At the height of the 60s folk revival, one couldn't turn on a radio without hearing the classic "Walk Right In." Penned by Erik Darling, the song stayed on the charts for what seemed like eons. Darling, whose credits included The Tarriers and The Weavers, had at that time just organized The Rooftop Singers. Now, after three decades of following... [+] Read More

At the height of the 60s folk revival, one couldn't turn on a radio without hearing the classic "Walk Right In." Penned by Erik Darling, the song stayed on the charts for what seemed like eons. Darling, whose credits included The Tarriers and The Weavers, had at that time just organized The Rooftop Singers. Now, after three decades of following other musical muses, Darling returns to his folk roots. Everything that made Darling a hit with the Rooftops, Tarriers, and Weavers -- his sparkling banjo playing, his arresting 12-string guitar style, his keen ear for tight harmony and unique arrangements, comes into play with his new group. ~ Allan Shaw, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Dock Boggs was just one of the primeval hillbillies to record during the '20s, forgotten for decades until the folk revival of the '60s revived his career at the twilight of his life. Still, his dozen recordings from 1927 to 1929 are monuments of folk music, comprised of fatalistic hills ballads and blues like "Danville Girl," "Pretty Polly,"... [+] Read More

Dock Boggs was just one of the primeval hillbillies to record during the '20s, forgotten for decades until the folk revival of the '60s revived his career at the twilight of his life. Still, his dozen recordings from 1927 to 1929 are monuments of folk music, comprised of fatalistic hills ballads and blues like "Danville Girl," "Pretty Polly," and "Country Blues." Born near Norton, VA, in 1898, Boggs was the youngest of ten children. (He gained his nickname at an early age, since he was named after the doctor who delivered him.) Boggs began working in the mines at the age of 12. In what remained of his spare time, he began playing banjo, picking the instrument in the style of blues guitar instead of the widespread clawhammer technique.

Boggs began picking up songs from family members and the radio. He married in 1918 and began subcontracting on a mine until his wife's illness forced him to move back to her home. He worked in the dangerous moonshining business and made a little money playing social dances.

His big break finally came in 1927, when executives from the Brunswick label arrived in Norton to audition talent. He passed (beating out none other than A.P. Carter), and recorded eight sides in New York City for the label. Though they didn't quite flop, the records sold mostly around Boggs' hometown. He signed a booking agent, and recorded four more sides for W.E. Myer's local Lonesome Ace label. The coming of the Great Depression in late 1929 put a hold on Boggs' recording career, as countless labels dried up. He continued to perform around the region until the early '30s, however, when his wife forced him to give up his music and go back into the mines. Boggs worked until 1954, when mechanical innovations forced him out of a job.

Almost a decade later, in 1963, folklorist Mike Seeger located Boggs in Norton and convinced him to resume his career. Just weeks after their meeting, Boggs played the American Folk Festival in Asheville, NC. He began recording again, and released his first LP, Legendary Singer & Banjo Player, later that year on Smithsonian/Folkways. Two more LPs followed during the '60s, although, like his original recordings, they too were out of print not long after his death in 1971.

The revival of interest in early folk music occasioned by a digital reissue of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music finally brought Boggs' music back to the shelves. In 1997, John Fahey's Revenant label released Complete Early Recordings (1927-1929), and one year later His Folkways Years (1963-1968) appeared. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The traditional folk songs and buck dancing of the United States' southern mountains region may have faded into the past without the efforts of collector, musician, and impresario Bascom Lamar Lunsford. During the nearly three-quarters of a century that he collected songs and dances in the Appalachian Mountains, Lunsford laid the groundwork for... [+] Read More

The traditional folk songs and buck dancing of the United States' southern mountains region may have faded into the past without the efforts of collector, musician, and impresario Bascom Lamar Lunsford. During the nearly three-quarters of a century that he collected songs and dances in the Appalachian Mountains, Lunsford laid the groundwork for the preservation and revival of traditional folk music and dance. Although Lunsford composed such now-standard songs as "Old Mountain Dew" and "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground," he's best remembered for the hundreds of songs that he collected and recorded for Columbia University and the Library of Congress' Archive of American Folk Song.

The son of a school teacher, Lunsford began collecting songs shortly after graduating from college at the turn of the century. Traveling on horseback, Lunsford worked a variety of jobs including selling fruit trees, working as an attorney and serving a short stint with the FBI. Claiming to have "spent nights in more homes from Harpers Ferry, North Carolina to Iron Mountain, Alabama than God", Lunsford spent most of his time collecting folk songs. Dressed in a white starched short and black bow-tie, Lunsford railed against the stereotyping of the "hillbillies" and used music and dance as a way to draw attention to the strengths and value of the southern mountain culture.

"The Minstrel of the Appalachians", Lunsford helped to spread the southern style of buck dancing, an energetic technique of rhythmically accompanying a tune with one's feet that fused Scottish, Irish, Black and Cherokee dancing. Beginning with dance competitions in North Carolina, often at his home where he installed a special dance floor, Lunsford helped to turn buck dancing into a national fad. A turning point came in 1928 when Lunsford was hired to organize a folk music and dance show at the Rhododendron Festival in Asheville. The show attracted more than 5,000 people and was turned into an annual event, becoming one of the first folk festivals in the United States.

Although he was criticized for excluding songs of politics, labor strive, Black culture and bawdy material, Lunsford's efforts were essential to the preservation of the culture of "the true southern mountaineers" and served as an inspiration for everyone from Mike and Pete Seeger to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. While most of his attention was focused on collecting the songs and dances of others, Lunsford toured the world performing and lecturing. ~ Craig Harris, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The strings of the hammered dulcimer come alive with melody and percussive rhythms through the playing of Sam Rizzetta. The founder of multi-dulcimer group, Trapezoid, in 1975, Rizzetta has continued to creatively explore his multi-stringed instrument as a soloist since 1979.

In addition to maintaining a busy schedule as a performer... [+] Read More

The strings of the hammered dulcimer come alive with melody and percussive rhythms through the playing of Sam Rizzetta. The founder of multi-dulcimer group, Trapezoid, in 1975, Rizzetta has continued to creatively explore his multi-stringed instrument as a soloist since 1979.

In addition to maintaining a busy schedule as a performer and composer, Rizzetta has become one of the foremost designers and builders of hammered dulcimer. His instruments, which have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute and the National Folk Festival, are noted for their expanded tonal range and exquisite sound. Rizzetta, who resides in West Virginia, has continues to teach in the dulcimer department that he helped to launch in 1974. ~ Craig Harris, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Music is a tool of cultural change for Guy Carawan. Music director and song leader of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee, Carawan has consistently woven his musical talents with his committment to freedom and the advancement of the working class. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, he and his wife,... [+] Read More

Music is a tool of cultural change for Guy Carawan. Music director and song leader of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee, Carawan has consistently woven his musical talents with his committment to freedom and the advancement of the working class. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, he and his wife, Candie, who came to the Highlander Center on an exchange program with Fisk University, participated in sit-ins and protests against racial discrimination. In 1960, Carawan introduced a song that he had been taught by Pete Seeger in 1952, "We Shall Overcome," at the founding convention of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at Raleigh, North Carolina. Within a few weeks, the song became the unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement. Carawan, in collaboration with his wife, wrote and edited three books on the civil rights movement -- Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, We Shall Overcome! Songs of the Southern Freedom Movement and Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs.

Carawan's ethnomusicological explorations of the culture and music of the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina were documented by a book, Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?: The People of Johns Island, South Carolina -- Their Faces, Their Words and Their Songs, and an album of field recordings, Been In the Storm So Long: A Collection of Spirituals, Folk Tales and Children's Games from John's Island, South Carolina. Their experiences and the songs they collected in the coal-mining counties of the Appalachian region were chronicled in the book Voices from the Mountains.

Carawan, who first visited the Highland Center in 1953, was initially motivated by his interests in his genealogical roots. Although he was born in Los Angeles, his father hailed from rural North Carolina, while his mother was raised in the city of Charleston. In 1959, he asked the center's founder and director Miles Horton if he could use the center as a base for his research on Southern folk culture and music. When he was told he could stay only if he worked at the center, he agreed to become the center's music director and began using his large repertoire of topical songs to draw people out at workshops.

In addition to his own recordings and folkloric collections, Carawan has recorded with his son, Evan, who plays hammered dulcimer. They recorded a duo album, Appalachian & Irish Tunes on Hammer Dulcimer, in 1988 and, joined by Candie, a Carawan family album, Home Brew, in 1991. ~ Craig Harris, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Released on John Fahey's Revenant label, this Dock Boggs collection includes all 12 of his 1927-29 recordings, plus five alternate takes and four cuts by Bill and Hayes Shepherd, friends and fellow players of Boggs. Included with the set is a 64-page book with essays by Greil Marcus, among others, and this is undoubtedly the best Dock Boggs...

Released on John Fahey's Revenant label, this Dock Boggs collection includes all 12 of his 1927-29 recordings, plus five alternate takes and four cuts by Bill and Hayes Shepherd, friends and fellow players of Boggs. Included with the set is a 64-page book with essays by Greil Marcus, among others, and this is undoubtedly the best Dock Boggs collection ever assembled. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Though it sounds for all the world like an authentic document of the Appalachian Mountains tradition of the Carter Family of the 1930s, this album (reissued from an original 1956 LP release) was made by two New York City-born college students in 1956. Ellen and Irene Kossoy, accompanying themselves on guitar and banjo and backed on the same... [+] Read More

Though it sounds for all the world like an authentic document of the Appalachian Mountains tradition of the Carter Family of the 1930s, this album (reissued from an original 1956 LP release) was made by two New York City-born college students in 1956. Ellen and Irene Kossoy, accompanying themselves on guitar and banjo and backed on the same instruments by Erik Darling, sang a set of traditional material heavy on murder ballads. Lacking any particular emotional connection to the subject matter, they were able to recreate the direct, amateur sound of the people who sang these songs as a part of their culture, making the lyrics all the more chilling for the matter-of-fact way in which they were rendered. A genuine oddity, this. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

After Boggs, the Appalachian singer-banjoist who had released a dozen sides in the late 1920s, was rediscovered by Mike Seeger in 1963, he did some recording for Folkways Records. This double-CD, 50-song set contains the material from three Boggs LPs for Folkways: Legendary Singer & Banjo Player (1963), Vol. 2 (1965), and Vol. 3 (1970). The... [+] Read More

After Boggs, the Appalachian singer-banjoist who had released a dozen sides in the late 1920s, was rediscovered by Mike Seeger in 1963, he did some recording for Folkways Records. This double-CD, 50-song set contains the material from three Boggs LPs for Folkways: Legendary Singer & Banjo Player (1963), Vol. 2 (1965), and Vol. 3 (1970). The unearthly qualities of his '20s recordings that caused critics such as Greil Marcus to get wet were not in such exotic force on these later efforts; Boggs had only recently started playing music again after a gap of about 30 years. He's in fairly good form on this extensive compilation, dominated by old folk and blues tunes (some traditional, some learned from mundane sources such as commercial records and a Banker's Life Insurance ad). His singing and banjo playing are the definition of "stark," an overused adjective when applied to traditional Appalachian music. He's much easier to take than even starker proponents such as Roscoe Holcomb, however, with vocals that are effectively plaintive and rough-hewn without sounding unduly pinched, although they sometimes crack and strain. His best tunes are the ones with a spooky undercurrent, like "Danville Girl," which shares the same melody as the famous standard "St. James Infirmary," and "Oh Death." The reissue has excellent, lengthy historical liner notes from Barry O'Connell, and fascinating recollections of Boggs' rediscovery by Mike Seeger. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

A precious collection from one of folk music's legendary figures, Ballads, Banjo Tunes and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina collects a few of his songs from his 1928 Brunswick sessions (the immortal "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground," "Dry Bones") and adds over a dozen songs -- from a total of over 350 -- recorded in March 1949 for the... [+] Read More

A precious collection from one of folk music's legendary figures, Ballads, Banjo Tunes and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina collects a few of his songs from his 1928 Brunswick sessions (the immortal "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground," "Dry Bones") and adds over a dozen songs -- from a total of over 350 -- recorded in March 1949 for the Library of Congress as his "Memory Collection." The Minstrel of the Appalachians really comes alive on this collection, introducing most of his 1949 recordings with song histories and where he collected them. Also included is a priceless track named "Dedication," in which Lunsford spends five minutes recalling both his early life and his later career as a country lawyer and song collector. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide [-] Hide

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