Happy Birthday To You-*In The Time Of "The Good Old Boys" (And Gals) - Hillbilly Heaven-Ozark Style

Happy Birthday To You-

By Lester Lannon

I am devoted to a local folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the horizon.

So much for radio folk history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such happening along the historical continuum.

To “solve” this problem I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.    

A  YouTube's film clip of the trailer for "Homemade Hillbilly Jam".

DVD Review

Homemade Hillbilly Jam, various professional and amateur musicians playing old time and modern instruments, First Run Productions, 2005

Well, this traveling American “roots” music caravan that I have been running via the Internet, in this and other “hot” cyberspace spots, has been all over this country. I have been down in the Delta with the country blues artists like Robert Johnson, Skip James and Son House. I have been in those dust-blown Oklahoma hills with Woody Guthrie. I have been out West with the cowboy balladeers. I have been down in the swamps of Louisiana with the Cajun boys and girls, black and white. I’ve have been up in those Kentucky mountains with Roscoe Holcomb. Hell, I have even spent time, an inordinate amount of time, discussing roots music as it filtered through the 1960s folk revival in those rural meccas of New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts. You will agree I have been around. On this stop we go to the hills again this time to the Ozarks to “discover”….hillbillies and their musical traditions.

Now I know that it is hardly news that the term “hillbilly” has, over the last few decades, carried some pretty negative connotations. Hard-nosed 'wild men' truckers and car aficionados , honky tonks and honky-tonk women, “know-nothing” politics, in short, good old boys and girls fully enjoying the benefits of the 19th century in the outback. The truth or falsehood of those characterizations is not at issue here though. What concerns me is the addition of this “hillbilly” flavor to the “roots’ music bandwagon. This is done here, by following the doings, comings, goings and whatnot of three modern “hillbilly” (or at least hillbilly-descended families) musical families out in Ozark country.

Some of this music, the motels, honky-tonks and barns where it is played, and the instruments used to play it are very familiar from other regions like those Kentucky hills mentioned before. This, moreover, makes sense because there are some common Scotch-Irish Child Ballad-like traditions that unite these various strands as the forebears drove relentlessly westward. This region, isolated back in the older times, did develop its own variations but I sense that, good old boys and girls or not, we are on some very familiar ground. And here is the kicker for this reviewer, personally, when it comes to knowledge of this music. Oh sure, as I have mentioned in other reviews, it was in the background in our house from my Kentucky-born father back in my youth. It’s in the genes. But let me tell where I really started to get a better sense of this mountain music. Many years ago I used to listen to a Saturday morning local radio show from the wilds of Cambridge. The name of the show-“Hillbilly At Harvard”. What do you think about that, my friends?


Pretty Saro

When I first come to this country in eighteen and forty nine
I saw many fair lovers, but I never saw mine
I viewéd all around me, I found I was quite alone
And me a poor stranger and a long way from home

My true love she won't have me and this I understand
She wants a freeholder and I've got no land
But I could maintain her on silver and gold
And as many of the fine things as my love's house could hold

Fare you well to old father. Fare you well to mother too.
I'm going for to ramble this wide world all through
And when I get weary, I'll sit down and cry
And I'll think of Pretty Saro, my darling, my dear.

Well I wish I was a poet, could write some fine hand
I would write my love a letter that she might understand.
I'd send it by the waters where the islands overflow
And I'd think of my darling wherever she'd go.

Way down in some lonesome valley. Way down in some lonesome grove
Where the small birds does whistle, their notes to increase
My love she is slender, both proper and neat
And I wouldn't have no better pastimes than to be with my sweet.

Well I wish I was a turtle dove, had wings and could fly
Just now to my love's lodging tonight I'd draw nigh
And in her lily-white arms I'd lie there all night
And I'd watch the little windows for the dawning of day.

Well I strolled through the mountains, I strolled through the vale
I strolled to forget her, but it was all in vain.
On the banks of Ocoee, on the mount of said brow
Where I once loved her dearly and I don't hate her now.

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *In Pete Seeger's House- "Rainbow Quest"- Roscoe Holcomb

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Pete Seeger's now famous 1960s (black and white, that's the give-away)"Rainbow Quest" for the performer in this entry's headline.

Markin comment:

This series, featuring Pete Seeger and virtually most of the key performers in the 1960s folk scene is a worthy entry into the folk archival traditions for future revivalists to seek out. There were thirty plus episodes (some contained more than one performer of note, as well as Pete solo performances). I have placed the YouTube film clips here in one spot over four days, November 10-13, 2009 for the reader's convenience.

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-*The Roots Of The Roots- The Old Country (Somebody’s) Roots Music of Scotland’s Jean Redpath

For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-*The Roots Of The Roots- The Old Country (Somebody’s) Roots Music of Scotland’s Jean Redpath

CD Review

Jean Redpath, Jean Redpath, Philo Records, 1975

Not every roots artist that I review in this space as part of my task of doing my part to preserve and keep alive some of those traditions is on my A-list. Nor is every such artist someone who I have taken notice of from my own personal researches or predilections. That is the case with the Scottish balladeer under review, Jean Redpath. Of course I knew her name, as one must who knows something about the origins of the Child Ballads that form the basis of the music that was brought over to American in the initial WASP waves of immigration, especially after the victory in the American revolution. I also, vaguely, remember hearing her back in the days on those woe begotten Sunday nights when I scrumptiously listened to those folk radio shows I that became addicted to in my youth. What got me thinking about reviewing her work now, however, was a little more indirect, as sometimes happens in tracing the roots of American music.

I have just finished up reviewing a six series set (two one hour shows per set) of Pete Seeger’s 1960s black and white television folk show “Rainbow Quest”. The format of that show was, aside form some stellar solo performances by Pete, to bring in a guest, or guests, from some up and coming “rediscovered” traditional music genre. On one particular show he featured the legendary Kentucky mountain music banjo/guitar/vocalist Roscoe Holcomb (then recently discovered by Pete’s half-brother, the late Mike Seeger, I believe). Old Roscoe put on one hell of a show doing old time, but seemingly familiar, mountain tunes.

Familiar in the sense that one knew the lyrics (or some part of them) or the melody, or something about the songs. And then Pete brings out Jean Redpath who then proceeds to sing the same kind of songs as old Roscoe. You see that part of the American songbook that he was singing from came from his old country, the Scottish/Irish tradition reflecting the backgrounds of those who long, long ago came over stopped for a minute on the crowded coast then moved on and started their westward treks. In a sense then, as you will note here, Ms. Redpath is singing part of the American songbook. Or Roscoe was singing part of the Scottish songbook. Either way this is good stuff. Listen up.

Barbara Allen-Child Ballad-Variation

In Scarlet town where I was born
There was a fair maid dwelling
And every youth cried well away
For her name was Barbara Allen


Twas in the merry month of May
The green buds were a swelling
Sweet William on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barbara Allen


He sent a servant unto her
To the place she was dwelling
Saying you must come to his deathbed now
If your name be Barbara Allen


Slowly slowly she got up
Slowly slowly she came nigh him
And the only words to him she said
Young man I think you're dying


As she was walking oer the fields
She heard the death bell knelling
And every stroke it seemed to say
Hardhearted Barbara Allen


Oh mother mother make my bed
Make it long and make it narrow
Sweet William died for me today
I'll die for him tomorrow


They buried her in the old churchyard
They buried him in the choir
And from his grave grew a red red rose
From her grave a green briar


They grew and grew to the steeple top
Till they could grow no higher
And there they twined in a true love's knot
Red rose around green briar

For Kate McGarrigle’s Birthday- *Keeping The Folk Tradition Alive-The Harry Smith Project- A Tribute To “The Harry Smith Anthology Of American Folk Music”

Click on title to link to "The Harry Smith Project" website. DVD Review

The Harry Smith Project: Concert Film, various artists covering material gleaned from “The Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music”, Shout Factory, 2006

In a recent CD review of “Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music” I made the following comments that apply to this well-done concert (or rather concerts, done in 1999 and 2001) film documentary based on that anthology, some of Smith’s own other creative work and some Fugs, an off beat old time folk/rock group, material. I will comment on some individual performances from the concerts below. Here is the CD review:

“It is no secret that the reviewer in this space has been on something of a tear of late in working through a litany of items concerning American roots music, a music that he first ‘discovered’ in his youth with the folk revival of the early 1960s and with variations and additions over time has held in high regard for his whole adult life. Thus a review of musicologist (if that is what he though he was, it is not all that clear from his “career” path that this was so) Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music” is something of a no-brainer.

Since we live in a confessional age, however, here is the odd part. As familiar as I am with Harry Smith’s name and place in the folk pantheon, his seemingly tireless field work and a great number of the songs in his anthology this is actually the first time that I have heard the whole thing at one sitting and in one place. Oh sure, back in the days of my ill-spent youth listening to an old late Sunday folk show I would perk up every time the name Harry Smith came up as the “discoverer” of some gem of a song from the 1920s or 1930s but to actually listen to, or even attempt to find, the whole compilation then just didn’t happen.

In 1997 Smithsonian/Folkway, as least theoretically in my case, remedied that problem with the release of a high quality (given the masters) six CD set of old Harry’s 80 plus recordings. Not only that but, as is usual with Smithsonian, a very nicely done booklet with all kinds of good information from the likes of Greil Marcus and the late folklorist Eric Von Schmidt (of songs like “Light Rain” and "Joshua’s Gone Barbados”, among others, fame) accompanies this set. That booklet is worth the price of admission alone on this one. But here is the funny thing after running through the whole collection. I mentioned above that this was the first time that I heard the collection as a whole. Nevertheless, over time I have actually heard (and reviewed in this space), helter-skelter, most of the material in the collection, except a few of the more exotic gospel songs. So I guess that youth was not so ill-spent after all. If the "roots is toots" for you, get this thing.

Note: For a list of the all the tracks in the entire collection just Google “The Harry Smith Collection” and click onto Wikipedia’s entry for Harry Smith.”

That said, this concert presentation (actually concerts) covers about twenty-something of the eighty-four songs in the Smith anthology. Here is my take. Folk music is meant to be passed on to future generations and those generations will place their own spin on the material. That is the case here. Some successfully like Elvis Costello’s cover of “Butcher Boy”, Geoff Muldaur’s “Poor Boy Blues” and “K.C. Moan”, Bob Neurwith’s (with Eliza Carthy playing a great fiddle on a version that can truly be declared better than the version on the anthology, much better) “I Wish I Were A Mole”, Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s “Sugar Baby”, Beth Orton’s “Frankie and Albert”, Lou Reed’s cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” and Nick Cave’s “John The Revelator” (Son House and Blind Willie Johnson must have rolled over in their graves on that one). Other more jazzy or gospelly renditions did not fare so well. But here is the real secret. Not all the material that Harry Smith, back in the days, collected was unalloyed gold either. His tastes were, as pointed out here, eclectic. That collection, nevertheless, was a historic archive, good or bad. And this concert will share that same fate. Watch this though, several times.

*I Feel Those Appalachian Mountain Breezes Again- I Hear Those Lonesome Fiddles- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link ota "YouTube" film clip of one of the fiddlers on the CD under review, J.P. Fraley. Sorry, I could not find "Annadeene's Waltz" mentioned below for you to hear here.

CD Review

The Art Of Traditional Fiddle: From The North American Tradition Series, Rounder Records, 2001

Over the past couple of years my interest in mountain music, the music that formed part of my parental heritage, has increased as a quick search of such entries in this space attest to. Those reviews have run the gamut from the famous, and important, work of the various Carter Family combinations (and generations) to the "discovery" by the folk revivalists of the 1960s of the likes of banjo player Roscoe Holcomb to the interest by urban folk artists of that period like the Greenbriar Boys and The New Lost City Ramblers. One of the driving forces of that simple, plain music is the banjo; another is, as under review here, the fiddle.

Today, in this space, I am also reviewing a tribute album celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Appleseed Records (2007), now a fixture in preserving folk and protest music. I mentioned there that certain record labels have gained a niche for themselves in music history by establishing, driving, or preserving certain traditions. That is the case here with Rounder Records who for over forty years has put together off-beat, but extremely valuable, compilations of traditional music from the shores of Cape Breton to Appalachia to Western America.

In the Appleseed review I noted that for the history of the label there is a more than informative booklet that came with that 2-disc CD set, including plenty of discology-type information about each track. For this CD there is also a very informative booklet (as is usual with Rounder products), also including plenty of discology-type information about each track. That leaves the final question of what is good here. That is a harder question than usual in that everything here is an instrumental featuring the fiddle so it is driven more by mood than anything else. The mood, as described in the headline- mountain breezes and lonesome fiddles. And you should think of this compilation that way as well, especially as some of the pieces are very short. The one that you MUST listen and that kind of evokes everything I am trying to describe is J.P. Fraley's "Annadeene's Waltz". Heaven by fiddle.