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

Anyone heard 'People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs (1913 -- 1938)? I got it from eMusic, so I don't have the (what I understand to be) wonderful packaging and liner notes, but the songs themselves are -- by and large -- outstanding, albeit maudlin and/or depressing, e.g., Memphis Flu, Storm That Struck Miami (since I live there (Coral Gables)), Burning Of A Cleveland School, Murder Of The Lawson Family, and Trial of Richard Bruno Hauptmann, Pts. I -- II. At three discs, it can be a bit much, especially given the subject matter, so it's best in small doses.

I've been curious about it, read several reviews of it, but never did seek it out.

This website http://eldiablotuntun.blogspot.com/ is recommended.
This ... site ... is ... incredible. All kinds of treasures, including ... ahem ... "Goodbye Babylon" (although not the sixth disc yet).

Question about Washington Phillips--Should I go with the one on Sanachie or is the cd on Document with the extra takes of the same songs by Blind Mamie And A.C. Forehand?

should say "is the cd on Document worth..."

And is there anything else out there by Blind Mamie and A.C.? Because Honey In The Rock = GASSSSP :0

Stomp & Swerve: American Music Gets Hot 1843-1924 pre-release CD-R version, apparently includes lots of tracks Wondrich was unable to license, or something.)

You MUST tell us what was on the CD-R, xhuxk

michael coleman - the monaghan jig (1921)
kumasi trio - yaw donkor (1928)
joe ayers - old dan tucker (1989) (? that's what it says; not sure if that's a typo or not)
pryor's band - falcon march (1910)
sousa's band - at a georgia camp meeting (1908)
sousa's band - trombone sneeze (1902)
peerless orchestra - whistling rufus (1904)
vess l. ossman - a coon band contest (1901)
ossman-dudley trio - st. louis tickler (1906)
arthur collins - all coons look alike to me (1899)
len spencer - you've been a good old wagon (1901)
polk miller - rise and shine (1909)
dinwiddie colored quartette - poor mourner (1902)
bert williams - nobody (1906)
bert williams - play that barbershop chord (1910)
afro-american folk song singers - swing along (1914)
europe's society orchestra - down home rag (1913)
versatile four - circus day in dixie (1916)
original dixieland jass abdn - livery stable blues (1917)
hickman's orchestra - avalon/japanese sandman (1920)
mamie smith - crazy blues (1920)
ed andrews - time ain't gonna make me stay (1924)
lanin's southern serenaders - shake it and break it (1921)
mound city blue blowers - arkansas blues (1924)
charles creath - market st. blues (1924)
alberta hunter - cake walking babies from home (1924)
uncle dave macon - old dan tucker (1925)

Y'all got any E C Ball?

Oh my GOD I completely forgot I had that book/cd.

Nice to see you slummin' on these old dusty relics - i can echo many items from upthread. xhuxk nailed a bunch of fantastic titles, many of which i have or have heard - and a few that i'll now need to.

Let me start by saying that Joe Brussard is a curator of the highest rank, that Charley Patton is THE man when it comes to country blues, and that Mountain Music and Bluegrass should never be confused as one in the same.

Harry Smith's "Antholgy of American Folk Music" is an assumed reference point, as are countless other recordings from Smithsonian Folkways; in particular i'd highly recommend Mountain Music of Kentucky - even though this was released in 1960 some of these traditions likely changed little in decades (given how isolated many of these communities were).

The "People Take Warning" Box delivers mostly with the packaging, but one that delivers on every front is this beauty from Dust-to-Digital.

The "Roots and Braches" comp i know of has a nice mix of early gospel and "pop" and can be seen on AMG.

Since the discussion has drifted into other areas you might also look at (the well-crafted and super-cheap) Proper's Farewell to Ireland (Proper has lots of other goodies like this Western Swing Box, which might even be trumped by their Bob Wills Box). But i'm getting a bit off course, no? Leave me to it and find a direct link from here to Javanese Gamalean!

Search ye all Fiddlin' Arthur Smith "There's More Pretty Girls Than One, Part 2"

Search: Darby & Tarlton

http://www.countysales.com/php-bin/ecomm4/products.php?category_id=16&product_id=5442&PHPSESSID=9a9fb17fcd67fae6add4ae599f97e0bd&prev_id=1731&next_id=4337

Thanks! That County Sales web site looks great. Any idea if the site is linked to County Records, which puts out some fantastic bluegrass, rural Southern and mountain music compilations?

(I always have trouble researching County Records. Name's too generic.)

Same label, Daniel.
I collect their old LPs, mostly the 400 & 500 series, but the later bluegrass-styled stuff as well if it's cheap enough.

I've been in touch with one of the folks who works there lately, and they apparently still have a bunch of LPs in a warehouse!

That label is a treasure.

Me & my buddy Keegan are playing old time music & country blues on our radio show tonight at 8pm on eastvillageradio.com, then it will be archived for a week.

HI GUYS WE ARE ON DA INTERNET RADIO NOWZ!!!

If I can't listen live (I'm going to try), I'm definitely going to check out the archieved show. Thanks for the link.

Just saw the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Yes their oldest member is just 31 (i.e., they're not on 78 rpm records)but they learned Carolina Piedmont style sounds from old fiddler Joe Thompson,and Old Hat Records Marshall Wyatt likes 'em.

where can I get that American Pop box set?

Here is a youtube video for a Skillet Lickers tune with politically incorrect lyrics.
How do people interested in this style of music deal with this kind of thing? When I first heard this particular tune, I was surprised by it only because I wasn't expecting it and was kind of embarassed to be listening to it. I know that racist & anti-black sentiment were probably fairly common among rural Southern whites in the 20s & 30s, but it was surprising to me that Rounder would have reissued that particular cut on LP well-after the N-word became highly unacceptable.

i own two versions of that song, one by the skillet lickers and one by uncle dave macon. i guess i deal with it by not listening to them. i don't mind that they're on the cds -- sort of helps to keep things in perspective. but i'd as soon not catch myself tapping my foot to it, you know?

(whereas i'm able to be amused by the awful sexism of something like "why do you bob your hair, girls" -- which i'm sure would make some hillary clinton voters nod their heads knowingly and say "see? do you see?")

If you guys don't mind I might use this to catalog youtube videos of old time music.

let's start with roscoe holcomb playing "john hardy." i was looking for clarence ashley videos, and i still like his version better, but this is really cool to watch.

and HERE is clarence ashley. with unknown accompaniment playing guitar. a comment for the video mentions doc watson as "an accompanist" but i do not know if that is watson playing guitar or not. do you?

skip james. i was thinking looking for the burnette & rutherford track. called "all night long" but this is still good despite the abrupt ending and lack of hand footage.

the only burnett & rutherford video does not feature any moving pictures at all.

this is the CREEPIEST THING EVER, WATCH WITH CAUTION IF PRONE TO NIGHTMARES:

xpost: no, here's a pic of clarence and doc:

http://www.ibiblio.org/DocWat/pics/p1903.gif

and how bout a little uncle dave:

I'm not normally a fan of videos in the "watch this record spin" vein, but i've been on a blue sky boys kick and this is a wonderful track.

there's a bunch of dock boggs clips from the '60s.

the stompy organ in that uncle dave video is going to make some busker a fortune. all you need is a few bellows, some hose, a melodica and what, super glue? i guess and some straps to attach the bellows to yer feet. xp

i love the dock.

martin, bogan & armstrong:

(there's a bunch of clips from louie bluie too. maybe the whole movie.)

point of trivia: i've actually held that banjo that dock's playing there. mike seeger has it now. i'm trying to write something about it right now.

do you play banjo, tipsy mothra?

Another kind of weird video. It's an old popeye cartoon what's a combination of grainy and awfully pixelated.

that's a combination of blah blah...

R Crumb & Geeshie Wiley

Blind Willies.

i don't play a lick of banjo, but i went to interview mike seeger a while back and he got out dock's banjo and played a couple tunes and then handed it to me so i could appreciate the heft of it. it was pretty cool. then his wife made us vegan-cheese sandwiches...

anyway there are of course lots of gary davis clips

and son house

(looking at these clips makes me hugely appreciative all over of mike seeger and all the other guys who went tracked all these dudes down while they were still alive. it's too bad we don't have film of most of them in their prime, but nice that we have them at all.)

sleepy john estes w/yank rachel

That's really cool that you got to interview Mike Seeger. I love reading articles & essays by people of his ilk--field collectors, folklorists et al. not to mention liner notes.

i like the blind willie video for including the mctell interview at the beginning. so much of blues scholarship is based on the recollections of a handful of old men; I was just reading an article the other day which was essentially a summation of Ishmon Bracey's recollections. Apparently there was doubt about who had accompanied him on a particular cut at a sessions, and no copy of 78 was found until after Bracey had passed away.

I can't get that Yank Rachel/Estes video to load. Who besides Yank Rachel used the mandolin extensively in the blues idiom?

a little off target of this thread, but there's some really nice Django footage here:

Bukka White tellin it like it is.

maybe i'll teach myself to fingerpick this winter with extensive use of youtube instructional videos.

carl martin played mandolin, that's the only other one off the top of my head. i'm sure there was a lot of it around in the late '20s/early '30s era, before banjo and mandolin sort of got segregated out of the blues.

i can't find any clips from this video online, but i'd like to see it. i saw him play when he was i think 99, and he was awesome. he'd introduce songs like, "i learned this one in 1928..."

there's lots of great videos of Tommy Jarrell.

again, only vaguely appropriate, but i am going to bed:

Haven't heard that one, but you're reminding me that the late mega-collector and muso Joe Bussard sometimes recorded with his friends on 78, kind of folkie fantasy camp--as on this 2015 collection of originals and covers, that I blogged about in an annual round-up of worthies:

Although several of the promo files won't play, I'm getting some pretty strong early impressions of (most of) Joe Bussard Presents: The Year of Jublio---78 RPM Recordings of Songs From The Civil War. "Joe's got shit that God don't have," begins one blurb, and while that's always been true, his evident desire to depict via a range of material, starts with historically significant in-your-face sickly sentimentality x formalism, as written and performed (rich liner notes incl. discussion of attempts to redeem image of Confederacy via music, also redeeming image of fiddlers, but this is more like icky parlor music). It may be more about the renditions, like what are described as "maidenly" vocals; I do love the version of "Lorena" sung by Del McCoury on the mostly good-to-excellent collection Divided and United (which topped my 2013 Scene ballot's Top 10). And here we do get a rendition of "The Poor Old Slave, " in which straight-forward, non-tremulous sincerity finds its way unerringly among faded emblems, truth-based imagery (sung by ladies who may be maidens, for all I know, but don't make a big deal of it). Ditto the crisp, brisk "In The Cruel Days of Slavery." "Dixie" is all-instrumental, except for the occasional, too-cued-sounding cheers, and one brief, urgently spoken mention of those magnificent men massing outside----more old Rebs, mebbe, but this "Dixie" is all sinewy lide guitars and/or dobros, not the sound I usually associate with misty visions of the Confederate Lost Cause.
Bussard and friends play *Rebels Hornpipe" (recorded on 78, like he's been doing since the 60s, the 1960s, that is, so it's only a ringer chronologically).Starts strong, proceeds in a merry-to-dizzy, compulsive circle, in a way I def do associate with Confeds. "Pass The Bottle Round" starts as Rebel (maybe sometimes Union too) parody of the line, "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground, but his truth is marching on." "Johnson Boy" is a fiddle-stomper about a local rake ("Jump girls, don't be afraid," girls unexcitedly join in on chorus), who gets drafted even though he can't see good, and keeps romping 'round the hotly contested countryside, though maybe fog of war will slow him down, as myopia alone didn't do, back under the presumably clearer skies of home---so,"Jump up girls, don't be afraid." "Sweet Bunch of Violets" starts as a tearjerker, but that's a set-up for revenge beyond the grave, hurrah boys!

Over his lifetime, Bussard amassed a collection of between 15,000 and 25,000 records, primarily of American folk, gospel, jazz and blues from the 1920s and 1930s.[1] From 1956 until 1970, Bussard ran the last 78 rpm record label, Fonotone, which was dedicated to the release of new recordings of old-time music. Among these were recordings by hundreds of performers, including the first recordings by the guitarist John Fahey. A five-CD anthology of Fonotone releases was issued in 2005 by Dust-to-Digital.[4] It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package in 2006.[2][5]

I spent a few days transcribing the discography from Tony Russell's great book Country Music Classics to RYM. They didn't have everything in their database but this was as close as I could get. I think There were 4 parts
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/stevolende/country-music-originals-the-legends-and-the-lost-pt1-old-timey/