Tangleweed's Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals

Our latest CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, got a favorable write up in this month’s Bluegrass Unlimited:

This latest collection features traditional numbers “Sandy River Belle,” “Short Life Of Trouble,” and “Listen To The Mockingbird” blended with original material. Noted performances include “California,” “Mississippi Trashboat,” and a rendition of the bluegrass classic, “Pain In My Heart.” Tangleweed has created a vigorous collection of contemporary bluegrass capped with originality.

Read the full review at Bluegrass Unlimited’s site

There’s a fellow on YouTube by the name of 78Man, who has posted over 800 videos of 78rpm records playing. The result is strangely compelling — like the yule log, but with better music.

One of the more appealing sides offered is the Sons of the Pioneers classic, Cool Water. The description says that this is a 1948 recording, but I think this is the version they recorded in Chicago on March 27th, 1941 for Decca. It was released on Brunswick’s English subsidiary, which would expain the label. Of course, I can’t see the catalog label to confirm this.

A free Dixie cup to the person who can count all the instances of the word ‘water’ in this recording.

12 strings spread between 2 necks.

2 necks, 12 strings. This 1960s-era mandolin/ tenor guitar is one of the cooler things I’ve seen for a while. I’ve been switching between mandolin and tenor guitar for some of Tangleweed’s stuff, so a 2-header monster like this has some appeal. I’m wagering that an SG-style electric wouldn’t fly at bluegrass festivals, though.

At $13.5K, it’s hardly an impulse buy, but it sure is neat looking.

It’s using regular Gibson-style humbucking pickups for both instruments, with the space for the extra two pole pieces filled up with mother of pearl inserts.

There are way more pictures on Elderly’s web site.

This is the track that launched a career, and a career that helped launch an industry. It was recorded in Bristol, Tennessee, on August 4, 1927 for the Victor label. Though it was only a modest success, it marked the beginning of one of the most illustrious recording careers in American popular music.

Rodgers actually recorded two sides that day (the other being ‘The Soldier’s Sweetheart’), but this was the side that featured Rodgers’ formidable yodeling talents. Rodgers neither invented yodeling nor introduced it to American music, but he did more than anyone to cement its place in country music.

Rodgers returned to the studio the following November, and recorded what would be his first hit and his most iconic recording: Blue Yodel.

Nolan Porterfield’s Jimmie Rodgers: The Life and Times of America’s Blue Yodeler (American Made Music Series) remains the definitive work on Rodgers, and one of the more impressive works of vernacular music scholarship one will find.

Courtesy of archive.org

Rodgers work has entered the public domain in most of the world. It remains under copyright in the U.S. due to Sonny Bono’s Mickey Mouse Protection Act. But let’s ignore Bono’s ignoble legislative career and apparent lack of skiing skills, and remember him as the auteur behind ‘Pammie’s on a Bummer,’ and the associated heavy-lidded PSA:

Sonny Bono Speaks Against Pot