I don’t know much about Mr. Stripling. I stumbled across these recordings on the Library of Congress website because he recorded a song that shares the title of our new record. The recordings were made at a Georgia folk festival in 1941. You can browse the complete recordings and listen to individual titles here: loc.gov, or you can click the links below to hear some of the individual titles. He has a driving frailing banjo style, and a powerful voice. The songs are lovely.

• Alabama Red: This shares a lyric, but not much else, with the old-timey warhorse ‘If I lose, let me lose’, recorded by Charlie Poole and many others.
• Boll Weevil : This sounds like a variation of Stackolee. I believe Buster Ezell is playing guitar and singing the lead vocal.
• Breakaway: If anyone knows anything about this tune, please let me know.
• Salt Water Blues: As above, I believe Buster Ezell is playing guitar and singing the lead vocal
• Sebastapol
• Where You Been So Long?: This is a delicate, haunting modal blues.
• Whoa Mule Whoa: This was a common tune in the repertoire of Georgia fiddle bands, and remains in the modern bluegrass repertoire. The Dillards recorded a great version of this on one of their early Elektra records.