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
FRC714 – Tom Fuller – Traditional Fiddling from Oklahoma & Texas
By David Winston
An earlier version of this article first appeared in The Old Time Herald, Volume 13, Number 11. Continue reading
FRC710 – Dean Sturgill – The Spencer Branch Fiddler
Dean Sturgill is an old-time fiddler and poet from Ashe County, North Carolina. For many years, he led the popular Grayson Highlands Band. In the early 1990s, he self-published these three books of wonderful poetry about life in the mountains (available for download in pdf below). He reads his poem, “The Fees Branch Fiddler” in the video.
An Old Fiddler’s Book of Rhymes
An Old Fiddler’s “Second” Book of Rhymes
An Old Fiddler’s Book of Rhymes III
September 2009
Our dear friend and the founder of the Field Recorders’ Collective died this fall after a long and valiant struggle with cancer. Continue reading
by John Hoffmann
It was the summer of 1959 and a young Peter Hoover, having flunked out of Harvard the summer before, was volunteering at the Library of Congress, transcribing inventory information of aluminum disc recordings made in 1937 of Crockett Ward’s Bogtrotters, from Ballard Branch, Virginia. (The original Bogtrotters, consisted of Davey Crockett Ward and his neighbor Alec Continue reading
The Brandywine Valley Friends of Old Time Music (“BFOTM”) was founded in 1972 by a small group of traditional American music devotees. Carl Goldstein and Shel Sandler, two young Delaware lawyers and budding musicians, had begun playing informally with a local autoharp player, Mike Hudak, who was a protege of Kilby Snow. Kilby Snow was a brilliant autoharpist from Fries, VA who Continue reading
Excerpts from the November 2003 Banjo Newsletter interview with Ray Alden
BN: Did you grow up with Appalachian music?
RA: Mountain music wasn’t exactly the rage with the southern Italians from my Bronx neighborhood. Do-wop was the music I grew up with. Just ahead of me in school were Dion and the Belmonts. A guy in my class wrote “Barbara Ann,” later made famous by the Beach Boys. Continue reading
Jimmy Wheeler (FRC401)
by Henna R. Armstrong, Getzville NY – 18 Dec. 2007
I was tickled to read on the web page about the trip down to Portsmouth to get Jimmy on tape. You see, Jimmy Wheeler was my father’s first cousin. Jimmy’s mother, “Aunt Em,” was a sister to my grandmother, Nell Odell. I was raised in Portsmouth but we rarely visited the Wheelers, and I don’t remember Jimmy and his sisters at all. My dad told me about going there one time after I Continue reading
Jimmy Wheeler (FRC401)
by Jeff Goehring
Oct. 5, 1982 – First recording session with Jimmy Wheeler in Portsmouth, Ohio
Arrived approx. 2 p.m. unexpectedly.
Found Jimmy and two of three sisters sitting under awning between house and shop/garage, smoking cigarettes and drinking Old Milwaukee in red and white cans, a welcoming wave. Jimmy didn’t remember my name though I’m positive he remembered me. His sisters Dottie and Merle were friendly. Dot remembered me, Merle didn’t. Continue reading
Fred Cockerham (FRC101)
by Ray Alden
Fred Cockerham, one of the seven children of Elias and Betty Jane Cockerham, was born on November 3, 1905. He was the only one from the Round Peak community to attempt the difficult life of a professional rural musician. The way that Fred began playing the fiddle is similar to the way many country musicians began. Basically, this story can be heard on Continue reading
Sidna & Fulton Myers (FRC504)
by Kerry Blech, Old Time Herald Magazine
Fiddler James Fulton “Jimmy Natural” Myers was born about 1895 and died in 1979. According to Blanton Owen, who recorded him in the mid-1970s, he was born near Woodlawn, Virginia, between Galax and Hillsville. He farmed, worked for the WPA during the Great Depression, and was a mason’s helper. He learned to play from his father, who played banjo, and from “Old Man” Continue reading
Sidna & Fulton Myers (FRC504)
by Jody Stecher (Fiddler Magazine)
This installment of Cross-Tuning Workshop (CROSS-TUNING WORKSHOP Part Thirty-Two: ADAE) pairs a well-known fiddle tune with a little-known but fascinating fiddler. “Soldier’s Joy” is a contender for the world’s most played fiddle tune. If you wonder why, you’ve heard only the bad versions. This is a great tune for dancing, always fun to play (on any instrument), and it carries a huge amount of energy which it will release to Continue reading
Santford Kelly (FRC503)
by Kerry Blech, Old Time Herald Magazine
I want to be perfectly clear about my feelings about this series, The Field Recorders’ Collective (FRC). I have bought into the concept totally, from the very moment that Ray Alden told me about his plans several years ago. There are many recording projects that are worthy and fruitful, but this one is very special, to me at least. I’ve known Ray for over 30 years. He’s always Continue reading
Lonnie Seymour (FRC403) and bonus tracks on Cecil Plum (FRC404)
by Betty Seymour, April 2006
Lonnie was born June 15, 1922. Lonnie’s grandpa, John Seymour, played the fiddle, so when Lonnie was about five years old, grandpa would put him on the bed with his fiddle and let him play it. Lonnie watched how Grandpa worked his fingers and bow, that is how he learned to play the fiddle. He came from a family that loved the fiddle, including his dad, Webster, and Continue reading
The Lost Recordings of Banjo Bill Cornett (FRC304)
by Art Rosenbaum
Reprinted here by permission of the Old Time Herald Magazine (April-May 2006 issue)
The Field Recorders’ Collective FRC304 CD is a self-recorded legacy of Banjo Bill Cornett, giving us what is arguably the finest very early-style mountain singing to banjo ever recorded. Cornett did play for others and in public—he played his “Old-Age Pension Blues” on the floor of the Kentucky Legislature, and according to John Cohen, “died while entertaining at a restaurant in Continue reading
The Lost Recordings of Banjo Bill Cornett (FRC304)
by John Cohen
Bill Cornett was born in East Kentucky in 1890. He started playing banjo at age eight. His musical flair, he reported, was inherited from his mother who sang ballads to him. He operated a country store two miles outside of Hindman. It is said that he’d rather sit and pick his banjo than wait on customers. In 1956 he was elected to the Kentucky State Legislature, representing Continue reading
Buddy Thomas (FRC303)
by Mark Wilson
Biography and photos from Rounder CD0032, “Kitty Puss,” produced by Guthrie T. Meade and Mark Wilson.
Used by permission. To order Rounder CD0032, visit www.rounder.com.
We growed up real poor, so poor that even the poor folks said we were poor. There were ten in our family and we had to raise most everything we ate and work in logwoods and stuff like that. My dad worked all the time, but he was sick and had to doctor so much, that I don’t see how he could have made it if it hadn’t been for us. He was a big strong man until he got sick and he Continue reading
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