Family Songs and Stories From the North Carolina Mountains

Family Songs and Stories From the North Carolina Mountains Artist: Doug and Jack Wallin
Label: Smithsonian Folkways
Category: Music



Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Media: Audio Cassette


UPC: 093074001349
EAN: 0093074001349
ASIN: B000001DGL


Release Date: 1995-05-23

Related Categories:

General General
Related | Folk | Styles | Music
Traditional Folk Traditional Folk
Related | Folk | Styles | Music
General General
Related | Pop | Styles | Music

Tracks:

  1. Jackaro
  2. Golden Vanity
  3. Story About William Riley Shelton
  4. Omie Wise
  5. Darling Cora
  6. Nightingale
  7. Pretty Little Girl With the Blue Dress On
  8. Young Emily
  9. Pretty Polly
  10. Foggy Dew
  11. Pretty Fair Miss in a Garden
  12. Roving Gambler
  13. Bold Lieutenant
  14. My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains
  15. House Carpenter
  16. Two Ghost Stories
  17. Come over into Canaan's Land
  18. Rolling With the Tides
  19. Pretty Saro

Similar Items:

  1. Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian Folkways
  2. Dark Holler: Old Love Songs and Ballads
  3. Classic Old-Time Music
  4. The Library Of Congress Archive Of Folk Culture: Anglo-American Ballads, Volume Two

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Pure Gold.......2000-08-02

The liner notes for this record mention an occasion when Doug Wallin interrupted his singing of "House Carpenter" to remark, "Now there's a lonesome note!" Lonesome notes are here in plenty. If you are interested in listening to one of the truest and ablest exponents of an ancient ballad tradition, this CD is for you.

The virtue of this recording is that we hear the songs interpreted by men who, while adhering to a quite conservative strain of the English/Scots-Irish ballad tradition, are no less consummate MUSICIANS for that. The power and passion of these recordings, ranging from astonishingly stark and sparse to fuller arrangements with banjo that are no less true, are simply not arguable. This is the real thing, and will affect anyone who has a taste for traditional music that tends to carry a tinge of fearsome melancholy energy.

Now, I ordered this CD and another because I wanted some old time music of the region to listen to as I sit up here on a mountainside in Haywood County, North Carolina, where I am working for a few weeks. (As I write this, a bat is flying through the mists of a clearing storm.) I tried to choose carefully, and I really hit the jackpot with this one. I paired it with "Songs from the Mountain," an effort from Dirk Powell, Tim O'Brien, and John Herrmann to recreate with some fidelity the 19th century music that pervades the popular novel "Cold Mountain." There is no comparison between the two--"Songs from the Mountain" reeks of the modern "folk" concert venue, and we hear little of the raw power or true rhythms that fill "Family Songs and Stories." (By the way, the two tracks of stories add some real flavor without interrupting the music for too long.)

In short, if you got as far as this page, don't miss this record--it is a true gift to have these real traditional musicians' work preserved.

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