Travel interrupted my playing time in May, but at the same time it afforded me a chance to build on my collection of vintage old-time records.
While out of town for my job, I located a nearby record store that turned out to be a bit of an old-time music honey hole. I actually had to put back a couple albums because my wallet wouldn't allow them to come home with me. But I was very happy to snag three awesome records that have been on my want list for a number of years.
Wilson Douglas, The Right Hand Fork of Rush's Creek (1975, Rounder Records): The first album I found in the folk/bluegrass section of
Electric Fetus in Minneapolis was this excellent collection of fiddle tunes by Clay County, West Virginia, fiddler Wilson Douglas. He is accompanied by Roy Tolliver on banjo and Douglas Meade on guitar. Douglas came from a musical family, which also had ties to the Carpenter and Morris families in the region. This album is jam packed with 24 tracks, including some brilliant renditions of "Rocky Road to Dublin," "Elzic's Farewell," "Camp Chase," "Brushy Run," "Old Christmas Morning" and other classics.
New Lost City Ramblers, 20th Anniversary Concert (1986, Flying Fish): Marking their 20th year of spreading the joy of old-time music, the trio of Mike Seeger, John Cohen and Tracy Schwarz are joined by special guests Pete Seeger, Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten and the Highwoods String Band in this live performance recorded in 1978 at Carnegie Hall. I'm curious, why wasn't this album released until eight years later? While I'm happy to add to my
NLCR collection, I'm even more excited to cross off the second to last Highwoods vinyl release I needed.
A couple months ago I grabbed "the red album," so now all I need to find is their 1975 album, Dance All Night.
Chokers & Flies, Old Time Music (1985, Rounder): Finally, I grabbed this split 12-inch album featuring two rip-roaring progressive string bands from the Northeast. The Chicken Chokers from Boston featured a lineup of Chad Crumm on fiddle, Stefan Senders on banjo, Paul Strother on bass, Chip Taylor Smith on guitar, Mark Graham on harmonica and Jim Reidy on banjo-uke and tenor banjo. The band would release one more album on Rounder with 1987’s Shoot Your Radio. There's also a Field Recorders' Collective release from 2008. The Horse Flies (aka the Tomkins County Horseflies) were a
little more prolific. The legendary Ithaca, New York, band featured the power house combo of Judy Hyman on fiddle and Richie Stearns on banjo, along with John Hayward on bass and Jeff Claus on guitar. They released several more albums, including Human Fly, which like this album's counterpart was released in 1987 on Rounder.
Buy Me a Coffee?
If you like what you see at The Glory-Beaming Banjo, please consider showing your support by buying me a cup of coffee through my Ko-Fi account. Your donation will provide encouragement and help fund future blog posts. I appreciate your readership!
Comments
Post a Comment