Ola Belle Reed (FRC203)
by Thomas Polis (For further information go to www.olabellereed.com)
Ola Belle Reed was born Ola Wave Campbell on August 17, 1916, in Lansing, North Carolina. She was one of thirteen children born to Arthur Harrison Campbell and Ella May Osborne Campbell. The Campbell family ancestors had moved to the New River Valley of western North Carolina sometime around the 1760’s. Arthur Harrison was an educated man who spent his life as a Continue reading
Clyde Davenport, Vol. 1 (FRC103), Clyde Davenport, Vol. 2 (FRC104),
Clyde Davenport DVD (FRC1004)
by Jeff Titon
Kentuckian Clyde Davenport is a master old-time fiddler and banjo player. His large repertory of traditional tunes, many of them rare, makes him an important source musician. At 85, he still plays wonderfully well. For almost twenty years old-time fiddlers and banjo players have made pilgrimages to his home in Monticello, Kentucky, to share in his music. Clyde is amused and Continue reading
Byard Ray, Manco Sneed & Mike Rogers (FRC505)
by Dakota Brewer, the daughter of Manco, for the occasion of the John H. and Sarah Lovin descendants’ reunion on February 17, 2007 at Tsali Manor, Cherokee, NC.
Manco Sneed was born in Graham County Feb.18-1885, the son of John Harrison and Sarah Lovin Sneed, but later moved to Cherokee and lived in the “Sneed Gap” section all of his life where he and my mother Rosebud Beck Sneed raised their family of seven children. He died at age 89. Continue reading
Byard Ray, Manco Sneed & Mike Rogers (FRC505)
by Blanton Owen
This paper, slightly revised, was originally presented as part of a panel at the American Folklore Society meeting in Los Angeles on 26 October 1979.
It is tempting to take the easy route when studying a region’s folk life by dealing with “items” as if they exist and have existed without much tampering with by human beings. It is easy simply Continue reading
Interviewed 29th September 1982 by Frank Weston
I was born James Corbett Stamper in Grayson County, Virginia, in the 9th district 13th December in 1910. My father was Matt Stamper, he played fiddle and picked banjo just about all his life. And my uncle, his eldest brother played fiddle. My father’s father also named Matt he’s buried down here in this cemetery was a fife player in the civil war and he also played organ and piano. Continue reading
by Reed Martin
My sister lived in Whitesburg, Kentucky, during the mid 1960s and thereafter. In 1967 I went to live with her for the summer. I had been living in my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. I was used to playing at noisy dances and had taken to the habit of winding all four strings in the peg head – the same direction. If I was part of a band and the noise was great, if my third string was Continue reading
Kilby Snow (FRC205)
by Joe Riggs
Much has been written about the life and music of Kilby Snow, an autoharp player of the old tradition of playing below the chord bars. Most folks who know his music and style think first of his famous “drag notes,” a technique he developed to simulate a guitar slide or run on the autoharp, caused when he drags the pick upward from lower strings to higher strings. The first Continue reading
The Kimble and Wagoner Families (FRC106)
by Ray Alden
Many years ago, while at a conference on Old Time Music at Brown University, I heard Alan Jabbour describe the music deriving not from a single pure source but behaving more like river in which many currents mingle and churn together to produce a song or a tune. So too, when I look at the Kimble family tree, I see a meandering stream of personalities and musical abilities flowing into the blood of Taylor Kimble and his children. Continue reading
Roan Mountain Hilltoppers In Concert (FRC201)
with Frank Weston
This interview originally appeared in issue 45 (Spring 1989) of Tony Russell’s Old Time Music magazine. Used by permission Continue reading
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) Continue reading
John Ashby and the Free State Ramblers (FRC108)
By Ms. Nancy M. Sessions
Here is my personal Family History, and memories that have been told to me, by my Mother, Mrs. Agnes Adelia Ashby Sessions, as well as her Sister, my Aunt, Mrs. Marie Elizabeth Scott Ashby Small, as well! I have a good, and a long memory! I am only very happy that it serves a wonderful purpose; to give out history about my Dear Uncle John C. Ashby! Continue reading
John Ashby John Ashby and the Free State Ramblers (FRC108)
By Sandy Hofferth (original article appeared in the Old Time Herald)
Skip Ashby, a winner at the 2005 Appalachian String Band Music Festival at Clifftop, WV, is the latest in a long line of fiddlers going back several generations and a link in a chain of musicians in the Warrenton area of Fauquier County, VA, that goes back a century and a half. The Free State Ramblers, one of the longest running bands ever, started in the 1930s and are still active Continue reading
Esker Hutchins (FRC107)
by Jody Stecher (Fiddler Magazine)
Esker Hutchins. What a great name; sounds like someone taking a bite out of a fiddle. His music did have a lot of bite and crunch actually, and when he had a good band behind him, Esker Hutchins of Surry County, North Carolina played some of the most exciting music I’ve ever heard. Playing solo he was more relaxed but still he had that powerful and incisive bowing arm. Continue reading
Chirps Smith (FRC608)
By Lynn “Chirps” Smith – November 15, 1995
I was born October 11, 1952 in Pekin, IL. I am the fifth generation of my family in Illinois. My great-great grandfather Mervill A. Smith moved to southern Illinois, from New York state, in the late 1830’s and settled around Mt. Vernon in Jefferson County. When I was very young our family moved to Granite City, near St. Louis, MO. I lived there until 1963 when we moved to Continue reading
See The Indian Creek Delta Boys (FRC607)
Known for the many fine and obscure fiddle tunes learned from senior players in their own geographical area, the Indian Creek Delta Boys of Charleston, Illinois were an influential string band from the 1970s through the 1990s. Continue reading
Plank Road (FRC606)
By Brad Leftwich, Al Tharp and Odell McGuire
In the early 1970s it seemed like communities of people who loved and lived old-time music and dancing were popping up like mushrooms all over the country. One of the most vibrant was in Lexington, Virginia. I ran across a bunch of musicians from Lexington at the 1972 fiddlers convention in Independence, Va. (Wade Ward’s stomping grounds) and had such a great time Continue reading
The Hurricane Ridgerunners (FRC604)
Mark Graham has been playing old-time music on the Marine Band harmonica for over 30 years. In that time he has played hundreds of concerts and dances and performed with many of the luminaries of Southern old-time and bluegrass music including Tim O’Brien, Laurie Lewis, Dirk Powell, The Horseflies, The Chicken Chokers, Tom Sauber, Pete Sutherland, Bad Livers and Continue reading
The Chicken Chokers (FRC603)
The Chicken Chokers were an old-timey string band from the Boston area who intersected their roots influences with reggae, punk, and rap. Fiddler Chad Crumm and multi-instrumentalists Paul Strother, Taylor Smith, and Jim Reidy released two albums on Rounder, 1987’s Shoot Your Radio and Old Time Music in 1990. But when Crumm departed for New York City, the group Continue reading
See The Horse Flies (FRC602) and The Renegades (FRC605)
Banjo Player with “the Horse Flies” and “the Renegades”
I got into playing music at 14 in junior high, with a pack of like-minded hippie kids. (A typical beginning, eh?) Except the kind of music we were exposed to was string band and jug band music. Locally there were some very active bands in these genres, while on our record players we had Lou Reed, Bob Marley, the Beatles, the Stones, Doc Watson, Jimmy Rogers, Hank Continue reading
The Horse Flies (FRC602)
By Judy Hyman
The Horse Flies came together in 1979 in Ithaca, NY. The initial lineup (Judy Hyman and Mike Scott fiddles; Jeff Claus, guitar; John Hoffmann, banjo; and Molly Stouten, bass), played fiddle tunes and old songs at regional festivals and square dances. By the early 980s they settled into a 4-piece quasi-traditional old-time string band with Judy Hyman on fiddle, Richie Stearns on banjo, Jeff Claus on guitar and banjo uke, and John Hayward on upright bass. Continue reading