old time cd recommendations?

[mandolooter]

Big Medicine & Reeltime Travelers both are excellent. Just seen Foghorn String Band last week...great show but I left without there CD due to a long line at the vendor table. A CD can be had at the website along with a really cool shirt they have out.

[Strathspey]

I am just giving Dirk Powell's new album "Time Again." I think that this guy is a real treasure - fretless banjo, great fiddle, and great tradition and original songs. I think he deserve much of the credit for the "Songs from the Mountain" album. I recommend it!

By the way, The Foghorn String Band make an appearance too.

Matt

[Gary S]

I would go to the well and listen to The Skillet Lickers or the Camp Creek Boys. Old Time String Band music at its finest in my humble opinion and some limited mandolin content. These are older recordings but these as well as other old recordings are the inspiration and source material for these modern bands...Gary Silverstein

[doanepoole]

It's also instructive, I think, to listen to old Monroe Brothers recordings. I think thematically they have more in common with old string band stuff than with bluegrass.

[G_Smolt]

Gonna cast a vote for the Improbabillies...a great stringband, and a bunch of nice folks (some Alaskan).

Seconding Foghorn's "Rattlesnake Tidalwave". Go see these guys live, the CD is just a teaser.

The Red Hots are another rippin' band, check out #3, "Whiteface"...great session tune

I don't know if PigIron Stringband is still together, but if you are in or near Portland Oregon and see that name on a flyer, cancel all plans and go. I think they went separate ways...PT and Caleb to Foghorn, and Dave went back to Jackstraw.

One last contribution - The Hellbenders. Great oldtime fiddlin' by Bruce and Co.

[Paul Kotapish]

One of the best of the younger old-time stringbands with prominent mandolin is the Foghorn Stringband from Portland, Oregon. This five-piece outfit features loads of strong melody playing on the mandolin, usually in unison with the fiddle. The banjo playing is in an early proto-bluegrass two- or three-finger style a lot of the time, and that gives this group an different twist from the more typical clawhammer and frailing styles often associated with old-time stringband music. Great singing, too. You can hear clips on their website.

http://www.foghornmusic.com/

I'll second the votes for Kenny Haul in all of his various performance configurations. Those Sweets Mill String Band recordings were essential listening for me back in the '70s, and they still bring a smile. Here's a nice story about Kenny:

http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive....ll.html

Check out any of Jody Stecher's many recordings. He plays guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and anything with strings, and when he plays the mandolin, it's always interesting and lovely. The recordings of old-time repertoire with his wife, Kate Brislin, are wonderful with particularly great vocals.

You can check out a bio and get a complete discography at the allmusic.com site. Just type in Jody Stecher.

http://www.allmusic.com/

John Reischman--better known for his bluegrass, choro, and jazz chops--has done a lot of nice work playing old-time music with Carol Elizabeth Jones in several bands. His work with Jones and Bliss and Jones and Leva is well worth checking out.

http://www.jonesbliss.com/

For some essential listening, check out the offerings from Andy's Front Hall. This list includes a lot of the classics and some good recent entries, too:

http://www.andysfronthall.com/oldtime.html

For more on old-time music in general:

http://www.oldtimemusic.com/

For the "latest" in the old-time music scene, consider subscribing to the Old Time Herald.

http://www.oldtimeherald.org/index.html

PK

[Steve L]

I know I'm off topic here, but Paul mentioning Jody Stecher reminded me of "The Driven Bow", a great Scottish recording by fiddler Alasdair Fraiser.
If you folks like Celtic music, this is a great recording and Jody plays some of the finest guitar accompaniment I've ever heard.

Sorry for the digression...I couldn't resist.

[Dagger Gordon]

The Fuzzy Mountain String Band album was tremendous.

Maybe slightly too bluegrassy, but there was a great all-instrumental album by Kenny Baker called 'Frost on the pumpkin', which includes some of my favourite mandolin playing by Sam Bush.
I suppose it's long deleted, but it was County 770, a vinyl release on County Records. Really cracking versions of things like 'Back up and push' and 'Growling old man and growling old woman', and some good waltzes.

[David M.]

There's no mando in it, but Texas Shorty (fiddle) and John Hartford (banjo) did a great album. Was it called "Old Sport"? Can't remember, but it is very good.

[stevenmando]

try the Del Mc Cordy band , my love will not change , heard it on the country music channel on the T.V STEVEN

[doanepoole]

Maybe slightly too bluegrassy, but there was a great all-instrumental album by Kenny Baker called 'Frost on the pumpkin', which includes some of my favourite mandolin playing by Sam Bush.
I suppose it's long deleted, but it was County 770, a vinyl release on County Records. Really cracking versions of things like 'Back up and push' and 'Growling old man and growling old woman', and some good waltzes.

I have to admit I'm not too heavy into bluegrass but I am a sucker for Kenny Baker's fiddle playing. A friend has this album on cassette, and it does truly kick some major butt.

There is a band from WV a friend introduced me too called the "Bing Brothers" that is really good OT string band stuff. I don't know if they're known about outside WV, but if not its a shame...great music, and some really cool mando pickin as well.

[Sellars]

I really like this thread!

A CD I bought recently is: American Folk-Blues train. It is a 3CD box with 2 cds filled with rural blues, and one cd with re-takes from (i think) the 60s with old-time and folk songs. Definately reccomended!

[Tom C]

Clyde Curley and the Oxymorons

Great old time mandolin from today.

[LeftCoastMark]

Kenny Baker's /Frost on the Pumpkin is available from Elderly on CD. I just got a copy yesterday and am really enjoying it. I concur about Sam Bush's mandolin playing on this, on the PD tunes he just plays melody on his breaks, clean, neat, and distinctly Sam. What a guy

[mandorado]

G_Smolt ... thanks for the link to The Improbabillies, and others at Funkyside!!! I (and some friends) have been looking for the Improbabillies CD for some time. Now we can order it!
Funkyside also has a tone of music that I really enjoy ... John Browns Body is fantastic stuff! (Not old-time ... Reggae.)

[Sellars]

I was just browsing Bear Family and I saw that they have an old-time department with quite some Skillet Lickers CDs.

I really have to have some of that stuff soon

[acumando]

Clyde Curley and the Oxymorons

Great old time mandolin from today.

thanks for this recommendation & link... i got the cd a coupla days ago, really great music.

[John Flynn]

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but Rounder has a series out, "The Young Fogies" and "The Young Fogies II." It is a compilation of current, young, old-time bands and some of the groups listed in this thread have tracks on it. Pros: There are a lot tracks for the money, some of them are really great, there are some tracks that the respective bands have not recorded elsewhere and taken together, it is great overview of the contemporary old-time scene. Cons: Like a lot of compilation CDs, there are some "throwaway" tracks and of course, there is no real continuity or theme running through the CD, if that is important to you. It would be a great set if you download to an MP3 player or mini-disc and can just keep the tracks you like.

[PhilGE]

Briefly, check out Dan Gellert's new CD, Waitin' on the Break of Day. No mando content, in fact, lots of great fretless banjo and fiddle tunes - all solo. I'm working on learning some of the tunes already. Some MP3's available on the site. Dan is, without a doubt, one of the best old-time musicians alive. Yes, I'm biased - he's a friend who also plays for our local dances - and we're very happy about that!

-Phil

[jamesrenz]

More suggestions:

1. #The fine Alabama fiddler, James Bryan, put out two albums of tunes with Patty Bryan and the Blakes. #I don't know whether they made it to CD but, if you can find them, they are great additions to any old time collection.

2. #Anything by Clarence Ashley.

3. #Anything by Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham.

4. #The Hollow Rock String Band. #The original recording, and also the new CD of previously unreleased material which was released by fiddler Alan Jabbour earlier this year. #

5. #The Watson Family. #This is the one on which Doc plays Texas Gales on mandolin. # #

6. #As mentioned previously, The Fuzzy Mountain String Band. #Either their two LPs or the CD compilation which includes many of the tunes from those albums.

[John Flynn]

I give a strong recommendation to one of "the best fiddlers no one ever heard of," "Banjo" Billy Mathews. Obviously by his nickname, he also plays banjo and BTW, he makes banjos, but he is best known for his fiddling. His style is unique and very exciting and he is the real deal, a genuine porch fiddler from the Ozark mountains. Here is a link to his website, which is about the strangest website design I have ever seen in terms of navigation! His CDs are all self produced and only available from him. If you order only one, I recommend "Barn Dance," but they are all great.

http://www.geocities.com/banjobilly_m/

[Sellars]

I leant a CD from the library this weekend, which is super!

Her bright smile haunts me still: the warner collection vol 1

this is as CD with 58(!!) fieldrecordings on it with short scetches of songs. Very crudely sung with or without instruments.

I have the feeling this is really a goldmine for songs.

Really, really reccomended to check it out!!

R

[MrSrubas]

I just picked up Uncle Dave Macon's album "Go Long Mule"
It is great. I got a couple of Charlie Poole albums too, not as good but still alright.