Some New Folks Part 1

Blind Boy Paxton by you.
Blind Boy Paxton at the Jalopy Theater 9/17/08 (Photo by E. Smith)

Today’s show features recordings by some exciting young performers I have encountered.  These are people that I met in my travels and field recorded or who heard about the show and sent in their recordings.  Great stuff!  These artists are operating for the present at an underground and basically local level and I heard about them in a grass roots manner.  Certainly in terms of folk or roots type of music that’s pretty much where its at- no major media attention.  With some exceptions, the only bands in the folk/roots/”obsolete” music field that I’ve thought are any good are ones I’ve heard about in the most grass roots, grapevine, personal encounter type of way.  So I’m happy to share some of these people with the Down Home Radio audience.  The “Some New Folks” episodes of Down Home will be a continuing series on the program, airing every time I amass a critical number of recordings by underground artists that I really like and want to share.  I hope to do interviews with all of the people on today’s show real soon!

On the show today we hear from 6 performers/bands:

1. Clifton Hicks – An excellent singer and old-time banjo player from North Carolina
2. Blind Boy Paxton – Originally from LA but going to school near NYC, plays blues and old time on guitar, piano and banjo and is a great singer too!
3. The Cangelosi Cards – Great New York New Orleans style jazz/swing band.
4. The Squirrelly String Band – Great old-time string band from Berkeley, CA
5. Elizabeth Butters – Dulcimer and guitarist from Cambridge, MA.  An excellent singer of songs and ballads.
6. Frank Hoier – New York folk musician and songwriter writing some really good songs.

Links:

Some Favorite Videos

Hello everybody, thought I’d post up a bunch of my favorite videos I’ve found over the last period.  To all those people who have posted these videos – I salute you.

Enjoy!

Videos below:



“March of Time” newsreel footage about Leadbelly and John Lomax –
A reenactment where they play the parts of themselves! This is unbelievable footage. It is also pretty spooky and haunted.

Interview with Brett Ratliff & Sylvia Ryerson

Brett Ratliff at Jalopy
On today’s show I speak with Eastern Kentucky banjo player, fiddler and singer Brett Ratliff and with Cambridge fiddler Sylvia Ryerson.  Brett and Sylvia were en route through New York and stopped in to play a set at the Roots ‘n’ Ruckus show at the Jalopy Theater in Redhook, Brooklyn.  I recorded their set and interviewed them out on the street afterwords (you will hear some trucks going by).  Sylvia, a student at Wesleyan University in CT, spent the summer working at the radio station of the Appal Shop, a community arts organization in Whitesburg, KY that preserves and promotes old time music, the indigenous music of the area.  Brett lives in Whitesburg and has just released a CD of banjo and fiddle tunes and ballads called “Cold Icy Mountain,” on June Appal records, the Appal Shop label.  We’ll hear about all this in the interview, plus a few songs from the new CD and Brett & Sylvia’s live show that night.

Brett Ratliff is returning to Brooklyn on October 3rd to play a show at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, and a square dance the next night up in Greenpoint.  Be sure to check that out, should be awesome!  I’m definitely gonna go.

Banjo Songs of the Southern Mountains LP

Banjo Songs of the Southern Mountains front by you.
On today’s show I continue Down Home Radio’s “Awesome Out of Print Records” series with and old Riverside LP, “Banjo Songs of the Southern Mountains.” These recordings were made at the 1955 Mountain Dance & Folk Festival held in Asheville, NC – directed by Bascom Lamar Lunsford. The record features Obray Ramsey, George Pegram & Walter “Red” Parham, Harry and Jeanie West and “Aunt” Samantha Bumgarner.  Pegram and Parham are an excellent example of an old-time banjo/harmonica duet.  They’re great!

CLICK HERE to download the album Mp3s, divided up into tracks.

See below for track information and album notes: