece), fiddle and "Uncle Sam" has a nice brass band section at the end.

Enjoy and best wishes to all for the new year.

Download here

Visits (103 old-time musicians recorded by Ray Alden)

2008-12-27T02:51:00.000-08:00

This week, i'm posting a double lp issued by Heritage Records in 1981, called simply "Visits". It documents the recordings made by old-time music devotee Ray Alden over a ten year period in the eastern states of the U.S.

-Be sure to visit the Field Recorder's Collective website where you can order other great field recordings of old-time musicians made by Mr. Alden.

-DOWNLOAD "VISITS" part one (The old-timers) and part two (The young musicians)

Enjoy and happy holydays to all

Tom Paley-Hard Luck Papa

2008-12-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

Another Kicking Mule lp this week, and another guitarist, this time, the great Tom Paley. A founding member of The New Lost City Ramblers in the late fifties, along with John Cohen and Mike Seeger, he was a key-figure in the old-time string band revival in New-York. Multi-instrumentist like Cohen and Seeger, he mastered the old-time styles of guitar and banjo playing. He left the Ramblers in 1963 and went to live in Europe. He studied swedish folk fiddling and continued to play old-time american music with different bands. He had a new cd that came out last year, "Beware young ladies", available at CDBABY.com.

"Hard Luck Papa" came out in 1976 and features many hot picking numbers on the guitar as well as a few banjo pieces.

Enjoy

DOWNLOAD HERE

-By special request i post the (small) tablature book that goes with the lp:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Duck Baker-The King of Bongo Bong

2008-12-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

Today's post features one of my favorite fingerstyle guitar performer and teacher, Duck Baker. My first encounter with him was through Stefan Grossman's guitar workshop videos where you'll find many lessons by Duck. He can teach with equal ability Thelonious Monk arrangements, Irish tunes, Swing, Modern Jazz, Blues and Folk, with a style that evolved from Mississippi John Hurt and Merle Travis picking techniques.

The subtitles of this lp issued in 1977 by Kicking Mule reads "Hot tunes,pop tunes, Blues, Instrumentals and Hilarity". What more can i say? Yes, one more thing. Duck sings on most of the tunes here and i really like his singing, too bad he didn't sing anymore on his other records.

I will post more of him in the future because i feel he deserves to be more known as he's a musician with incredible taste and knowledge and really opened new perspectives to fingerstyle guitarists.

Enjoy

THE KING OF BONGO BONG ZIP FILE

(As usual it's a basic rip from the vinyl so there's a bit of cliks and pops...)

Clyde Davenport

2008-11-28T08:45:00.000-08:00

Clyde Davenport, from Wayne County, Kentucky, is one of the last old-time fiddler still alives today (born in 1921, he's 87 years old). He plays also the banjo, mostly clawhammer style, as you can hear on this lp issued by County Records. There's also an old recording of Burnett & Rutheford included in the album because Leonard Rutheford was Clyde's main influence on the fiddle.

-You can go here to read about his life and playing style.

-On the Field Recorders' Collective website, they have two cds you can order and an article about him.

-On the digital library of Appalachia website, there's many performances available for free.

DOWNLOAD "CLYDEOSCOPE" ZIP FILE

Some changes on "The Old, Weird America"

2008-11-24T02:29:00.000-08:00

I've made some changes to my first post on "The Old, Weird America". Now you'll have two compilations to download in a zip file format: "Dick Justice's World" and "The Henry Lee Variations". Enjoy

My new music blogs

2008-11-21T08:27:00.000-08:00

I've started two new musical blogs, in parallel with this one, that, i hope, will complete each other well. Here, i want first of all to make available out-of-print or hard-to-find records that i like, and mostly i rip the lps from my collection in my computer, take a picture of the cover and the liner notes and share a few words about the music. On "The World's Jukebox", the idea is to present songs and tunes from all over the world, most of the time issued originally on 78rpm records or field recordings of all kind, that i select from my collection of cds , it's only one tune for each post and i let the music speak for itself. If you're interested about one selection, i always show from which cd i took it and i strongly recommend that you buy it. This way you'll support the small records companies that make this important world music available and you'll have most of the time access to liner notes that gives a good insight and historical informations that make for a deepened listening experience.

My last project is called "The Old, Weird America" in hommage to Greil Marcus and it's an exploration of the famous "Anthology of american folk music" edited by Harry Smith and issued by Folkways Records. The idea, here, is to take the Anthology as a roadmap to travel through America's roots music and traditions, gathering informations, music, photos and videos about each artists, songs and tunes and track the influence they had on the folk revival, and american popular music in general. I hope all this will be of interest and enjoyable, not only to americans but people like me, from all over the world, who feel inspired and fascinated about all this traditions.

Finally, as it's a work-in-progress project, i'll be happy to receive any comment, suggestion, critic or aditionnal information about this topics. Thanks

Country Spirituals

2008-11-16T09:37:00.000-08:00

Here's an excellent compilation of gospel songs performed by "guitar evangelists", Blues songsters and gospel singers, all recorded by the great folklorist Dr. Harry Oster in the sixites....

It features Snook Eaglins, Reverend Pearly Brown, Butch Cage and Willie Thomas, Robert Pete Williams, among others great performers...

Go to Wirz discography to see all the recordings of Dr Harry Oster. To me, he's one of the most important american folklorist of this century, along with Alan Lomax.

Download Zip file "Country Spirituals"

Ukrainian-American Fiddle & Dance Music

2008-11-11T11:20:00.000-08:00

These recordings of traditionnal dance music, recorded in America between 1926 and 1936 by ukrainian immigrants, sounds as lively and joyful as any american old-time string band music or irish music from the same period. So if you like traditionnal fiddle music, take a listen and be ready to dance and rejoice with these incredible music.

Download zip file

Tommy Jarrell & Fred Cockerham

2008-11-06T06:21:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be a good idea to make this superb recordings of Tommy Jarrell with Fred Cockerham available again because the cd seems to be out-of-print... Here's a link to an article by Ray Alden about these two greats musicians: http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/jarrell.htm

And here's the album:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mwgyonzyk2j

Joseph Spence

2008-11-05T06:09:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of Joseph Spence for a while and, like a lot of guitar player before me, i was really intrigued and and fascinated by his playing. So last year i was very excited to see that Stefan Grossman's guitar workshops issued a tutorial dvd of Spence's guitar style by Elijah Wald. I really enjoyed this lesson and recommend it to everyone, even to the basic fingerpickers or the country blues/folk players because it brings new ideas for the playing in dropped D tuning, challenging rythms and, like Elijah Wald says in the video, it's so much fun to play...

On the bonus of the dvd, there's one hour of unreleased audio recordings by Spence, including some interviews. I put all the tracks on my itunes player, using the audiohijack system, and i want to share this material with you.

Here it is:http://www.mediafire.com/?ldhjodmerwn

The Library of Congress Banjo Collection

2008-11-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to all the banjo enthousiasts, including myself, who love the instrument and want to explore and study the old-time styles of playing. This recordings, taken from the library of congress huge collection, were recorded between 1937 and 1946 and represent all kinds of pre-Scruggs picking styles, from down-picking (clawhammer is the term more employed) to various two and three finger-pickings. The sound on most of the tracks is very raw but i'm sure you'll enjoy this important historic collection. I've put pictures of the booklet in the zip file as it brings historical notes, banjo tunings and great pictures of the performers...

http://www.mediafire.com/?m2o3idfnyhm

Eric Thompson & Alan Senauke-Two guitars

2008-10-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

Here's one of my favorite flatpicking guitar album. It was recorded in the mid-eighties by Eric Thompson and Alan Senauke, two fine Bay area musicians from the bluegrass-old-timey scene. The interplay between the two guitars in this record is excellent and they made a fine selections of rare tunes, fiddle tunes of course, but also irish, finnish and greek tunes. Here's my rip from the lp:http://www.mediafire.com/?lhzwzyzm3zz

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

2008-10-17T03:32:00.000-07:00

The weather 's turning cold this morning and listening to Sister Rosetta Tharpe singing and playing her guitar warmed me a bit... Here's 22 tracks of great gospel singing and great guitar playing by the Sister.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/5jm3tzgzzuw/Sister Rosetta Tharpe.zip

Rasa- Jody Stecher & Krishna Bhatt

2008-10-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, now it's time for a real gem, a unique record that never been reissued on cd and is hard to find on vynil also... It's a collaboration between one of my favorite american musician and singer, Jody Stecher, and the indian sitarist Krishna Bhatt. The fusion of indian and american music have already been tempted on record but it doesn't sound as natural and fun as on this album. Jody Stecher have been studying and playing a variety of roots music for years and always took the best, the essence of each traditions. On most of his records, he mostly displays his skills on songs and tunes in the american vein but he studied also the indian traditions deeply.

On Rasa, we have appalachian tunes, greek rembetiko, cajun song, russian-two step ,etc...played by two masters enjoying themselves with a bunch of friends.

Hope you like it...http://www.mediafire.com/file/tnwododtwmj/Rasa.zip

Bruce Hutton

2008-10-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a Folkways lp from 1978, called "Old-time music-It's all around" by multi-instrumentist and old-time revivalist, Bruce Hutton .http://www.huttonfolkways.com/ . Hutton, much like Mike Seeger (see my post of him below), devoted his life to revisit american rural music, and play it on a variety of folk instruments. He's a kind of perfomer/teacher who spread the good word about all this beautiful traditions. Check his perfomance at the Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/artist_detail.cfm?artist_id=HUTTONBRUC

Here's a few tracks from this album with a pdf document containing the liner notes...

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=93dda5f1124e4125ab1eab3e9fa335ca1cb4615efa52cff9

Michael Coleman

2008-10-10T07:24:00.001-07:00

On my last post, i talked briefly of Shanachie Records, who started by issuing lots of irish music, contemporary and of the past. Here's a fine compilation of recordings by one of the greatest irish fiddler of all time, Michael Coleman http://www.colemanirishmusic.com/history.php

Enjoy

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=93dda5f1124e4125ab1eab3e9fa335cab5fed9c4093cf8d9

You can tell the world about this

2008-10-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

Today i'd like to post a rare record, from a label called Morning Star Records, which was operated by Richard Nevins, also founder of Shanachie Records. Nevins is also a record collector and operated the wonderful reissue compilations of vintage recordings on Yazoo. The Morning Star label was created in the 80's and released only a few records. I'm lucky to have found one on ebay wich is called "You can tell the world about this" , a wonderful compilation of ethnic recordings from the 20's and 30's. Ten years later Yazoo Records would release on cd five volumes of vintage ethnic recordings selected by Pat Conte called "The secret museum of mankind". A few of the tracks on the lp would reappear on the cds but the rest is another bunch of unique 78rpm records from around the world.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nm1yjnzn43y/You can tell the world about this.zip

Sam Chatmon

2008-09-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a very good country blues record by Sam Chatmon, recorded in the seventies, at the end of his career. To me he really is one of the great blues patriarchs. (There's not so many blues artists who grew a beard like Sam when he got old, and it looks great...)http://www.mediafire.com/file/nayyweuhwjz/Blues when it rains.zip

Ernie & Emilio Caceres

2008-09-27T02:34:00.000-07:00

On this blog, i want to share with you some records that are hard to find or have never been reissued on cd, and i'll start right now with a beautiful picture disc, 10-inch record of two brothers:Ernie and Emilio Caceres. Ernie played tenor sax and clarinet and his brother the violin. They played hot swing tunes, were sidemen of many famous jazz performers and if you want to know more, just google their names... Let's talk about the record in itself. It was released by the french record company "Paris Jazz Corner" who also released a Robert Johnson picture disc. The two records feature a drawning of the musicians by Robert Crumb, the famous cartoonist and lover of vintage records. If you can find those records, buy them, it's great items.

P.S: The track "Dark eyes"(Les yeux noirs) don't appear on that record, i just found it on the internet and it features the superbe violin of Emilio...

http://www.mediafire.com/file/yhnyymmjjny/Ernie & Emilio Caceres.zip

Mike Seeger-Old-time Banjo Styles

2008-09-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

Mike Seeger is one of my favorite old-time revivalist. For more than 40 years he promotes american traditionnal music through his recordings with The New Lost City Ramblers, alone or with other peoples, field recordings and instructionnal material. Today's post will be the audio part of his instructionnal dvds devoted to the banjo. He made 4 dvds for Homespun Tapes, one called "Old-time Banjo Styles" and 3 others in a serie called "Southern Banjo Styles". I recorded the audio of the pieces played on these dvds with audiohijack to play them on Itunes. For anyone interested in the many styles the banjo was played in the appalachian and in the south, this material is the best way to learn it and Mike Seeger teaches all the little details of the right and left hand to play in an authentic way.

Enjoy

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mnmmqtwmnn2/Southern Banjo Styles.zip

John Jacob Niles

2008-09-24T03:21:00.000-07:00

If you never heard the music of John Jacob Niles be prepared to meet a very personnal and eccentric singer, who devoted all his repertoire to the folk and traditionnal songs of the british isles and the United States. He sang Child ballads, carols and Appalachian folk songs like no one else, with his voice going from low to high all the time and living and acting the story of the songs like an opera singer... The other weird aspect is that on all his songs he would play a kind of big dulcimer that adds to the strangeness of his renditions. In all, it can take a little time to appreciate but to my opinion he was one of the most intense and dramatic singer of all times and he should be better known. http://www.mediafire.com/?5zndqmtbmdl

Rosa Eskenazy

2008-09-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

Rosa Eskenazy is one of the best female singer of Rebetiko, the music of the Greek underground...

This recordings were made late in her career, in the 1950's in Istanbul. It's not the regular bouzouki sound of Rebetiko but in the more orchestred style, with oud, violin, percussion, etc... Enjoy

http://www.mediafire.com/file/rdmzkzz3zwm/Roza Eskenazy Greek Oriental Songs The recordings in Istanbul, 1954.zip

Jean Bosco Mwenda

2008-09-23T02:33:00.000-07:00

I''ll start right now by sharing with you a few tracks from Jean Bosco Mwenda, a congolese guitarist that i like very much.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/dmziymrjjtu/Jean Bosco Mwenda.zip

2008-09-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody and welcome to my blog... This place will be devoted to all the kinds of music i love and learned to love over the years, mostly traditionnal and folk music from all over the world, but especially music that was recorded in North America over the last century. I should say that i'm a french guy of 33 years old so i discovered all this music almost always from records and i fell in love with all this strange and exotic sounds, recorded long before i was born.I decided to write in english even if it's not my language so more people from all over the world can read me, so be indulgent if i make mistakes...And since most of the music i love and the knowledge i had about it was in english, it felt natural for me to do so...