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

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

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.

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.

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.

He had the "bug-eyed evengelical fervor"-vibe down to an art.

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...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDJPnG3RDxU

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.

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 Barbara
2. Sherman Valley
3. Lost John Dean
4. Get Along Home Cindy
5. Old Mountain Dew
6. "Nol Pros" Nellie
7. Lulu Wall
8. Darby's Ram
9. Stepstone
10. I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground
11. Kidder Cole
12. Italy
13. Little Turtle Dove
14. Dry Bones
15. Speaking the Truth
16. 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 can do a similar roundup of the Coon Creek Girls' output if there's a demand for it.

yeah, i'd like to see that roundup. unfortunately, very little of the coon-creek girls' output is available on emusic.

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.

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

thanks for this. a hard-luck early life (mother died during childbirth; father left them in the care of an aunt).

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/u
uI Don't Feel at Home In This World Anymore/u
uDeath Might Be Your Santa Claus/u

Enjoy!

OK - guess my attempt at underlining was a bust...

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 Permalink
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 (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

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.

You all may know this, but the Down Home Radio Show is a good resource for contemporary old-time: http://www.downhomeradioshow.com/

Frank Fairfield

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lefJBwJhQ6E

Thanks Duke!

ok, here's some Coon Creek Girls stuff, finally:

http://i542.photobucket.com/albums/gg436/chasleroy/CoonCreekGirlsStream.jpg

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

Vocalion sides, recorded May 30, 1938:
1. Sowing on the Mountain
2. Old Uncle Dudy (Keep Fiddling On)
3. Banjo Pickin' Girl
4. Little Birdie
5. Pretty Polly
6. Flowers Blooming in the Wildwood

from the Renfro Valley Folks TV program, mid-'50s:

• How Many Biscuits Can You Eat

you can read biographies on the group here and here. the songs above aren't a complete discography; they recorded at 5 other sides in 1938 that I wasn't able to track down online, and they made a few more records in the '50s. their reunion album from 1968 is not very exciting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hd7rQx1rKM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aSH_fglRd8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYo9sHzCqj0

Does anyone know of a good sheet music collection (piano) from this era?

Belated thanks. You must think me very rude for waiting so long before replying. My excuse is that after posting I just forgot.

Z

Thanks in advance to all, I need to digest this thread fully having just started to immerse (ha!) myself in this stuff after being bought Take Me To The Water.

some nice trax here:
http://soupgreens.com/ghostsolos/

also this is a good place for me to talk up the amazing "There Breaths a Hope" collection of the Fisk Jubilee Quartet '09-'16 work on Archeophone. This is very important music to me; I grew up listening to it constantly and my father wrote the extensive (roughly 40 single spaced pages?) liner notes. It's powerful stuff, dense colorful and complex as can be. John Work II, the quartet leader, intellectualized post-slave era music into something like a new american opera and it can be difficult to digest. It's well worth your time though.
More background and sound clips here; would love to talk about this album more if anyone's into the discussion:
http://www.archeophone.com/product_info.php?products_id=104

that looks cool forks!

anyone have an opinion of this album by the coon creek girls? i've wanted something from them for a while, and this just appeared on emusic. looks good enough, but seemingly nothing available online to judge the authenticity, sound quality (if that matters with recordings this old), or representativeness of the CCG's work.

btw, dad's album mentioned above was nominated for best liner notes.
Good WSJ piece on it here by teachout that calls it "the most important historical reissue of 2010": http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704828104576021680985545912.html

xpost

it's been a while since I've heard that Coon Creek Girls album, but it's pretty good. keep in mind that it was released in 1967 and recorded around that time, so it came along about 30 years after their brief commercial recording career. Lily and Rosie Ledford were both original members, and Susie was recruited after two of the other original members left the group in the late '30s. the trio is the same lineup that sang some backing vocals for Ferlin Husky in the '50s, broke up in 1957, and resurfaced at the Newport Folk Festival a decade later.

three songs on this album ("Banjo Picking Girl", "Pretty Polly", and "Little Birdie") are re-recordings of the group's early (1938-9) material, one ("East Virginia Blues") was recorded by Lily May Ledford in 1944, and one ("How Many Biscuits Can You Eat", which they once performed at the White House in front of Franklin Roosevelt) was recorded in the mid-'50s and released years later on a Renfro Valley Barn Dance compilation.

the sound quality isn't super lo-fi by '60s standards, but the production is simple and homey, just as it should be. it's the sound of three middle-aged players running through part of their barndance repertoire, omitting neither the cornball hilbilly sizzlers nor the stately ballads more typical of the folk boom. Compared to the original Coon Creek Girls 78s, the performances here are a little less boisterous. the banjo playing is slower and less frilly, sounding less like the proto-bluegrass they're remembered for and more like creaky Appalachian country blues. Rosie and Susie still sound very youthful, but Lily sings in a lower register than she used to. her voice has a dour, lived-in quality that adds emotional weight to sad songs like "Pretty Polly" and East Virginia Blues" but falls a bit short on some of the livelier cuts. as a casual, earthy recording of a reunited old-time string band (cf. J.E. Mainer's album Run Mountain from the same era), I definitely recommend it.

in a way, I guess this album is more "authentic" than the original Coon Creek Girls singles. back in the '30, radio station boss John Lair brought together two of the Ledford sisters and two other players he'd discovered, gave them stage names, told them what instruments to play, wrote a couple of their songs, and oversaw all their recordings, radio appearances, and concerts. not quite the organic, homespun model that most people associate with early American roots music. it's obvious from the records, though, that Lair didn't manage to quash the creativity and energy and personality that made the Girls legends.

one ("East Virginia Blues") was recorded by Lily May Ledford in 1944, and one ("How Many Biscuits Can You Eat", which they once performed at the White House in front of Franklin Roosevelt) was recorded in the mid-'50s and released years later on a Renfro Valley Barn Dance compilation.

hmm, I didn't word this too well. all versions of these songs on the Lily May, Rosie & Susie album are re-recordings from 1967 or so, and the originals have been released elsewhere.

great cover of "Banjo Pickin' Girl" by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJJCK3PIYIU

oh, cool, the Digital Library of Appalachia has a bunch of songs that the Coon Creek Girls performed live on radio between 1939 and 1951. it also has some live material that Lily May Ledford performed at a college campus in 1980.

NPR piece on "There Breathes A Hope": http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=134028602&m=134083522

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KatZ92QQS_U

now this is some impressive footage. it's a 40-minute-long documentary by Mike Seeger and Alice Gerrard (who were married at the time) that shows them playing as a duo at home and in concert and meeting up with folk legends like Elizabeth Cotten, Roscoe Holcomb, and Lily May Ledford. it's a treat to watch Elizabeth Cotten sitting at the couple's kitchen table, playing "Freight Train" and reminiscing about her stint as the Seeger family's housemaid.

Mike and Alice's Bowling Green, which came out a year after the documentary, is one of the more "authentic" old-time albums to come out of the folk boom. they try their hardest to sound like an old backwoods couple dragged out of obscurity to document their repertoire, and the result is as homey and chilling as any real field recordings I've heard. "Love Was the Price," in which Alice sings a dead-eyed, suicidal lover's lament with nothing but a barely-audible droning cello for accompaniment, is the highlight for me.

While not exactly on point, Elijah Wald's book "Escaping the Delta--Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues," has some interesting discussion on what was pop and what wasn't back then plus how 'rockist' historians in search of their own version of authenticity hailed certain old performers over others.

Not read the book mentioned but I was struck by how different the styles in Robert Johnson's work were. almost like he was a human jukebox rather than a single stylist.
I've heard he was viewed as anachronistic at the time and only really picked up on by people outside the original medium getting interested.
Like Lomax had a different agenda than a party-throwing record buyer in trying to book him for the major New York event I can't think of the name of right now. & then he became famous among a bunch of later white record collectors who went onto create the 60s blues revival.

Can't find a dedicated Bristol Sessions thread, so I'll put this here.

Sometime last year, while I wasn't paying attention, Bear Family released a 5-disc box: "The Bristol Sessions, 1927-1928: The Big Bang of Country Music".

Looks pretty cool. Oddly enough, Amazon has it twice with slightly different prices but the item look identical to me...

My friends did this lo-fi cover of "All the Good Times". I love this version of the song so much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQxRa1UcZqQ&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOL4GtyWWQs

JSP was actually mentioned above. It's a reputable label. I have a Hoagy Carmichael disc put out by them (I think) and other titles which I can't recall right now. But no need to proceed with caution.

― Kevin John Bozelka, Tuesday, December 11, 2007 6:57 PM (4 years ago)

JSP has gone to shit in recent years. they used to pay a lot of attention to sound quality (John R.T. Davies was a dedicated remastering engineer who did a lot of work for the label before he died in 2004), but now the quality control is very uneven, and it says here (I haven't fact-checked) that they lift mastering jobs from other companies' releases.

the first disc of their Leadbelly box sounds full and dynamic and has an ever-present but unobtrusive level of surface noise. weirdly, most of the material on the other three discs suffers from the heavy-handed use of noise reduction — a muffled, unlistenable mush that does no justice to the material. It's a shame, because there aren't many comprehensive Leadbelly sets, and the tracklisting is great.

but yeah, JSP has been suspect for at least the past six years, and if one of their sets doesn't have Davies' name on it, I'd recommend sampling it before you buy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IezlYcERTX8