Bluegrass & Old Time Music

[stingo]

A meeting of traditional musics from the US and China.

Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn

[Old San Antone]

A meeting of traditional musics from the US and China.

Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn

Yeah, I have been listening to that one, mainly because of Abigail Washburn who've I enjoyed on previous recordings, with or without her husband Bela Fleck. 

Glad to see you here.

[Old San Antone]

There are a number of Civil War song collections, but this one is my current favorite:

Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War is a compilation album of American Civil War music recorded by various artists. It was released on November 5, 2013 through ATO Records. The album was produced with the help of music supervisor Randall Poster, whose credits include work with Boardwalk Empire and Moonrise Kingdom. The album features contributions from many notable country and bluegrass musicians, including Loretta Lynn, Old Crow Medicine Show, Dolly Parton, T Bone Burnett, Del McCoury, and Karen Elson, among others.

The Loretta Lynn track is absolutely fantastic, the best thing I've heard from her in a long time if not from across her long career, mainly because it features a stripped down banjo and fiddle accompaniment and mountain singing.



Disc one

    "Take Your Gun and Go, John" - Loretta Lynn
    "Lorena" - Del McCoury
    "Wildwood Flower" - Sam Amidon
    "Hell's Broke Loose In Georgia" - Bryan Sutton
    "Two Soldiers" - Ricky Skaggs
    "Marching Through Georgia" - Old Crow Medicine Show
    "Dear Old Flag" - Vince Gill
    "Just Before the Battle, Mother/Farewell, Mother - Steve Earle and Dirk Powell
    "The Fall of Charleston" - Shovels & Rope
    "Tenting on the Old Campground" - John Doe
    "Day of Liberty" - Carolina Chocolate Drops
    "Richmond Is a Hard Road to Travel" - Chris Thile and Michael Daves
    "Two Brothers - Chris Stapleton
    "The Faded Coat of Blue" - Norman Blake, Nancy Blake, and James Bryan
    "Listen to the Mockingbird" - Stuart Duncan featuring Dolly Parton
    "Kingdom Come" - Pokey LaFarge

Disc two

    "Rebel Soldier" - Jamey Johnson
    "The Legend of the Rebel Soldier" - Lee Ann Womack
    "The Mermaid Song" - Jorma Kaukonen
    "Dixie" - Karen Elson with The Secret Sisters
    "The Vacant Chair" - Ralph Stanley
    "Hard Times Come Again No More" - Chris Hillman
    "Down By the Riverside" - Taj Mahal
    "Old Folks at Home/The Girl I left Behind Me" - Noam Pikelny and David Grisman
    "Secash" - The Tennessee Mafia Jug Band
    "The Battle of Antietam" - T Bone Burnett
    "Pretty Saro" - Ashley Monroe featuring Aubrey Haynie
    "Aura Lee" - Joe Henry
    "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier" - AA Bondy
    "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" - Angel Snow
    "Battle Cry of Freedom" - Bryan Sutton
    "Beautiful Dreamer" - Cowboy Jack Clement

[Old San Antone]

Bill Monroe is called the father of Bluegrass since he established the band formation, stylistic attributes, including the unique kind of harmony singing, and over his long career never wavered from the style he created and perfected.  So it is fitting that after his death there have been a number recordings devoted to his music performed by some of the best performers, i.e. his musical children.




All of these are good, and there are some overlap of artists involved, although the songs chosen will repeat but not by the same performers.  The one I seem to listen to more than the others is the "Legend Lives On", the first one pictured.  Also, the third one focuses on Monroe's Gospel repertory - a big part of most Bluegrass bands' book but especially so for Bill Monroe.

The Legend Lives On: A Tribute to Bill Monroe
In April 1997 some of bluegrass music's greatest names (including Ralph Stanley, Ricky Skaggs, the Del McCoury Band) gathered at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville to remember Bill Monroe, the music he made, and the genre he all but single-handedly spawned. This double-CD set captures 28 songs performed live that evening, including such standouts as Skaggs's renditions of "Uncle Pen" and "Get Up John"; Tim O'Brien's impassioned "Workin' on a Building"; the Del McCoury Band's "John Henry," where McCoury's tenor is as tense and charged as a high-voltage wire; and Stanley's "Can't You Hear Me Callin'," featuring vocal harmony so high and piercing it'll make you shiver. The producers might have fared better paring the program down to one 14-song disc, since too many average moments dilute the impact. But the album retains a certain poignancy in two songs from the late John Hartford, one of which, "Cross-Eyed Child," traces the pain of the disfigurement that led to Monroe's mournful music, and in Marty Stuart's version of the traditional "Rabbit in the Log," a woeful reminder of the hardscrabble Southern upbringing that so many of Monroe's contemporaries endured. This is not the ultimate tribute to the Father of Bluegrass, but it's a gift anyway. --Alanna Nash

The Bill Monroe Centennial Celebration: A Classic Bluegrass Tribute
2011 two CD tribute to the king of Bluegrass. Bill Monroe was both the father of Bluegrass music and one of the genre's most prolific writers, with a legacy that remains a touchstone for instrumentalists and vocalists alike. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Monroe's birth, Rounder presents this 28-track set, with performances by an all-star roster of Rounder's top bluegrass artists, including Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, Dailey & Vincent, and The Bluegrass Album Band.

Let The Light Shine Down: A Gospel Tribute To Bill Monroe
This album is one of a pair of "tribute" albums from Rebel - a label that's been issuing bluegrass on its Rebel and County Records imprints for five decades. This album contains the gospel songs associated with - or recorded by - Monroe, while another titled "With Body and Soul" contains the "secular" songs.

With Body and Soul: A Bluegrass To Bill Monroe
Seventeen songs from various artists from the Rebel Records stable, including Red Allen, Kenny Baker, Del McCoury, Seldom Scene and Ralph Stanley.

True Life Blues: The Songs Of Bill Monroe
There's no new ground broken here, just a 17-track collection of some of Bill Monroe's best known (and best loved) songs recorded by some of the biggest names in bluegrass music today. Many of these artists passed through the ranks of Monroe's Blue Grass Boys: Del McCoury, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clemments, Bobby Hicks and Roland White. Additional musicians include Tim O'Brien, John Hartford, Sam Bush, Tony Trischka, Herb Petersen and David Grisman. And a new generation of musicians are represented by Del's son Ronnie McCoury and Nickle Creek's Chris Thile. Recorded shortly before Monroe's death in September 1996, this album serves as a loving tribute to the father of bluegrass music.

Hats Off: Tribute to Bill Monroe
Hats Off! A Tribute to Bill Monroe offers mainly instrumental renditions of classics like "Muleskinner Blues," "Orange Blossom Special," and "Blue Moon of Kentucky."  Although released in 1996, the same year Monroe died just days before his 85th birthday, the album notes clearly indicate this was released before his death. The album is a fitting tribute. Many of these songs are performed by former Bluegrass Boys. Lester Flatt, Benny Martin, Sonny Osborne (of The Osborne Brothers), Buddy Spicher and Mac Wiseman are all alumni of Monroe's band. Future country star Marty Stuart provides mandolin on "Roanoke," one of seven instrumentals.

I forgot one - and a real good one.



Bill Monroe 100th Year Celebration – Live at Bean Blossom
The commemorative album was recorded during the 45th Annual Bill Monroe Memorial Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival, at Bean Blossom, Indiana, June 2011, when the record label brought along two audio engineers to capture some of the label's artists paying tribute to the Father of Bluegrass Music.

Uncle Pen – Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out; Can't You Hear Me Calling – Lou Reid and Carolina; Southern Flavor – Brand New Strings; Were You There – Grasstowne; Footprints in the Snow – Lonesome River Band; Six Feet Under the Ground – Audie Blaylock & Redline; Big Mon – The Bartley Brothers; Body & Soul – Blue Moon Rising; Blue Moon of Kentucky – Bobby Osborne & The Rocky Top X-Press; This World Is Not My Home – Carolina Road; Bluegrass Breakdown – Ronnie Reno & The Reno Tradition; and Molly & Tenbrooks – Wasson & McCall (featuring J. D. Crowe).

[Gurn Blanston]

Bill Monroe is called the father of Bluegrass since he established the band formation, stylistic attributes, including the unique kind of harmony singing, and over his long career never wavered from the style he created and perfected.  So it is fitting that after his death there have been a number recordings devoted to his music performed by some of the best performers, i.e. his musical children.




All of these are good, and there are some overlap of artists involved, although the songs chosen will repeat but not by the same performers.  The one I seem to listen to more than the others is the "Legend Lives On", the first one pictured.  Also, the third one focuses on Monroe's Gospel repertory - a big part of most Bluegrass bands' book but especially so for Bill Monroe.

The Legend Lives On: A Tribute to Bill Monroe
In April 1997 some of bluegrass music's greatest names (including Ralph Stanley, Ricky Skaggs, the Del McCoury Band) gathered at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville to remember Bill Monroe, the music he made, and the genre he all but single-handedly spawned. This double-CD set captures 28 songs performed live that evening, including such standouts as Skaggs's renditions of "Uncle Pen" and "Get Up John"; Tim O'Brien's impassioned "Workin' on a Building"; the Del McCoury Band's "John Henry," where McCoury's tenor is as tense and charged as a high-voltage wire; and Stanley's "Can't You Hear Me Callin'," featuring vocal harmony so high and piercing it'll make you shiver. The producers might have fared better paring the program down to one 14-song disc, since too many average moments dilute the impact. But the album retains a certain poignancy in two songs from the late John Hartford, one of which, "Cross-Eyed Child," traces the pain of the disfigurement that led to Monroe's mournful music, and in Marty Stuart's version of the traditional "Rabbit in the Log," a woeful reminder of the hardscrabble Southern upbringing that so many of Monroe's contemporaries endured. This is not the ultimate tribute to the Father of Bluegrass, but it's a gift anyway. --Alanna Nash

The Bill Monroe Centennial Celebration: A Classic Bluegrass Tribute
2011 two CD tribute to the king of Bluegrass. Bill Monroe was both the father of Bluegrass music and one of the genre's most prolific writers, with a legacy that remains a touchstone for instrumentalists and vocalists alike. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Monroe's birth, Rounder presents this 28-track set, with performances by an all-star roster of Rounder's top bluegrass artists, including Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, Dailey & Vincent, and The Bluegrass Album Band.

Let The Light Shine Down: A Gospel Tribute To Bill Monroe
This album is one of a pair of "tribute" albums from Rebel - a label that's been issuing bluegrass on its Rebel and County Records imprints for five decades. This album contains the gospel songs associated with - or recorded by - Monroe, while another titled "With Body and Soul" contains the "secular" songs.

With Body and Soul: A Bluegrass To Bill Monroe
Seventeen songs from various artists from the Rebel Records stable, including Red Allen, Kenny Baker, Del McCoury, Seldom Scene and Ralph Stanley.

True Life Blues: The Songs Of Bill Monroe
There's no new ground broken here, just a 17-track collection of some of Bill Monroe's best known (and best loved) songs recorded by some of the biggest names in bluegrass music today. Many of these artists passed through the ranks of Monroe's Blue Grass Boys: Del McCoury, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clemments, Bobby Hicks and Roland White. Additional musicians include Tim O'Brien, John Hartford, Sam Bush, Tony Trischka, Herb Petersen and David Grisman. And a new generation of musicians are represented by Del's son Ronnie McCoury and Nickle Creek's Chris Thile. Recorded shortly before Monroe's death in September 1996, this album serves as a loving tribute to the father of bluegrass music.

Hats Off: Tribute to Bill Monroe
Hats Off! A Tribute to Bill Monroe offers mainly instrumental renditions of classics like "Muleskinner Blues," "Orange Blossom Special," and "Blue Moon of Kentucky."  Although released in 1996, the same year Monroe died just days before his 85th birthday, the album notes clearly indicate this was released before his death. The album is a fitting tribute. Many of these songs are performed by former Bluegrass Boys. Lester Flatt, Benny Martin, Sonny Osborne (of The Osborne Brothers), Buddy Spicher and Mac Wiseman are all alumni of Monroe's band. Future country star Marty Stuart provides mandolin on "Roanoke," one of seven instrumentals.

I forgot one - and a real good one.



Bill Monroe 100th Year Celebration – Live at Bean Blossom
The commemorative album was recorded during the 45th Annual Bill Monroe Memorial Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival, at Bean Blossom, Indiana, June 2011, when the record label brought along two audio engineers to capture some of the label's artists paying tribute to the Father of Bluegrass Music.

Uncle Pen – Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out; Can't You Hear Me Calling – Lou Reid and Carolina; Southern Flavor – Brand New Strings; Were You There – Grasstowne; Footprints in the Snow – Lonesome River Band; Six Feet Under the Ground – Audie Blaylock & Redline; Big Mon – The Bartley Brothers; Body & Soul – Blue Moon Rising; Blue Moon of Kentucky – Bobby Osborne & The Rocky Top X-Press; This World Is Not My Home – Carolina Road; Bluegrass Breakdown – Ronnie Reno & The Reno Tradition; and Molly & Tenbrooks – Wasson & McCall (featuring J. D. Crowe).

Boy, there's a big handful! 2 or 3 of those should nicely fill up some sad spaces in my little collection. I like the looks of that last one, I've come to enjoy the live festival-type performances. Thanks for this list, I need to mosey over to Amazon now... 

[BWV 1080]

Rhianna Gibbons is resurrecting and breathing new life into music associated with Minstrelsy, which represents the earliest examples of the fusion of African and Celtic traditions and forms the foundation of all American popular music that followed

https://youtu.be/dNe_EE7aI0c

https://youtu.be/a4Xlyi8Is98

[stingo]

Rhianna Gibbons is resurrecting and breathing new life into music associated with Minstrelsy, which represents the earliest examples of the fusion of African and Celtic traditions and forms the foundation of all American popular music that followed

https://youtu.be/dNe_EE7aI0c

https://youtu.be/a4Xlyi8Is98

Ms. Giddens also recently collaborated with an artist I imagine would be well known around these parts.

[Gurn Blanston]

Rhianna Gibbons is resurrecting and breathing new life into music associated with Minstrelsy, which represents the earliest examples of the fusion of African and Celtic traditions and forms the foundation of all American popular music that followed

https://youtu.be/dNe_EE7aI0c

https://youtu.be/a4Xlyi8Is98

Rhiannon Giddens also performs with a group called the Carolina Chocolate Drops playing old time music. In your video she is playing a fretless banjo with nylon/gut strings, clawhammer picking style. Fabulous, I've never seen that before. That banjo sounds so much cooler than modern ones!

The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Giddens playing fiddle as well as banjo:
https://www.youtube.com/v/EmPf1CJaF5s

On a slightly different tack, she covers here one of the greatest all-time songs, Patsy Cline / Willie Nelson's "Crazy", better than anyone I've heard since Patsy died. I know it isn't old-time or bluegrass, but I just wanted to say, this gal has talent!!

https://www.youtube.com/v/9MrHeJ-n_RQ

[BWV 1080]

Rhiannon Giddens also performs with a group called the Carolina Chocolate Drops playing old time music. In your video she is playing a fretless banjo with nylon/gut strings, clawhammer picking style. Fabulous, I've never seen that before. That banjo sounds so much cooler than modern ones!

yes, the gourd and gut strings was the original config and you can see the relation to African instruments like the Akonting, including the clawhammer technique

https://www.youtube.com/v/IJtI7gr4XyU

[Old San Antone]

Rhiannon Giddens also performs with a group called the Carolina Chocolate Drops playing old time music. In your video she is playing a fretless banjo with nylon/gut strings, clawhammer picking style. Fabulous, I've never seen that before. That banjo sounds so much cooler than modern ones!

That's the banjo I've got, it was handmade by a North Carolina luthier, and I buy "nylgut" strings designed to be tuned a fourth lower than the standard banjo.  I have been learning clawhammer style for the last couple of years, off and on, and am just now getting some of the basics of the strum down.  Being primarily a guitar player, clawhammer technique is counter-intuitve.  But once you've mastered the basic strum, playing tunes goes pretty quickly.

Agree on all points about Rhiannon Giddens. 

I came to post about two new tributes to John Hartford:

The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Vol. 1

When John Hartford died in 2001, we lost a musical voice and first-rate humorist whose songwriting carried us down the Mississippi on riverboats and whose musical genius is with us still, in his songs and in the modern-day musicians he's inspired. It's our good fortune that he left behind a treasure trove of over 2,000 hand-written fiddle tune charts. In the summer of 2018, his daughter, Katie Harford Hogue, Nashville-based fiddler Matt Combs, and musicologist and musician Greg Reish compiled and published the first project that grew out of these discoveries, John Hartford's Mammoth Collection of Fiddle Tunes, an anthology of 176 of Hartford's original compositions. (No Depression)

https://www.youtube.com/v/EkzqbEnbhfE

On the Road: A Tribute to John Hartford

Another group of artists honors Hartford's legacy by delivering their own re-workings of songs from Hartford's albums, illustrating Hartford's humor and his songwriting genius. This collection of 15 songs features musicians including Sam Bush, Todd Snider, Leftover Salmon, Railroad Earth, The Infamous Stringdusters, The Band of Heathens, and The Travelin' McCourys.

On the Road opens with Sam Bush's jamming version of the title track, which Bush played live with Hartford as far back as 1977. The song appears on Hartford's album Morning Bugle; in Bush's version, driven by Scott Vestal's propulsive banjo, the song launches us down the road, energizing us for the journey, a paean to the life of a traveling musician. (No Depression)

https://www.youtube.com/v/sbVjRWNmjnI

[Gurn Blanston]

yes, the gourd and gut strings was the original config and you can see the relation to African instruments like the Akonting, including the clawhammer technique

https://www.youtube.com/v/IJtI7gr4XyU

Something else I never saw: very cool! Music has an "oriental" sound to it, not what I would have expected at all. Thanks for posting this!

[Gurn Blanston]

That's the banjo I've got, it was handmade by a North Carolina luthier, and I buy "nylgut" strings designed to be tuned a fourth lower than the standard banjo.  I have been learning clawhammer style for the last couple of years, off and on, and am just now getting some of the basics of the strum down.  Being primarily a guitar player, clawhammer technique is counter-intuitve.  But once you've mastered the basic strum, playing tunes goes pretty quickly.

Agree on all points about Rhiannon Giddens. 

Nice! I was just guessing about the strings, but you seem to have confirmed that. I have a very old tenor banjo, which I would like to bring to the string shop for reworking. I wonder if I could go with those kind of strings and learn to frail it. I was pretty good on guitar back in the day, and I could chord that banjo and my mandolin really well too. Warn't much of a picker though, but not saying I couldn't learn. Just takes motivation.

[Gurn Blanston]

I came to post about two new tributes to John Hartford:

The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Vol. 1



https://www.youtube.com/v/EkzqbEnbhfE

On the Road: A Tribute to John Hartford



https://www.youtube.com/v/sbVjRWNmjnI

Looks like I'm going to have to turn that way for a bit. I really enjoyed Hartford when he was alive and well and playing with Glen Campbell. I went elsewhere for a while, but might be time to head back...

80

[Old San Antone]

Nice! I was just guessing about the strings, but you seem to have confirmed that. I have a very old tenor banjo, which I would like to bring to the string shop for reworking. I wonder if I could go with those kind of strings and learn to frail it. I was pretty good on guitar back in the day, and I could chord that banjo and my mandolin really well too. Warn't much of a picker though, but not saying I couldn't learn. Just takes motivation.

I'm not sure but doesn't the tenor banjo have four strings?  If I am remembering it correctly, you could play this music with it, but not in a real clawhammer style which requires a five string banjo (the style requires using the thumb to pull the high fifth string).  But I could be wrong; you could definitely put nylgut strings on it (Aquila is the best brand) - and see where it leads.

Good Time Banjos have some excellent open backed banjos, that are well made and start in the $600 range and go up from there.  There is also Gold Tone which as a banjo that is inexpensive but has won prizes in its class, I've got one and it has a good sound and is a little over $200.

[Old San Antone]

Hog-eyed Man perform "Green River" at the Old-Time Tiki Parlour.

Hog-eyed Man is: Jason Cade & Rob McMaken

https://www.youtube.com/v/MJqngg7AVyA

The Old Time Tiki Parlour is a nice place to hear (and see) some really good Old Time/Bluegrass playing.

[Gurn Blanston]

I was just scouting around for something new, and instead I found something old. Made in 1971, it shows what this music is really all about, as well as many of the people who you would be surprised that Earl played with in that time. It's a fast 73 minutes, and worth hanging around to the end, just to see Joan Baez doing a great Bob Dylan imitation! Glad I found it.

https://www.youtube.com/v/OlneqC0mVsk

[stingo]

This is the video I was referring to above.

https://www.youtube.com/v/gYDo0ZjXegM

[Gurn Blanston]

This is the video I was referring to above.

https://www.youtube.com/v/gYDo0ZjXegM

That was really nice!  If one had to define some sort of genre to put that song into, I wonder what it would be? It's rather unique. 

[stingo]

That was really nice!  If one had to define some sort of genre to put that song into, I wonder what it would be? It's rather unique. 

You might be interested in her album There Is No Other. It strikes me as being Americana but with World instruments.

Here's the title track...
https://www.youtube.com/v/KBIQ_tjBt0M

[Old San Antone]

Laurie Lewis - 2020 recording of duets with friends, "And Laurie Lewis"



In many ways "And Laurie Lewis" embodies the vital intergenerational nature of an acoustic scene that encompasses bluegrass, old-time music, jazz and kindred traditions. On the opening track "You Are My Flower" she's joined by 27-year-old bluegrass star Molly Tuttle, a vocalist and guitarist she's known and championed since her early teens.  "Molly was the perfect person for this traditional song I first heard on a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album," Lewis says. "She's a guitar goddess and she created such a beautiful blend vocally. She can just lay her voice on mine. It sounds as if she's been listening to me her whole life," which is pretty much the case.

They also recorded "The Lonely One," a beautiful ballad written by Emily Mann, a brilliant young banjo player, fiddler and vocalist who performs in the old-time duo Paper Wings. Much like with Tuttle, Lewis took Mann under her wing after meeting her as a young teen at the Big Sur Fiddle Camp.

https://www.youtube.com/v/wjA_RSYfO1w

Laurie Lewis talks about how she got into bluegrass:

"At the Berkeley Folk Festival," Laurie remembers, "you could hear all kinds of music, and it just really grabbed me. That was the first place I heard Doc Watson, the first place I heard Jean Ritchie, maybe the first bluegrass band I heard, the Greenbriar Boys. And then there was Jesse Fuller and Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt. It just totally busted my ears open and got me really excited about folk music."

Inspired by the music she heard at the festival, Laurie started learning guitar and then bluegrass banjo. A friend took her to Paul's Saloon in San Francisco, a bar that featured bluegrass music every night, and Laurie experienced a life-changing epiphany. "I saw fiddlers live," she remembers, "and it knocked me out. I realized I could be a fiddler.

"It was really a different deal coming at bluegrass in the San Francisco Bay Area. All you had to do to be in was love the music and show up. There weren't a lot of cutting contests; it was all about making music together, a focus on interdependency rather than individual prowess."

Good stuff.