New home and name for this blog

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...)

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

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

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

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

1. Old Sledge
2. Camp Chase
3. Three Forks of Cheat
4. The Yankee and Marcum
5. Sugar Grove Blues
6. Turkey in the Straw
7. The Route
8. Fine Times at Our House
9. Jimmy Johnson
10. Parsons Rock
11. In Scotland Town
12. Little Omie
13. Young Henerly
14. Muddy Roads
15. Bringing Back the Sheep
16. The Sandy Boys
17. Wilson's Clog
18. Sugar Babe (version 1)
19. We're Marching Around the Levees
20. Riddles
21. Mercian Tittery-ary-a
22. Jay Legg
23. When This World Comes to an End

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

Part 2: Shaking down the Acorns

1. Shaking Down the Acorns / Hink Cogar's Deer Ride
2. Cranberry Rock
3. The Panther in the Sky
4. Sugar Babe (version 2)
5. The Lonesome Pines
6. Johnny Booger
7. Walking in the Parlor
8. Singing Birds
9. Old Man, Can I Have Your Daughter
10. The Haunted Wagon
11. Rocky Mountain Goat
12. Who's Been Here Since I've Been Gone
13. Lost Indian
14. Hard Times in the Charleston Jail
15. Ireland's Green Shore
16. The Big Scioty
17. 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

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

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

Update: Download here the tab book for the lp

(thanks to Steven from The Banjo Hangout)

Melodic Clawhammer Banjo

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"

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

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...

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"

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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)

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)