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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Interviewed 29th September 1982 by Frank Weston FRC306 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Plank Road (FRC606) By Brad Leftwich, Al Tharp and Odell McGuire Brad Leftwich’s Memories 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 […]
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 […]
FRC313 By Andy Cahan Walter Raleigh Babson was among the few banjo and fiddle players from coastal North Carolina still living in the late twentieth century. Originally from Ash, in Brunswick County, he lived at Wrightsville Beach for about the last 25 years of his life. He worked for many years as a carpenter and […]
FRC211 and FRC212 By Ray Alden Thomas Jefferson Jarrell was born in 1901, the son of Ben and Susan Jarrell. His father was the fiddler for Da Costa Woltz and his Southern Broadcasters, a string band that recorded nine 78 rpm records for Gennett in 1927. Just as his father eclipsed his brother Charlie as […]
FRC709 About Rector Hicks Rector Hicks was born out in the country around Chloe, Calhoun County, West Virginia in 1914. Although his father played mouth harp, no one in his immediate family was a fiddler. Rector learned from fiddlers in the area, beginning to play the instrument when he was about ten years old. Rector […]
FRC708 By Howard (Rusty) Marshall On a chilly, clear evening in November 1975, I had the opportunity to record and photograph the fiddler Lee Roy Stoneking at his home in Clinton, Missouri, a few miles from the farm where he was born. Stoneking had invited his son, Fred, to come play backup guitar, but Fred […]