These selections reflect a variety of traditional and popular music played by the Seymour family and their community in the late 1940s. Several tracks are from Saturday night programs of The Ross County Farmers (Lonnie Seymour, Joe Elliot, Eldon Shoemaker and others), broadcast by local radio station WBEX. A few are from other broadcasts; the […]
Bill Hensley (1923-1984) was a remarkable banjo player and ballad singer from Wayne County, West Virginia. He grew up in a musical family, listening as his dad sat on their front porch playing banjo and entertaining passersby on the road across the river. Bill’s hard-driving banjo style employs flurries of pull-offs and a wide range […]
H.K. (Hubert K.) Silvey is one of the last old-time Ozarks fiddlers of his generation, raised in the milieu where fiddling and square dances were a part of everyday life. Born in 1933 on a farm near Longrun in Ozark County, Missouri, H.K. grew up hearing his uncle Jess Silvey play for music parties and […]
Fred McBride was the nephew of Red Fox Chasers fiddler Guy Brooks and part of the final generation of old timers on the fiddle. I was lucky enough to be his cousin and to get some time with him. Fred played in numerous bands and made a couple of wonderful commercial recordings, but I always […]
A fourth generation old-time musician, Vesta Johnson began playing fiddle in 1929, at the age of 7. She was taught by her father, mother, aunts and uncles, and other respected fiddlers from around Linn County, Missouri. She only plays by ear and never learned to read music. Vesta will tell you that she’s played at […]
These mid-1980s recordings feature Lonnie Seymour on fiddle, Jeff Goehring on guitar, and Tony Ellis on banjo. Lonnie was born in Chillicothe, Ohio in 1922. His playing was influenced by a variety of local Chillicothe fiddlers, including his father, uncle and grandfather; and by country music he heard on the radio, most notably that of […]
The Ross County Farmers – 1948 Radio Shows (FRC307) By Betty Seymour Phone conversation w/ Betty Seymour 2/27/07 (Sue Goehring) Visit w/ Betty Seymour 03-08-07 (Lynn Frederick)
Ora Watson – Watauga County, NC Old Time Music – FRC720 Article courtesy of Old Time Herald, Volume 11, Number 1 By Mark Freed Leaving my office in Boone, North Carolina, one afternoon in May, I drove to the western part of Watauga County for a visit with Ora Watson. I parked my car, grabbed […]
Fred McBride – North Carolina Fiddle and Banjo – FRC722 by Lucas Pasley Article courtesy of the Old Time Herald, Volume 13, Number 10. I remember the first time I saw Fred play down at a little jam around Wilkesboro. I was young and in search of a real old time sound, and when I […]
Robert Lee “Strawberry” McCloud – Bloomington Breakdown – FRC749 ‘He lived hard, he worked hard, he played hard’ by Steve Hinnefeld One day in February 1975, Randy Marmouzé stopped by the trailer where I lived in Bloomington, Indiana, toting his banjo. “Let’s go see if Strawberry wants to play some tunes,” he said. Randy and […]
Robert Lee “Strawberry” McCloud – Bloomington Breakdown – FRC749 By Teri Klassen Fiddler/bass fiddler/heavy equipment operator Robert Lee “Bob” or “Strawberry” McCloud (1907-80) spent his first 30 years in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, just west of the eastern Mountain region. Both areas were rich in old-time music, but the Bluegrass was more populated and […]
Robert Lee “Strawberry” McCloud – Bloomington Breakdown – FRC749 By Teri Klassen Shortnin’ Bread (1:53) Strawberry McCloud: fiddle; Randy Marmouzé: banjo; Jeff Claus and Steve Hinnefeld: guitar; Mark Feddersen: bass. Recorded by Gary Stanton, January 1978, at WFIU public radio studios on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington. Tracks from this golden session account for […]
Since FRC started in 2004, we have made available the recordings of many collectors of traditional music. To date these include (with CDs they contributed to):
John Dee Kennedy of Pawnee, Oklahoma – FRC738 By Brad Leftwich In addition to the fiddlers mentioned in the main article, who were his mentors or who directly influenced his playing, John Kennedy played music and associated with a number of other musicians in Pawnee and Osage Counties back in the day.
John Dee Kennedy of Pawnee, Oklahoma – FRC738 By Brad Leftwich
Teodar Jackson – African-American Fiddling from Texas – FRC728 by Dan Foster Teodar Jackson (1903-1966) was an old-time fiddler with deep roots in Texas. He was born in Gonzales County where his family had farmed since his grandfather came there from Mississippi sometime after the Civil War. African Americans numbered roughly a third of the […]
FRC716 – Darley Fulks – Kentucky Wild Horse by John Harrod, September 2015 Darley Fulks (1895-1990) in his long life worked as an oil driller, traveling both north and south from his native Wolfe Co., Kentucky, meeting other musicians, and learning tunes everywhere he went. But the greatest portion of his repertoire came from the older […]
FRC718 – Carlton Rawlings – Bath County, Kentucky Fiddler by John Harrod INTRODUCTION Northeastern Kentucky was still a hotbed of old style fiddling in the 1970s and ’80s when Gus Meade, Mark Wilson, Bruce Greene, and I began making regular visits to record and learn from the many interesting local fiddlers who were still going […]
FRC717 – Ralph Whited – Old Time Alabama Fiddling by Joyce Cauthen Bio Ralph Whited lived in one house in Oneonta, AL from the day he was born in 1919 until the day he died in 1994. Oneonta sits in the foothills of the southern Appalachian Mountains, below Sand Mountain and 35 miles north of […]