For The Late Rosalie Sorrels--In Pete Seeger’s House- The Real “Walk The Line” Couple, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash

For The Late Rosalie Sorrels--In Pete Seeger’s House- The Real “Walk The Line” Couple, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash

DVD Review

Rainbow Quest, Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Roscoe Holcomb, Jean Redpath, Shanachie, 2005

In a year that has featured various 90th birthday celebrations it is very appropriate to review some of the 1960’s television work of Pete Seeger, one of the premier folk anthologists, singers, transmitters of the tradition and “keeper” of the folk flame. This DVD is a “must see” for anyone who is interested in the history of the folk revival of the 1960’s, the earnest, folksy style of Pete Seeger or the work of the also tradition-oriented , although that fact was previously unknown to me, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash (she of the famous Carter Family tribe. How is that for traditional bloodlines?). This is not only a musical treat seeing the real subjects of the hit movie of a few years ago, “Walk The Line” that got me interested, at least somewhat, in Johnny Cash’s music but filled with information about the Carter Family that I have been interested in for a long time. Pete, by the way, couldn’t be more pleased in working with this pair and they regale us with some old Carter Family songs like “Worried Man Blues”.


Also included on this DVD is a performance by the legendary Kentucky mountain music man Roscoe Holcombe that John Cohen, a previously reviewed performer on this series with the New Lost City Ramblers, did great service to the folk revival by bringing out of the Kentucky hills in the early 1960s to the wilds of ….. Greenwich Village. Pete wears his “world music” hat in this segment as well as he also brings in Scottish folksinger Jean Redpath in to link up the music of the Scotch-Irish immigrant Kentucky hills and the old country. A nice folk history moment.

This DVD contains some very interesting and, perhaps, rare television film footage from two of Pete Seeger shows, packaged in one DVD, entitled “Rainbow Quest” (the whole series consists of six DVDs). Each show is introduced (and ends, as well) by Pete singing his old classic “If I Had A Golden Threat” and then he proceeds to introduce, play guitar and banjo and sing along with the above-mentioned artists.

One final note: This is a piece of folk history. Pete Seeger is a folk legend. However, the production values here are a bit primitive and low budget. Moreover, for all his stature as a leading member of the folk pantheon Pete was far from the ideal host. His halting speaking style and almost bashful manner did not draw his guests out. Let’s just put it this way the production concept used then would embarrass a high school television production class today. But, Pete, thanks for the history lesson.

*I Feel Those Appalachian Mountain Breezes Once Again- I Hear Those Lonesome Banjos And Fiddles Calling- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of one of the fiddlers on the CD under review, J.P. Fraley.

CD Review

The Art Of Old-Time Mountain Music, Various Artists, Rounder Records, 2002

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 the fiddle. On this CD we get various combinations of both. To our benefit.

Previously, in reviewing another Rounder traditional music series CD (featuring fiddles) , in this space, I noted that I was 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. This CD holds to that fine and honorably tradition.

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. This compilation, like the tradition fiddle CD is driven more by mood than anything else. The mood here, as described in the headline- mountain breezes, lonesome fiddles and slam jam banjos (and other back-up instruments, of course). And you should think of this compilation that way as well, especially as some of the pieces are very short. Here are few to feast on: Roscoe Holcombe’s Rocky Mountain, Protecting the Innocent, The House Carpenter,, Kicked up a Devil of a Row, and Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.

******************

This version of the lyrics date back to the early 1800s.

O bury me not on the lone prairie-culled from Wikipedia

"O bury me not on the lone prairie."
These words came low and mournfully
From the pallid lips of the youth who lay
On his dying bed at the close of day.

He had wasted and pined 'til o'er his brow
Death's shades were slowly gathering now
He thought of home and loved ones nigh,
As the cowboys gathered to see him die.

"O bury me not on the lone prairie
Where coyotes howl and the wind blows free
In a narrow grave just six by three—
O bury me not on the lone prairie"

"It matters not, I've been told,
Where the body lies when the heart grows cold
Yet grant, o grant, this wish to me
O bury me not on the lone prairie."

"I've always wished to be laid when I died
In a little churchyard on the green hillside
By my father's grave, there let me be,
O bury me not on the lone prairie."

"I wish to lie where a mother's prayer
And a sister's tear will mingle there.
Where friends can come and weep o'er me.
O bury me not on the lone prairie."

"For there's another whose tears will shed.
For the one who lies in a prairie bed.
It breaks me heart to think of her now,
She has curled these locks, she has kissed this brow."

"O bury me not..." And his voice failed there.
But they took no heed to his dying prayer.
In a narrow grave, just six by three
They buried him there on the lone prairie.

And the cowboys now as they roam the plain,
For they marked the spot where his bones were lain,
Fling a handful o' roses o'er his grave
With a prayer to God his soul to save.[10]

*Keep On The Sunny Side- The Music Of June Carter Cash

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of June Carter Cash performing The Carter Family classic, "Keep On The Sunny Side."

CD Review

Keep On The Sunny Side: June Carter Cash-Her Life In Music, Legacy 2006

In other reviews of the Johnny Cash/ June Carter combination I noted that my previously mainly marginal interest in the work of Johnny Cash was partially rekindled by viewing the commercial film, “Walk The Line.” Then I reviewed some of his early Sun Record music and from there I reviewed June Carter Cash’s last CD. But the real key to my renewed interest in both musicians stemmed from watching an old black and white Pete Seeger television folk show, “Rainbow Quest” from the mid-1960s when Johnny and June showed their stuff. As a result of that experience I went back and reviewed the film “Walk The Line” and here is what I had to say, in part, there:

“I am reviewing this nicely done commercial effort to delve into parts of the lives of the legendary singers Johnny Cash and his (eventual) wife June Carter Cash (of the famous mountain music Carter Family bloodlines. Her mother was the incredible vocalist and guitarist, Maybelle Carter) in reverse order. Although I saw the this film for the first time when it was released in theaters (and have viewed it several times on DVD) several years ago I am reviewing now after having just seen the real Johnny Cash and June Carter on one of the segments of Pete Seeger’s black and white television programs from the mid-1960s, “Rainbow Quest” where they appeared. And knocked me, and I think Pete, over with their renditions of Carter Family material and information about that clan.

Okay, here is the skinny. If you want to get the glamorous, sexy romance and a fetching June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), the heartache and longing of pain in the butt Johnny Cash and the eventual joining together of two great musical talents story then this is the place to start. But, if you want the reason why this film was made in the first place, the legendary musical talent, warts and all, then watch them go through their paces along with old Pete Seeger. Both are worth the time.”

And this from that last June Carter Cash CD:

“Well, my friends, excuse this roundabout way to get to the CD under review but the points made above will stand for my thoughts on this last June Carter Cash CD. I can only add that when you listen to it you will feel the Appalachian mountain breeze, the sound from the hollows below but most of all you will hear the voice of Maybelle Carter come back to life in daughter June in 2002….”

This last says it all except that here you get June Carter Cash’s whole story, at least her whole musical story, from her childhood singing “Keep On The Sunny Side” along side other Carters through to various sister acts, solos and duets, including with Johnny Cash right until late in her career. Lots of good solid material interspersed, as usual in such compilations, with some less than memorable one. I think, however, that I like that last Carter CD better where she goes deep, deep into that mountain past. I can still feel that Appalachian mountain breeze.

********

“Keep on the sunny side”

There's a dark and a troubled side of life
There's a bright and a sunny side too
Though we meet with the darkness of strife
The sunny side we also may view

Keep on the sunny side
Always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us every day
It will brighten up our way
If we keep on the sunny side of life

Though the storm and it's fury breaks today
Crushing hopes that we cherish so dear
The clouds and storm will in time pass away
And the sun again will shine bright and clear

(break)

Let us treat with a song of hope each day
Though the moment be cloudy or clear
Let us trust in our Saviour old ways
He will keep everyone in His care

Keep on the sunny side
Always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us every day
It will brighten up our way
If we keep on the sunny side of life

Old Time Music, Indeed!-Part Three

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Maybelle Carter Performing "Cannonball Blues".

CD Review

Friends Of Old Time Music, various artists, 3CD set, Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, 2006


This three disc compilation (including an incredibly informative booklet giving a mother lode of material, including photographs, about the how, when and why of bringing the mainly Southern, mainly rural talents to New York City in the early 1960s) will give the new generation and many older aficionados, in one place, a primer of great value. If you want to know the details of this part of the folk revival puzzle you certainly have to start here. For the beginner or the aficionado this is a worthwhile addition to the store of our common musical heritage.

Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe you should be sure to listen to:

Disc Three: Jesse Fuller on “Guitar Lesson” and “Cincinnati Blues,” Maybelle Carter on “He’s Solid Gone" and “Sugar Hill," Roscoe Holcomb on “Rising Sun Blues,” Mississippi John Hurt on “Frankie And Albert,”
and The Clarence Ashley Group on “Amazing Grace”.

Note: I should mention that all five of Maybelle Carter’s tracks on this compilation have made my recommendations list. I might add that her performances here (in 1965, and accompanied by members of The New Lost City Ramblers) make me wonder out loud, very out loud, what the heck she was doing all those years as merely one member of the Carter Family trio. Off these performances I now know who held that operation together musically. Not just her well-regarded and influential country guitar work and her use of the auto harp but her finely-etched voice that comes out very nicely on something like “Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow”.


He's Solid Gone

One day I am happy
The next day I am blue
Now I’m so lonely
I don’t know what to do
He’s gone, he’s solid gone

Down here a crying cause he’s gone
Wish that I was dying cause he’s gone, he’s solid gone

Washed his jumper, starched his overalls
He caught that train they call the Cannonball
From Buffalo to Washington

Down here a crying cause he’s gone
Wish that I was dying cause he’s gone, he’s solid gone

Listen to that train
Coming down the track
Carried him away
But it ain’t going to bring him back
He’s gone, he’s solid gone

Down here a crying cause he’s gone
Wish that I was dying cause he’s gone, he’s solid gone

My baby left me
He even took my shoes
Enough to give a gal the doggone worried blues
He’s gone, he’s solid gone

Down here a crying cause he’s gone
Wish that I was dying cause he’s gone, he’s solid gone

Old Time Music, Indeed!-Part Two

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Maybelle Carter Performing "The Storms Are On The Ocean".

CD Review

Friends Of Old Time Music, various artists, 3CD set, Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, 2006

This three disc compilation (including an incredibly informative booklet giving a mother lode of material, including photographs, about the how, when and why of bringing the mainly Southern, mainly rural talents to New York City in the early 1960s) will give the new generation and many older aficionados, in one place, a primer of great value. If you want to know the details of this part of the folk revival puzzle you certainly have to start here. For the beginner or the aficionado this is a worthwhile addition to the store of our common musical heritage.

Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe you should be sure to listen to:

Disc Two: Maybelle Carter on "Foggy Mountain Top” and “Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow,” Jesse Fuller on “San Francisco Bay Blues,” Roscoe Holcomb on “John Henry,” and Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers on “Before This Time Another Year”


Foggy Mountain Top

If I had listened to what mama said
I would not have been here today
Wishing for thing I'll never have
And weeping my sweet life away

If I was on some foggy mountain top
I'd sail way out to the west
I'd sail all around this old wide world
To the girl I love the best

You caused me to weep, you caused me to mourn
You caused me to leave my home
Oh that lonesome pine and the good old times
I'm on my way back home

Oh when you see that two-faced blonde
There is something you can tell her
She need not fool her time away
A-tryin' to steal my feller

Oh when you come to court me
Put on your navy blue
That long tail "roust-about" you wear
Don't do a thing for you

Old Time Music, Indeed!

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Dock Boggs Performing "Sugar Baby".

CD Review

Friends Of Old Time Music, various artists, 3CD set, Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, 2006

Okay, maybe the now somewhat eclipsed mountain music and country blues revival of the early 2000s driven by George Clooney’s “Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Songcatcher” revived some names from those traditions like The Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys and Maybelle Carter (although her connection with the Carter Family and Johnny Cash probably would have made her well-known in any case). But how about Kentucky banjo/fiddler (and much else) Roscoe Holcomb? Or Hobart Smith? Or Dock Boggs? Or…. I could go on but, hopefully, you get my drift.

What I am talking about is the lesser lights of these genres and the acknowledgement of their proper place in the American Songbook. That, my friends, comes from the “rediscovery” of these last-mentioned performers as part of the general trend back to roots music that drove the overall folk revival of the early 1960’s. The producers of this outstanding three-disc compilation are at pains to separate these genres out from the other doings of that time such as the search for the roots of the blues and the creation of a new up-to-date folk idiom by a wave of singer/songwriters who were thick as fleas in those days crowding New York City for recognition. One name, Bob Dylan, can, arbitrarily, serve as the symbol for that trend.

For lack of a better term, Friend of Old Time Music (FOTM), served as a transmission belt to bring this particular form of music to the roots hungry, urban young longing for a different musical sound. From personal knowledge this reviewer, and many from his generation, were desperately seeking music not provided in the precincts of Tin Pan Alley and other safe havens that had emasculated the rockabilly and rock and roll that drove our teen years. We may not have been able to articulate it exactly that way but we knew we did not want a continual diet of Sandra Dee and Bobby Vee.

This three disc compilation (including an incredibly informative booklet giving a mother lode of material, including photographs, about the how, when and why of bringing the mainly Southern, mainly rural talents to New York City in the early 1960s) will give the new generation and many older aficionados, in one place, a primer of great value. If you want to know the details of this part of the folk revival puzzle you certainly have to start here. For the beginner or the aficionado this is a worthwhile addition to the store of our common musical heritage.

Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe you should be sure to listen to:

Disc One: Dock Boggs on “The Country Blues," Mississippi Fred McDowell on “Going Down The River,” Roscoe Holcomb on “East Virginia Blues,” Hobart Smith on “Soldier’s Joy,” Mississippi John Hurt on “Coffee Blues,” Maybelle Carter on “The Storms Are On The Ocean,” and Jesse Fuller on “Buck And Wing”

Disc Two: Maybelle Carter on "Foggy Mountain Top” and “Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow,” Jesse Fuller on “San Francisco Bay Blues,” Roscoe Holcomb on “John Henry,” and Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers on “Before This Time Another Year”

Disc Three: Jesse Fuller on “Guitar Lesson” and “Cincinnati Blues,” Maybelle Carter on “He’s Solid Gone" and “Sugar Hill," Roscoe Holcomb on “Rising Sun Blues,” Mississippi John Hurt on “Frankie And Albert,”
and The Clarence Ashley Group on “Amazing Grace”.

Note: I should mention that all five of Maybelle Carter’s tracks on this compilation have made my recommendations list. I might add that her performances here (in 1965, and accompanied by members of The New Lost City Ramblers) make me wonder out loud, very out loud, what the heck she was doing all those years as merely one member of the Carter Family trio. Off these performances I now know who held that operation together musically. Not just her well-regarded and influential country guitar work and her use of the auto harp but her finely-etched voice that comes out very nicely on something like “Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow”.


"The Storms Are On The Ocean"

I'm going away to leave you love
I'm going away for a while
But I'll return to see you sometime
If I go ten thousand miles

The storms are on the ocean
The heavens may cease to be
This world may lose it's motion love
If I prove false to thee

Oh who will dress your pretty little feet
And who will glove your hand
Oh who will kiss your rosy red cheeks
When I'm in a foreign land

Papa will dress my pretty little feet
And Mama will glove my hand
You may kiss my rosy red cheeks
When you return again

Have you seen those mournful doves
Flying from pine to pine
A-mournin' for their own true love
Just like I mourn for mine

I'll never go back on the ocean love
I'll never go back on the sea
I'll never go back on my blue-eyed girl
'Til she goes back on me

"Hello Central, Give Me Heaven"

Hello central give me heaven
For I know my mother's there
And you'll find her with the angels
Over on the golden stair

She'll be glad it's me a speaking
Wont you call her for me please
For I surely want to tell her
That we're sad without her here

Hello central give me heaven
For I know my mother's there
You will find her with the angels
Over on the golden stair

Poppa dear is said and lonely
Sobbed the tearful little child
Since momma's gone to heaven
Poppa dear you do not smile

I will speak to her and tell her
That we want her to come home
You just listen while I call her
Call her through the telephone

I will answer just to please her
Yes dear heart I'll soon come home
Kiss me momma it's your darling
Kiss me through the telephone

***Enough of Mountain Music, Already –Almost

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Kilby Snow performing "May I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight, Mister?"

DVD Review

Traditional Music Classics, Doc Watson, Roscoe Holcomb, Buell Ezell and Kilby Snow with Mike Seeger, Yazoo productions, 2002

The music of the mountains, in this case the mountains of Appalachia, down in coal country in eastern Kentucky, as I have seemingly endlessly noted in the recent past, is the music of my father and his forbears, although I am a city boy and came to an appreciation of that music by a very circuitous route. But it must be in the genes, right? Well, genetic disposition or not when I view the first parts of this “Traditional Music Classics DVD even I was ready to disown my heritage. Why?

Well, partly it was due to the weak performances of the first performer, Doc Watson (and ensemble). While I can take old Doc in small doses he does not generally speak to me. He certainly did not here. Then there was the problem with mountain banjo player extraordinaire Roscoe Holcomb. His previously viewed performances in other venues were the reason I wanted to see him on this one. Maybe, it is a matter of overexposure but old Roscoe’s performance here seemed weak and tinny (unless his performance on the 1960s Pete Seeger television show “Rainbow Quest” where he wowed me). And then...


And then, indeed. Up comes Kilby Snow, a performer who I had heard of previously but whose music I had not heard, with his very own Montgomery Ward-purchased autoharp (with some personally done refinements), aided and abetted by the late Mike Seeger of the New Lost City Ramblers (and Pete Seeger’s half-brother), and blew me away. Mike hardly needed to coax Brother Snow to strut his stuff but remember that point I made above about the genetic connection. Old Kilby and his autoharp-driven songs called me back to the hills of home. This is why you want to view this one.

Lyrics To "Streets Of Laredo" as performed by Doc Watson on this DVD (there are many other versions, as noted below)

As I walked out in the streets of Laredo
As I walked out in Laredo one day,
I spied a young cowboy, all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped up in white linen and cold as the clay.
"I see by your outfit, that you are a cowboy."
These words he did say as I slowly walked by.
"Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story,
For I'm shot in the breast, and I'm dying today."
"'Twas once in the saddle I used to go dashing,
'Twas once in the saddle I used to go gay.
First to the dram-house, and then to the card-house,
Got shot in the breast, and I'm dying today."
"Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
And play the dead march as you carry me along;
Take me to the valley, and lay the sod o'er me,
For I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."
"Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin,
Get six pretty maidens to bear up my pall.
Put bunches of roses all over my coffin,
Roses to deaden the sods as they fall."
"Then swing your rope slowly and rattle your spurs lowly,
And give a wild whoop as you carry me along;
And in the grave throw me and roll the sod o'er me.
For I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."
"Go bring me a cup, a cup of cold water.
To cool my parched lips", the cowboy then said.
Before I returned, his soul had departed,
And gone to the round up - the cowboy was dead.
We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly,
And bitterly wept as we bore him along.
For we loved our comrade, so brave, young and handsome,
We all loved our comrade, although he'd done wrong.

[edit] Origin
The song is widely considered a traditional ballad, and the origins are not entirely clear. It seems to be primarily descended from an Irish/British folk song of the late 18th century called "The Unfortunate Rake", which has also evolved (with a time signature change and completely different melody) into the New Orleans standard "St. James Infirmary Blues". The Bodleian Library, Oxford, has a copy of a nineteenth-century broadside entitled "The Unfortunate Lad", which is a version of the British ballad.[1] Some elements of this song closely parallel those in the "Streets of Laredo":

Get six jolly fellows to carry my coffin,
And six pretty maidens to bear up my pall,
And give to each of them bunches of roses,
That they may not smell me as they go along.
Muffle your drums, play your pipes merrily,
Play the death march as you go along.
And fire your guns right over my coffin,
There goes an unfortunate lad to his home.
However, the cause of the Unfortunate Lad's demise is not a bullet wound but a sexually transmitted disease, as is clear from the verse:

Had she but told me when she disordered me,
Had she but told me of it at the time,
I might have got salts and pills of white mercury,
But now I'm cut down in the height of my prime.