Description
Lee Hammons (1886-1980) was a fiddler and banjo player who lived most of his life in the West Virginia counties of Greenbrier, Webster, Nicholas, and Pocahontas. He associated with musicians in the logging camps of that area in the early years of the twentieth century. A neighbor and close musical associate was the celebrated fiddler Edden Hammons. Lee quit playing banjo in 1923 and afterward stopped fiddling as well, not resuming either instrument until 1969. Although he was familiar with early country music recordings, Lee’s own playing has something of a time-capsule quality. Over eighty when he was first taped, and playing a low-quality instrument, Lee’s archaic fiddling still shows something of the mastery he had in his earlier years.
Track List
Lee Hammons: Central West Virginia Fiddling – FRC736
- The Baby Laughed and the Baby Cried (1:41)
- Jack of Diamonds (1:35)
- Little Brown Jug (1:00)
- Sugar in My Coffee-O (1:35)
- Fire on the Mountain (1:23)
- Liza Jane (1:48)
- Soldier’s Joy (1:13)
- Did You Ever See the Devil, Uncle Joe? (1:00)
- Cripple Creek (1:16)
- The Drunkard’s Dream (1:14)
- Ground Hog (0:22)
- Sally Goodin (1:01)
- Salty River (1:29)
- Old Napper (1:41)
- Bonaparte’s Retreat (1:21)
- Sourwood Mountain (0:49)
- Old Joe Clark (1:04)
- Barbara Allen (1:15
- Greasy Coat (2:16)
- The Land Where They Never Grow Old (1:08)
- Greenback Dollar (0:52)
- Falls of Richmond (1:53)
- Little Boy Working on the Road (1:20)
- Edden Hammons Piece (1:36)
- Wild Hog in the Red Brush (1:11)
- Old Dan Tucker (1:15)
- The Rout (2:10)
- Rose Connelly (2:23)
- Edden Hammons piece (1:58)
- Short Life of Trouble (0:26)
- Lone Prairie (1:57)
- Kitty Snyder (0:28)
- The Wabash Cannonball (1:00)
- Paddy on the Turnpike (1:23)
- Jimmy Johnson (0:52)
- Old Christmas Morning (1:40)
- Unnamed Tune (1:07)
- Greasy String (1:12)
- Poor Ellen Smith (0:33)
- Arkansas Traveler (1:12)
- Ida Red (1:29)
