West Virginia-bord Frank Hutchison was one of the most distinctive guitar stylists in early country music. Hutchison came from the coal mining country of Logan County, site of the Battle of Blair Mountain. His 32 known recorded sides represent a diverse repertoire of blues, rags, old-time country playing, and and old-time country. They were collected on two CDs on the Document label, which are now sadly out of print. They are available on a JSP box called Worried Blues.

This tune, an ode to the car of choice for prohibition-era bootleggers, was recorded in New York City in the summer of 1929.

The Chevrolet Six (MP3)

Courtesy of Archive.org

Earlier posts:
Frank Hutchison singing K.C. Blues

More old-time goodness from the folks at Archive.org. This 1930 recording bears more than a passing resemblance to Sally Gooden, a simple pentatonic tune with some very skillful fiddle variations. As with Eck Robertson’s Sally Gooden, there is a nice minor variation in here.

Streak of Lean, Streak of Fat (MP3)
Courtesy of Archive.org

Don Richardson recorded some of the earliest examples of American country fiddle known. His first recordings were made in the 1914 for the Columbia label, eight years before Eck Robertson cut his celebrated sides for Victor in the summer of 1922.

Mississippi Sawyer is a popular dance tune in ‘D’, with two eight bar strains played AABB. Tangleweed has played it for square dances many times, usually in a medley with other tunes in ‘D’, such as Liberty.

Mississippi Sawyer (MP3)
Courtesy of Archive.org

Earlier posts:
Eck Robertson playing Sally Gooden

Many internet radio stations are going offline today to protest the recent royalty rate hike that may put them out of business. Wired has more information on the day of silence. Many web radio stations will go off the air permanently on July 15th if Congress does not intervene. To find out what you can do to help prevent this, visit SaveNetRadio.org.

We had a great time yesterday kicking off the Hideout’s A DAY IN THE COUNTRY fest.

We played a 30 minute acoustic set from the back of a 1950’s flatbed stake truck, on the street in front of the Hideout, which was among the coolest settings in which we’ve ever performed. We played mostly original songs, including a few new/unreleased ones like Kip’s TAKEUP REEL medley and THE DIRTY DOG.

The Golden Horse Ranch Dance Band and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader String Band also delivered fine afternoon acoustic sets from the flatbed, and the rest of the bands went electric from indoors on the main stage. Pedal Steel was abundant, figuring largely in the sound of just about every band once the proceedings moved indoors.

Lawrence Peters booked himself a helluva a shindig, and it went perfectly in all regards. Not only did we celebrate Lawrence’s 42nd birthday, but every band brought something special to the event, the HonkyTonk Barbecue was excellent, the Sugarkist Pies were stellar, the Hideout staff did their usual amazing job keeping things orderly and fun, the local police and fire-marshalls were tolerant of the not-entirely-legal truck performances from the street (city property…), and the place was packed full of people clearly happy to be there for the escalating sets of bluegrass, old timey, country and honkytonk.

Here’s a link to all the pictures I took yesterday (none of Tangleweed playing in here, but our set was video-taped, so perhaps we’ll get some of that up at some point).

Huge thanks to Lawrence and the gang at the Hideout for including us in an amazing day. I sincerely hope they considering making this an annual event.

The great guitarist speaks about his earliest recordings on this old clip from Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest show. Hurt had a distinctive three-finger guitar style, in contrast to the two-finger Travis-style picking that most Mississippi players employed. It gave his melodic lines a gentle bounce that complimented his vocal lines beautifully.

By the way, although Leadbelly and Alan Lomax share the copyright on many recordings of Goodnight Irene, neither authored the song. That honor goes to the 19th century African-American composer Gussie L. Davis.

Heritage USA was a Christian-themed amusement park in South Carolina that collapsed shortly after the manifold indiscretions of founder Jim Bakker were revealed.

The great website IllicitOhio.com has some beautiful photos of the ruins.

Earlier posts:

Beautiful photos of the Cincinnati subway system