Sometimes our lives become loosely entwined with remarkable people, human beings who possess incredible talents, minds, ideas, and actions. Often we fail to recognize how important they are to our… Read More →
Here & There
“The Preacher and The Bear”: Not a Folk Song, But a Song of the Folk
In June 1984, newly hired as a ranger by the National Park Service, I was assigned to work for the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, North Carolina. My vocation… Read More →
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Rhythm and Genes: The Moonshining and Old-Time Music of Southwest Virginia’s Boyd Family
Jimmy Boyd (photo by Sam Linkous)Jimmy Boyd believes in the power of genetics. “There’s something about us Boyds,” he told me, “that just put rhythm in us. My daddy played… Read More →
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Dark-Natured Songs: The Bare Family Legacy
Lena Bare Turbyfill (photo courtesy of Elizabeth Gwyn)Listening to field recordings can be an experience of intimacy and distance at the same time: intimacy because we hear the unedited sound… Read More →
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African-American Fiddling from Texas (Teodar Jackson)
By now, all readers of the OTH are probably aware of the crucial role that Black musicians played in the creation of what we think of today as “old-time music.”… Read More →
Fiddling from Ozark County, Missouri (H. K. Silvey)
For those interested in rounding out their knowledge of Ozark fiddling, this recording of H. K. Silvey should be of great interest. Born in 1933, H. K. Silvey is one… Read More →
Closing the Gap (Molsky’s Mountain Drifters)
I’ll never forget the first time I heard “Pop Goes the Weasel” in a collection of archival Edden Hammons tunes. That tune got me thinking about the origins of the… Read More →
Old Tin (Erynn Marshall and Carl Jones)
A couple months before the proverbial excrement hit the fan, in March of 2020, Erynn Marshall and Carl Jones released a lovely duo album titled Old Tin. The record’s name… Read More →
Random Access Mash (Hard Drive)
“Hard Drive is a hard-driving aural modern traditional old time authentic millennial bluegrass collective made up of Tatiana Hargreaves, Aaron Tacke, Sonya Badigian, and Nokosee Fields.” The band’s succinct description… Read More →
Shaking Down the Acorns (Scott Prouty)
MULTIPLE CHOICE TEST This CD/DVD set by Scott Prouty is: (a) An eclectic survey of fiddle music learned from people Prouty knew personally, or from recordings (b) An instructional DVD… Read More →
Spider Tales (Jake Blount)
When was the last time a largely old-time music album made a year-end Top Ten list at such prestigious publications as The New Yorker and the UK’s The Guardian? It’s… Read More →
Rural Rhythm: The Story of Old-Time Country Music in 78 Records (by Tony Russell)
Tony Russell has documented and interpreted a range of American vernacular music traditions for over half a century. Readers of the Old-Time Herald will recognize him as a (or, in… Read More →
Attic #22: Bands, Ensembles, Groups, Aggregations
Given the focus of the Old-Time Herald on string band music, it naturally has been appropriate that in most of our visits to the Attic we’ve spent the time looking… Read More →
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The Harry Smith B-Sides (Various artists)
“People got folk song happy for awhile,” Merle Travis recalled when interviewed in 1979. Capitol’s Cliffie Stone asked him to record an album full of them. Travis replied, “Bradley Kincaid… Read More →
See What the Lord Has Done for Me: Rare and Unissued Recordings (Rev. Gary Davis)
The story behind these recordings, made in guitarist Ernie Dawkins’ Pittsburgh home between 1968 and 1970, is the story of a young guitar fanatic’s passion leading him to a wonderful… Read More →
The Old Texas Fiddle Vol. III (Tricia Spencer & Howard Rains)
The subtitle displayed not on the package but on the CD’s readout is Little Tunes from the Big State. That neatly summarizes a good-natured sense of humility and humor that… Read More →
