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New CDs for 2025!

Lee Hammons: Central West Virginia Fiddling – FRC736

Lee Hammons plays 41 wistful, airy fiddle tunes from Central West Virginia. Like many fiddlers of his generation, Hammons quit playing music in the mid-1920s, and didn’t pick it back up until 1969. His fiddling has an heirloom quality to it—a window into those long-ago years, when he was a young man, and the music he played then. Wishful, airy, and captivating, the agedness of the tunes gives them an almost hypnotic feel. Primarily solo with occasional banjo accompaniment.

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Muncy Gaultney – Traditional Music from Ashe County, NC – FRC753

14 smooth, droning fiddle tunes played by Muncy Gaultney of Ashe County, North Carolina. In addition to being an accomplished fiddler and banjo player, Gautlney was an expert chronicler of local memories and days gone by—as owner of a small antique shop, and in a column he wrote for regional magazine The Plow. Gaultney’s wistful, reverent attitude towards the past is exemplified in the music included on this release, such as “The Walls of Jericho”—a slow, plaintive tune, which, according to Gautlney, is “supposed to be the oldest violin piece in existence.” Also included are two 1940s acetate recordings of Gautlney’s driving banjo playing, and a thoroughly entertaining 35-minute interview that showcases his good humor, penchant for jokes, and knack for storytelling while covering topics ranging from his father’s sudden death only a few weeks after his parents’ marriage—“He just laid down, and all of his breath leaked out”—to Gaultney’s single ill-fated attempt to play the accordion: “I pinched my belly, and I quit!”

PLEASE NOTE: This music is currently only available as a digital download via our Bandcamp page. Please click the button below. Physical CDs will be available soon.

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Volumes 6-10 of the NAT Survey of Traditional Music — Boxed Set or Download!

Over a span of nearly four decades, a small group of friends, the North American Traditions Group, traveled over large swaths of the Appalachians, the Canadian Maritimes, the Ozarks, and the American West, recording many hundreds of hours of traditional music. Styles heard in the NAT collection range from unaccompanied ballads to vocal quartets; virtuoso fiddle solos to string bands; blues to gospel to topical songs.

The FRC is pleased to announce the release of a brand-new boxed set containing Volumes 6-10 of this monumental 15-volume project: Between City and Country; Songs of Labor and Recreation; Under Western Skies; Religious Experience; and Songs that Children Like. Specially priced at $70 plus shipping in the continental US.  MORE INFO>>

The first of the three sets, released in mid-2023, includes Volumes 1-5:From British Tradition, A Musical Melting Pot, Songs of Melancholy and Sorrow, The Anglo-African Exchange, and Grown on American Soil.  Specially priced at $70 plus shipping in the continental US.  MORE INFO>>

 These individual discs are also available as downloads, via Bandcamp. 

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Dent Wimmer & Sam Conner – Floyd County String Band Music – FRC743

This release showcases longtime friends and musical collaborators Dent Wimmer and Sam Conner, from Floyd County Virginia, at their collaborative best. Though Wimmer’s self-described “thrashdown” style of banjo playing and Conner’s relaxed, sliding fiddling are both more-than danceable on their own, as evident on the numerous solo tracks, it’s the duets that are particularly powerful, with trance-like melodies and a deep, pulsing rhythm perfect for flatfooting. The men’s long history of playing together is clear—their playing meshes together effortlessly, and each instrument feels more at home alongside the other. Also included is ample between-tune talk on a range of topics, including the introduction of guitars to the local musical tradition (their “little strumming along wasn’t worth anything!”) and the late-night moonshine-fueled gatherings of old.

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Eunice McAlexander, Ballad Singer – FRC739

This substantial collection of fine recordings, spanning from the early 1930s to 1985, presents Eunice Yeatts McAlexander’s wide repertoire of traditional unaccompanied ballads, all performed in her clear, confident, yet still intimate, singing voice. Many of the ballads are centuries old and English in provenance, while others are more decidedly Appalachian, such as the not-so-respectable “Wild Hog in the Woods,” which McAlexander says “every old drunk in the country used to come home singing!” Dark and morally complex, the ballads are never didactic, but still have many lessons to impart. Eunice’s renditions preserve the vital heart of these old songs, allowing them to continue their journey down through the ages.

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Strawberry McCloud – Bloomington Breakdown – FRC749

These recordings, made throughout the second half of 1970s, and primarily in Bloomington, Indiana, capture Robert Lee “Strawberry” McCloud’s grand late-life return to fiddling following a 40-year hiatus. McCloud said “bow action and good timing” were the keys to good musicianship, and his rhythmic, singular fiddling has both in spades. His repertoire draws from a wide variety of sources, ranging from the traditional tunes of his native central-eastern Kentucky, to pieces from the years he spent traveling and playing with the Georgia Wildcats in the early 30s, and also a substantial number of rags, blues, and popular songs. And yet McCloud gives a distinctive twist to everything he plays, whether it be through extra beats or unconventional turns of the melody. Accompanied by various younger musicians, this release exemplifies the winding musical paths fiddlers of McClouds generation often took, in addition to simply being a driving, rollicking good time.

Just got my copy, and it is great! Strawberry’s fiddling is wonderful, backed up by excellent young Bloomington musicians who were used to playing with him and could follow the quirks of his tunes. — Brad Leftwich

Great CD, and long overdue! Strawberry was a giant of a fiddler. In my opinion he was a far more interesting and expressive musician than his compatriots Doc Roberts and Clayton McMichen. — Andy Cahan

Three CDs Recorded by Tom Carter & Blanton Owen in 1973-4

Read this excellent article by Jeremy Ray Jewell on the Arts Fuse Site about Tom Carter, the Field Recorders’ Collective, and these three FRC CDs: Hearing The Real Thing — Field Recorders’ Collective’s Commitment to Traditional American Music

Luther Davis – FRC745

A hearty collection of old, grooving Grayson County, Virginia fiddle tunes from the 87-year-old Luther Davis. Primarily unaccompanied, though with occasional clawhammer backup from collector Tom Carter, Davis more than holds his own, though he had only recently begun fiddling again at the time these recordings were made. And despite the shake age had added to his bowing, he still fiddles admirably, shuffling, swooping and droning away with an infectiously solid sense of timing. There is also assorted between-tune talk, including Davis’s stories of how tunes got their names, and his memories of Emmett Lundy, and meandering into other, less musical topics, too—such as the tears shed at the end of years of school, and long-ago trips to Illinois, highlighting, above all else, Davis’s kindhearted nature.

Hus Caudill – FRC747

Hus Caudill, of Grayson County, Virginia, was born in the 1880s. Though he was old in his own right, many of his tunes came from an even older generation of fiddlers—that of his father, Sid Caudill, and Emmett Lundy, who Caudill knew as a young man. In this way, Caudill is a bridge to even longer-ago era which these recordings briefly resurrect. In addition to a handful of Caudill’s shimmering, jaunting solo banjo tunes, this record puts Caudill’s fiddling artistry front and center, with tasteful and beautiful clawhammer banjo accompaniment from collectors Tom Carter and Blanton Owen. Atop the banjo, Caudill’s steady, propelling fiddling shines—although his unaccompanied fiddle tunes, with their confident, sweeping double stops, are lovely in their own right, too.

Luther Davis & Hus Caudill – FRC750

This remarkable album documents two very old friends playing fiddle together for the first time in more than 60 years—and in the all-too under-recorded twin fiddle style, no less. Luther Davis and Hus Caudill, of neighboring Grayson and Alleghany counties in Virginia and North Carolina respectively, were both born in the 1880s, and often played music together as young men. These recordings were made in the mid-1970s, after a period of many decades during which neither of the men had played much, or even at all. But despite the passage of so many years, the two fiddlers quickly settle into to a comfortable, rhythmically-pulsing groove, their two fiddle blending and singing away, transporting listener and musicians alike to those long-ago days they recall.