Click on the title to link to a presentation of the song listed in the headline.
The year 2009 has turned into something a year of review of the folk revival of the 1960s. In November I featured a posting of many of the episodes (via “YouTube”) of Pete Seeger’s classic folk television show from the 1960s, “Rainbow Quest”. I propose to do the same here to end out the year with as many of the selections from Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music,” in one place, as I was able to find material for, either lyrics or "YouTube" performances (not necessarily by the original performer). This is down at the roots, for sure.
THE OLD, WEIRD AMERICA Blog
My exploration of Harry Smith’s Anthology29 “The Wild Wagoner” by J.W Day (Jilson Setters)
J.W Day’s World
“In a windowless cabin, hidden away in a high cranny of the Kentucky mountains, lived Jilson Setters, who, for all his sixty-five years, had never seen a railroad. Neither had he heard a phonograph nor a radio. His home-made fiddle and his ‘ballets’ were good enough for Jilson Setters and mountain folk.”
from: “The Last Minstrel” by Jean Thomas, The English Journal, December, 1928
The story around Kentucky old-time fiddler James W. Day is an interesting case of mystified folkore. Born in 1861 in Rowan County, Kentucky, J.W Day was a blind fiddler and singer, often living as a beggar musician in the small towns around Kentucky. At the end of the twenties, a young woman interested in folklore named Jean Thomas “discovered” him as she was collecting songs and stories in Kentucky. Fascinated by the way mountain people preserved traditions of the British Isles, notably the singing of the old ballads, Thomas created the “American Folk Song Festival” to present authentic perfomers of mountain music. The feestival was held every year in Kentucky from 1930 to 1972. When she met J.W Day, she had the idea to present him as the archetype mountain fiddler,”The singin fiddler of Lost Hope Hollow” (Title of the book she wrote about him) and she built a whole story , part true, part purely her own fantasy, to promote him and his music around the country. Under the name of “Jilson Setters”, she arranged for Day concerts and recording sessions and she even took him to play before the King of England. We don’t know how Day himself reacted to all this fuss around him, as on the pictures Thomas took of him, he looked like a dignified old country man, surely proud of the venerable old tunes he could play on his fiddle, but also had to make a living, be an entertainer, the only way to survive for a blind musician during those years… His fiddle style was very unique also, as he was left-handed but played without re-stringing his instrument, with the strings upside down.. Like Elizabeth Cotten on the guitar, it gave him a unique style that is hard to duplicate. He recorded for the Victor Record Company and also for The Library Of Congress in 1930.
-Go here (Wikipedia page) to read more about Jean Thomas (she was nicknamed “The Traipsin’ Woman”) and the American Folk Song Festival
-On this page, you can browse the beautiful collection of photographs she took in the mountains, and among them, many of J.W Day
-I’ve compiled all the sides i have by J.W Day including two sides recorded for the Library of Congress (very noisy, you’ll be warned)
1.The Wild Wagoner
2.Grand Hornpipe
3.Forked Deer
4.Way Up On Clinch Mountain
5.Black-eyed Suzie
6.The Arkansaw Traveler
7.Little Boy Working On The Road
8.No Corn on Tigert (LOC recording)
9.Dr Humphrey’s Jig(LOC recording)
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