Category Archives: Uncategorized

Liner Notes for “Far in the Mountains”

Liner notes for “Far in the Mountains”
Eunice Yeatts McAlexander is one of the many Appalachian artists showcased in the 5-CD set “Far in the Mountains,” compiled from field recordings made in 1979-80 by Mike Yates and issued by the Musical Traditions in the UK. Here is the portion of the extensive album notes pertaining to Ms. McAlexander and her songs, posted with permission from Mike Yates. PLEASE NOTE: This PDF is only a small portion of the complete liner notes for the 5-CD set of “Far in the Mountains.”

FITM-Mike on Eunice-combined

Memories of the Hammons Family: Maggie Hammons Parker

Maggie Parker – Hammons Family Songs & Music – FRC713

by Wayne Howard

Article courtesy of the Old Time Herald, April-May 2010.

I had gotten well acquainted with Lee Hammons by the summer of 1970, but I still hadn’t met Dwight Diller, who had indirectly led me to Lee.  At the end of his school year at West Virginia University, Dwight came home.  By the time of Pioneer Days, in mid-July, we were fast friends; and Dwight was rapidly acquainting me and my wife, Barbara, with the “mountain music” scene. Continue reading

Ralph Whited: Oneonta, Alabama (1919-1994)

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 Birmingham. The Whited home, inherited from Ralph’s prosperous grandfather, was large enough to comfortably house Ralph’s parents, Henry and Elizabeth Whited, and their 6 robust sons Coy, O’Dell, Ward, J.D., Ralph and Brady. When Ward and J.D. took up playing guitar, it became a musical gathering place. Continue reading

Tom Fuller: The Life and Times of a Fiddler from Indian Territory

FRC714 – Tom Fuller – Traditional Fiddling from Oklahoma & Texas

By Brad Leftwich

An earlier version of this article first appeared in The Old Time Herald, Volume 13, Number 11.

I stood in Jan Fitzgerald’s home recently in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, holding her father’s familiar old fiddle in my hands and trying to wrap my mind around the fact that it had been Continue reading

Reviving the Revival: The Ithaca Music Scene

The Horse Flies (FRC602)

By Luke Z. Fenchel
Ithaca Times -11/14/2007

In the late 1970s and early 80s, bands like Joy Division, Talking Heads and Public Image Limited dared to take punk and pop and “rip it up and start again.” While those groups were reworking Anglo-American popular music, another group of artists were exploring the sonic possibilities of an even more established genre: old-time fiddle music. The Ithaca area was a focal point in this Continue reading

Dock Boggs in Concert 1966

FRC312

Recorded Live at Appalachian State University – November 11, 1966

by Wilson Roberts

Following is a transcript of the spoken part of the concert. Speaking are Dock Boggs, his guitarist, Kate, and Dr. Cratis Dearl Williams, founding Dean of the ASU Graduate School, Now the Cratis Williams Graduate School, who arranged the concert. The major editorial license I took in transcribing Dock Boggs narrative was in deleting a number of “and, ah” constructions he used to Continue reading