Classic Mountain Songs

by CLASSIC MOUNTAIN SONGS / VARIOU

Overview

From the time of its inception in the middle of the 20th century, the Folkways label recorded plenty of traditional folk music from the Southern Appalachians. This well-chosen collection, oriented mostly though not totally toward tracks with vocals, has a couple of dozen examples from the Folkways catalog. Though it's not always totally clear when the songs were recorded (as opposed to issued), it's for certain that they were laid down between the mid-'50s and mid-'90s, with the bulk of them cut during the 1960s. While some might carp that pre-mid-'50s performances aren't represented, this does ensure a fairly high level of fidelity throughout, in versions that are faithful to how these songs have usually sounded over the past few decades and centuries. Appalachian music is usually characterized as music with high lonesome vocals with guitar and banjo accompaniment, and while many of the tracks here conform to that format, there are also a good number of a cappella vocals, as well as numbers in which the fiddle and autoharp play prominent parts. There are some fairly big folk names here, like the duos of Doc & Merle Watson and Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard; Clarence Ashley, who performs one of the most frequently sung and anthologized mountain songs, "Cuckoo Bird"; Roscoe Holcomb, who does an a cappella "Moonshiner"; dulcimer virtuoso Jean Ritchie; Bascom Lamar Lunsford, who does "Mole in the Ground"; Dock Boggs; and Pop Stoneman, patriarch of the Stoneman Family. Still, there are a lot of artists who aren't known to a more general audience, and they're responsible for some of the better performances, like the Phipps Family's Carter Family-like "The Red Jacket Mine Explosion," Berzilla Wallin's a cappella "Conversation With Death" (a song more often titled "Oh Death" in other versions), and Ola Belle Reed's "High on a Mountain." A few of these songs have made deep inroads into the consciousness of American popular music, like "Amazing Grace," "Barbara Allen" (titled "Barbry Ellen" in Jean Ritchie's rendition on this disc), "John Henry," and "Sixteen Tons," a massive mid-'50s hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford, but here done by George Davis, who says he wrote a song ("Nine to Ten Tons") that Merle Travis adapted as "Sixteen Tons." ~ Richie Unterberger

Product Details

Release Date:	10/22/2002
Label:	Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
UPC:	0093074009420
Rank:	34615

Tracks

1. Omie Wise  - Doug Wallin
2. Sugar Baby  - Dock Boggs
3. I Am a Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow  -  Old Regular Baptists
4. Sixteen Tons  - Danny Davis  - Merle Travis
5. John Henry  - Lesley Riddle  -  Traditional
6. Lost Indian  - Marion Sumner  -  Traditional
7. Southbound  - Doc Watson  - Merle Watson  -  Watson
8. High on a Mountain  -  Reed  - Ola Belle Reed
9. Coal Creek March  - Pete Steele  - Porter Steele
10. Coal Miner Blues  - A.P. Carter  - Hazel Dickens  - Alice Gerrard
11. Railroad Blues  - Sam McGee
12. Cuckoo Bird  - Clarence Ashley
13. Conversation With Death  - Berzilla Wallin
14. Lone Prairie  - Wade Ward
15. Rain and Snow  - Dillard Chandler
16. Mole in the Ground  - Bascom Lamar Lunsford
17. Moonshiner  - Roscoe Holcomb  -  Traditional
18. Wildwood Flower  - A.P. Carter  - Kilby Snow
19. Barbry Ellen  - Jean Ritchie  -  Traditional
20. Daniel Prayed  - Clint Howard  - Fred Price  - G.T. "Dad" Speer  - Merle Watson  -  Watson
21. Wreck of the Number Nine  -  C. J. Robinson  -  Stoneman
22. Red Jacket Mine Explosion  -  Phipps Family  - A.L. Phipps
23. Kingdom Come  - Norman Edmonds
24. Amazing Grace  - Horton Barker  - John Newton  -  Public Domain

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Clarence Ashley   Primary Artist,Banjo,Vocals
Dock Boggs   Primary Artist,Banjo,Vocals
Doc & Merle Watson   Primary Artist
Watson, Price & Howard   Primary Artist
Old Regular Baptists   Primary Artist
The Phipps Family   Primary Artist
Hazel Dickens   Primary Artist,Bass,Vocals
Danny Davis   Primary Artist
Bascom Lamar Lunsford   Primary Artist,Banjo,Vocals
Wade Ward   Primary Artist,Fiddle
Lesley Riddle   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Pete Steele   Primary Artist,Banjo
Roscoe Holcomb   Primary Artist,Vocals
Horton Barker   Primary Artist,Vocals
Sam McGee   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Pop Stoneman   Primary Artist,Vocals,Autoharp,Harmonica
Clint Howard   Primary Artist,Vocals
Ola Belle Reed   Primary Artist,Banjo,Vocals
Dillard Chandler   Primary Artist,Vocals
Merle Watson   Primary Artist
Alice Gerrard   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Berzilla Wallin   Primary Artist,Vocals
Kilby Snow   Primary Artist,Autoharp
Norman Edmonds   Primary Artist,Fiddle
Marion Sumner   Primary Artist,Fiddle
Doug Wallin   Primary Artist,Fiddle
Doc Watson   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Jean Ritchie   Primary Artist,Vocals
Fred Price   Primary Artist,Vocals
Mike Seeger   Guitar
David Grisman   Mandolin
Kathleen Phipps   Vocals,Guitar
Lamar Grier   Banjo
Bud Reed   Guitar
Kevin Roth   Guitar
Billy Baker   Fiddle

Technical Credits

Jeff Place   Compilation Producer,Annotation
John Cohen   Engineer
Merle Travis   Composer
A.P. Carter   Composer
A.L. Phipps   Composer
Bascom Lamar Lunsford   Composer
Porter Steele   Composer
Pete Reiniger   Mastering
Sam McGee   Composer
Pete Steele   Composer
Ralph Rinzler   Engineer
Ola Belle Reed   Composer
Ben Shahn   Photography
Merle Watson   Composer
Reed   Composer
Public Domain   Composer
C. J. Robinson   Composer
Arthur Rothstein   Photography
Jacob Love   Editing
Mary Monseur   Production Coordination
Marion Post Wolcott   Cover Photo
Traditional   Composer
John Newton   Composer
Clarence Ashley   Composer
Doug Wallin   Arranger,Vocal Ad-Libs
G.T. "Dad" Speer   Composer