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/
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 01:51 (fourteen years ago) link
WTF they are selling those JSP boxes (list price $25-29) for $50!!!!!!
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 01:55 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 01:57 (fourteen years ago) link
shitloads of country 78s though:
http://home.comcast.net/~oldhomestead/catalogs/cat7807s.htm
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 02:04 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― ian, Saturday, 8 August 2009 02:37 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― ian, Saturday, 8 August 2009 02:38 (fourteen years ago) link
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).
i'd like to hear that. i'm not huge on western swing, at least, not yet, but my girlfriend is.
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 02:47 (fourteen years ago) link
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?
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 8 August 2009 02:56 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 02:58 (fourteen years ago) link
Also Yazoo's "Mr Charlie's Blues"
― ian, Saturday, 8 August 2009 03:06 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 8 August 2009 03:13 (fourteen years ago) link
all alfred karnes' stuff is great!
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 03:14 (fourteen years ago) link
There's only a handful of Karnes stuff on eMusic, sadly. But yeah, it's all gr8. Tons of (crazy) energy.
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 8 August 2009 03:15 (fourteen years ago) link
i don't think he recorded more than a few sides.
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 03:23 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 8 August 2009 03:52 (fourteen years ago) link
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?).
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:05 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:14 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:22 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― xhuxk, Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:24 (fourteen years ago) link
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)
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:31 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:32 (fourteen years ago) link
i can try to scan in and post the liner notes (which are good) if you're interested.
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:55 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:56 (fourteen years ago) link
I'd love to see the liner notes!
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:56 (fourteen years ago) link
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).
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 8 August 2009 04:59 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― amateurist, Saturday, 8 August 2009 05:09 (fourteen years ago) link
Love this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK8obqDMVy0
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 11 September 2009 12:55 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.1001tunes.com/props/gid.riley.animated02.gif
― ian, Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:29 (fourteen years ago) link
Alfred Karnes!
― sleighdog mcdonald (unregistered), Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:42 (fourteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Drgf-oCSdU
― sleighdog mcdonald (unregistered), Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:43 (fourteen years ago) link
I wonder if eMusic's scattered offerings from Alfred Karnes represent all his recorded output. This disc is the most complete collection I've seen, and it only has eight songs by Karnes.
― Daniel, Esq., Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:45 (fourteen years ago) link
I wish there were some Kathy & Carol clips on youtube. great, great guitar-and-autoharp duo from SoCal who put out a single LP of old-time ballads in the mid-60s, featuring some of the closest and prettiest female folk harmonies I've heard. It's similar I guess to Joan Baez's first two records, but the harmonies make it so much more palatable to my ears.
― sleighdog mcdonald (unregistered), Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:47 (fourteen years ago) link
xpost
yeah, this JSP compilation includes all 8 of those sides, and the liner notes describe them as his complete surviving output. he only recorded two sessions (the first was part of the famed 1927 Bristol sessions & the second came about a year and a half thereafter) before retiring to his post as a Baptist minister and singing solely for the benefit of the church.
― sleighdog mcdonald (unregistered), Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:50 (fourteen years ago) link
He had the "bug-eyed evengelical fervor"-vibe down to an art.
― Daniel, Esq., Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:52 (fourteen years ago) link
aye
the second session really falls flat in terms of capturing the raw power of the guy's voice (as heard in that youtube clip). I wonder why. maybe he just wasn't miked properly on the second go...
― sleighdog mcdonald (unregistered), Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:53 (fourteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDJPnG3RDxU
― ian, Tuesday, 10 November 2009 17:36 (fourteen years ago) link
Tommy Jarrell is great. Wonderful banjo player too.
I've been listening to this a lot lately:
http://www.coolhunting.com/images/hobartsmith.jpg
Hobart Smith recorded shortly before he died by Fleming Brown at the latter's home. Great stuff -- banjo, guitar, piano accompaniment.
― Duke, Tuesday, 10 November 2009 17:47 (fourteen years ago) link
here's my attempt at compiling Bascom Lamar Lunsford's early commercial records, which don't seem to be available on CD all in one place (only 5 of them appear on Smithsonian's Ballads, Banjo Tunes... compilation).
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6946/bascomlamarlunsford.gif
http://www.mediafire.com/?0mhliwmgamg
1. Fate of Santa Barbara2. Sherman Valley3. Lost John Dean4. Get Along Home Cindy5. Old Mountain Dew6. "Nol Pros" Nellie7. Lulu Wall8. Darby's Ram9. Stepstone10. I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground11. Kidder Cole12. Italy13. Little Turtle Dove14. Dry Bones15. Speaking the Truth16. A Stump Speech in the 10th District
tracks 1-2 were recorded for Okeh Records in 1925; 3-14 for Brunswick Records in 1928; and 15-16 for Columbia Records in 1930. he put out another record on Okeh in 1924 ("Jesse James" b/w an early version of "Mole in the Ground"), but I haven't come across it on my internet trawls. more discographical info available here.
― 'I Was Bees,' Says Hiker Stung 300 Times (unregistered), Monday, 15 February 2010 20:04 (fourteen years ago) link
I can do a similar roundup of the Coon Creek Girls' output if there's a demand for it.
― 'I Was Bees,' Says Hiker Stung 300 Times (unregistered), Monday, 15 February 2010 20:05 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah, i'd like to see that roundup. unfortunately, very little of the coon-creek girls' output is available on emusic.
― Daniel, Esq., Monday, 15 February 2010 21:32 (fourteen years ago) link
thanks for this! I'm attempting to do something similar with Emry Arthur--there are about 80 sides iirc and only a fraction of them have been reissued.
― Joint Custody (ian), Monday, 15 February 2010 22:03 (fourteen years ago) link
hey here is some biographical alfred karnes stuff i havent' read before--
http://books.google.com/books?id=jMeR6O2wN8QC&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=Alfred+G+Karnes+gospel&source=bl&ots=unb67ljdv5&sig=zHYCO5P0Lavy9sSz8O70hp0f9cs&hl=en&ei=1JIOTJ61KcP-8Aap7-WVCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEIQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Alfred%20G%20Karnes%20gospel&f=false
― ian, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 18:59 (fourteen years ago) link
thanks for this. a hard-luck early life (mother died during childbirth; father left them in the care of an aunt).
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 8 June 2010 19:04 (fourteen years ago) link
Despite the fact that there may be some anti-Mississippi Records sentiment floating around, I'd like to point out that they have some compilations that might benefit visitors to this thread. They all have some post-war tunes as well, but here ya go:
uI Woke Up One Morning In May/uuI Don't Feel at Home In This World Anymore/uuDeath Might Be Your Santa Claus/u
Enjoy!
― ImprovSpirit, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 14:38 (fourteen years ago) link
OK - guess my attempt at underlining was a bust...
― ImprovSpirit, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 14:39 (fourteen years ago) link
I can do a similar roundup of the Coon Creek Girls' output if there's a demand for it.― 'I Was Bees,' Says Hiker Stung 300 Times (unregistered), Monday, 15 February 2010 20:05 (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalinkyeah, i'd like to see that roundup. unfortunately, very little of the coon-creek girls' output is available on emusic.― Daniel, Esq., Monday, 15 February 2010 21:32 (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― 'I Was Bees,' Says Hiker Stung 300 Times (unregistered), Monday, 15 February 2010 20:05 (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalinkyeah, i'd like to see that roundup. unfortunately, very little of the coon-creek girls' output is available on emusic.
― Daniel, Esq., Monday, 15 February 2010 21:32 (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
New member and I've come very late to this thread. Is there any change of seeing some Coon Creek Girls stuff please?
Z
― Z99G186, Sunday, 13 June 2010 14:49 (fourteen years ago) link
well that was an empty promise, wasn't it? I'll try and get that up sometime this week.
only vaguely related, but this looks like an interesting compilation. it collects various acts that appeared on John Lair's Renfro Valley Barn Dance radio show starting in the late '30s — Lair being the Coon Creek Girls' somewhat ruthless manager, with ties to acts like Homer & Jethro, Karl & Harty, and Homer & Jethro. he also formed the New Coon Creek Girls with a completely different lineup in the '70s; I have no idea if they're any good.
― if you see her, say ayo (unregistered), Sunday, 13 June 2010 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
You all may know this, but the Down Home Radio Show is a good resource for contemporary old-time: http://www.downhomeradioshow.com/
― Duke, Sunday, 13 June 2010 18:42 (fourteen years ago) link