S/D: Old-Timey Music (e.g., Prewar Gospel Blues, Bluegrass, Mountain Music)

i regret having no musical education as a youth.
i feel like, at this point in my life, if i wanted to try to learn to fiddle or pick a banjo, i'd have an awfully hard time with it. after years of struggling i can still barely tune a guitar.

I confess that I'm not real big on bluegrass, 'cause I prefer more song in my song, and a lot of bluegrass seems to focus on technique to the detriment of song.

i feel like, at this point in my life, if i wanted to try to learn to fiddle or pick a banjo, i'd have an awfully hard time with it. after years of struggling i can still barely tune a guitar.

actually my sister didn't start until she was about 28 or so. it was after she had a kid, she wanted something she could do once a day that would just be for herself. and, you know, she's never going to be a pro, but she's gotten pretty good. she can go to old-time jams and play along.

(plus with old-time music in particular, the social and musical circles are small enough that they're pretty happy to have anyone. even as a novice, you can end up with access to some of the best people in the country for seminars or lessons.)

you ever been to the bluegrass jam at Freddy's bar, tipsy? I know it's not in yer hood, but it's usually pretty fun.

never been to freddy's at all, but it's on my "i should go there sometime" list...

maybe i'll shoot you an e-mail next time i head there for bluegrass night. not 'til february IIRC, i think i missed january's already.

that'd be cool, yeah.

there's a bluegrass jam night at the grizzly pear on macdougal. it gets crazy busy though. like a glenn branca bluegrass orchestra.

asheville n.c. is still sort of a hotbed of old-time-vs.-bluegrass sentiment. a lot of those old-time dudes (and dudettes) are real hardcore about it. my sister plays fiddle and has played with some people like that and even absorbed some of the sentiment; i don't think she owns any bluegrass cds.

I definitely think Asheville is dominated by bluegrass/hippie bluegrass folks. There is a healthy old time scene, but I tend to think southwest Virginia has more going on when it comes to old time.

I just got back from Roanoke, where I caught Charlie Parr and the Black Twigs. Great show. Anybody into country folk and rural blues should definitely check out Parr. He brought along this mind blowing harmonica player who can do the whole train speeding up/slowing down thing. Apparently, the guy actually works on the railroad up in Duluth. Wild. Parr plays both six and twelve-string steel. Incredible picker. For the second half of his set the Twigs joined him for a six-man jam. It was a total throwdown. They did "Glory in the Meeting House," "Last Kind Word Blues" and a few other fiery spirituals. There's a great version of "John Hardy" on the Twigs' MySpace site which features Charlie.
Here: http://www.myspace.com/blacktwigs

Tomorrow is another old-timey night on the radio I think.

I got some more old records from County this week incl. such greats as Riley Puckett, The Leake County Revelers, Doc Roberts, Lake Howard etc. Plus some great comps. I never realized Michael Hurley's "I'm Gettin' Ready To Go" was such a direct swipe of the Puckett version. I don't think it's credited anywhere on the Snockgrass sleeve anyway. Also, I ran across a few volumes of the Carter Family radio sessions on Old Homestead but didn't pick 'em up cause I'm trying to be frugal (yet i still bought those expensive new sublime frequencies lps...)

I'm getting more into a capella ballads & field recordings too. Some sweet regional collections put out by labels like The Blue Ridge Institute and the Tennessee Folklore Society. Also, the beautiful and highly slept-on Nimrod Workman "I Want to Go Where Things Are Beautiful" LP (in print on Twos and Fews, a Drag City-related label.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DXTsRQRqzqas

try that again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTsRQRqzqas

Picked up that Nimrod Workman LP myself a few days back. Haven't really had the time to give it much attention yet. I'd second the recommendation for the Art Of Field Recording boxsets: great music, lovely notes and drawings by Art Rosenbaum.

Art Rosenbaum is also a fantastic banjo player, much respected in the oldtime banjo-playing community. His book, Art of the Mountain banjo is still available and a great survey of several oldtime playing styles including 2-finger up-picking, clawhammer and Dock Boggs-style three finger picking. (In many ways it's worth getting for the accompanying CD alone)

I realise my info on Art Rosenbaum's book "Art of the Mountain banjo" might be potentially misleading. It's a book for banjo players (sort of intermediate level) and contains sheet music and tablature for songs and tunes in various banjo styles. The CD is of Art himself playing (and singing) the tunes presented in the book. So it's not a written history of banjo styles.

i've already got a copy, but someone here should buy this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mountain-Blues-LP-County-Records-511-Old-Time-country_W0QQitemZ390071706932QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMusic_on_Vinyl?hash=item5ad215e534&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72%3A1205|293%3A1|294%3A50

errr.. this

what do people think of old homestead records? i used to order from their very old-school (tiny, tiny print; oodles of listings using weird abbreviations, newsprint) catalogue. they still put out lots of CDs. they probably have the largest catalogue of old-time music on LP in the world, but they don't get much love. that's probably for a number of reasons. they don't seem to know how, or care how, to market this stuff to people who wouldn't already be interested. also, they probably have the worst mastering i have ever heard. their CDs often have digital distortion and dropouts; the LPs are flimsy and often there's more needle static than music on the transferred 78s. so although i own a lot of their stuff, i'm wary of buying more. but that catalogue! damn.

they finally have a decent website btw: http://home.comcast.net/~oldhomestead/

WTF they are selling those JSP boxes (list price $25-29) for $50!!!!!!

i don't think it's mercenary so much as brainless. i always got the sense that these folks weren't very "up" on the whole "record retailing" thing.

shitloads of country 78s though:

http://home.comcast.net/~oldhomestead/catalogs/cat7807s.htm

Yeah! I bought some 78s from Old Homestead last year. They were great! I got a Kelly Harrell, a Georgia Yellowhammers, and something else. Their two volume set of Grayson & Whitter recordings is essential. They released an ungodly amount of Carter Family radio sessions too iirc. like 5 volumes or something? more? Agreed that their catalog is pretty weird.

the Claude Casey "Pine State Honky Tonk" LP is excellent western swing.

at least three volumes of dixon brothers.. i don't have the first one. just numbers two and three.

srry i didn't get back to you again btw, will do tomorrow!

thing is, most of that old-time stuff can be had on JSP for less money, and despite JSP's frequent mastering problems, they still probably sound better than the old homstead stuff. but i wouldn't begrudge you buying 78s from them (not a habit i've gotten into... yet).

the Claude Casey "Pine State Honky Tonk" LP is excellent western swing.

i'd like to hear that. i'm not huge on western swing, at least, not yet, but my girlfriend is.

i've already got a copy, but someone here should buy this (Mountain Blues, from County Records)

eMusic doesn't have it, for some reason. But they do have County Records, and something that sounds similar: Old Time Mountain Blues Rural Classics (1927 -- 1939). Opinions on this disc?

that's excellent.

in the same vein are the amazing "white country blues" (sony) and "mountain blues" (jsp) collections -- the former is OOP, the latter is not.

Also Yazoo's "Mr Charlie's Blues"

I'll look up Mr. Charlie's Blues.

Bug-eyed crazy it may be, but you know what's awesome? Alfred Karnes' Called to the Foreign Fields, on The Music of Kentucky: Early American Rural Classics (1927 -- 1937). Fire.

Another good (and bug-eyed crazy) Karnes song is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GogiVjoc3s

all alfred karnes' stuff is great!

There's only a handful of Karnes stuff on eMusic, sadly. But yeah, it's all gr8. Tons of (crazy) energy.

i don't think he recorded more than a few sides.

Yeah. Karnes was involved in the Bristol Sessions, which were apparently the "big bang" of recorded country music. Here are Karnes' contributions:

Alfred G. Karnes: Called to the Foreign Field, I Am Bound for the Promised Land, Where We'll Never Grow Old, When I See the Blood, When They Ring the Golden Bells for You and Me, To the Work (7/29)

I think it's the first three songs that are on eMusic.

if i'm not mistaken, his complete works are on the 1st disc of that JSP "mountain gospel" set. it all sounds very much of a piece, which is fine by me. my favorite might be "where we'll never grow old" which is very sad (although possibly meant to be otherwise?).

A lot of that turn-of-the-20th-century music sounds unintentionally sad. Something in the crackling and aging of the records and the echoing ghosts of a bygone era.

yeah, i think we "hear" a lot of that stuff differently than folks heard it back then. charley patton is a good example: i don't know that the people who bought his records would have felt they were "searing" or intense as opposed to just exciting and catchy. but it's really impossible to reconstruct an "interpretive community" for that stuff so i guess we just get a bunch of folks like ourselves projecting in various ways.

xp Those White Country Blues and Mr. Charlie's Blues comps (both 1926-1938) have some of my favorite music ever, period.

Also, fwiw, I found a second vinyl copy of Minstrels and Tunesmiths: The Commercial Roots Of Early Country Music (John Edwards Memorial Foundation/JEMF, 1981, rec. 1907-1923) in a Goodwill store over the weekend. My first copy has been quite reliable for a couple decades now. If somebody's really interested in the LP, they should email me.

I definitely hear what I want to hear in this music. I hear what I want to hear in Ring My Bell, too, for that matter.

When I mentioned this music genre to my wife, she said "Oh, yeah! What's that scary K1an song from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou?" It's O, Death, and on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoIebIKNS4s

Not really old-time music, but an interpretation thereof. And o_0, that video unnerves me (I'm Jewish, but I'm sure most people are unnerved by the K1an).

(I Google-proofed the word "K1an," BTW)

BTW, that White Country Blues disc just showed-up on eMusic (it's part of Sony's back-catalogue). I'll download it this weekend.

i can try to scan in and post the liner notes (which are good) if you're interested.

that scene in OBWAT offended me when i saw it. but i suppose if ralph stanley wasn't offended, i shouldn't be. i am offended by the general dullness of that movie though.

I'd love to see the liner notes!

Yeah, I have very conflicted feelings about that scene. OTOH, sometimes art's role is to highlight -- rather than obscure -- ugliness. The movie was dull, but the performances by the three lead actors were v. good (especially Clooney).

yeah, lots of talent went into that movie, and there are some real good bits, but the whole thing just feels kind of slack and dumb.

Love this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK8obqDMVy0

http://www.1001tunes.com/props/gid.riley.animated02.gif

Alfred Karnes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Drgf-oCSdU