Fiddlin’ Powers was a John Cowan Powers, from Russell County, Virginia. His recording career encompasses 33 sides for the Victor, Edison, and OKeh labels, though 14 of those seem to be unissued. This is a 1925 Edison recording, and he is backed by a family band:

• Orpha Powers, mandolin;
• Charlie Powers, banjo;
• Carrie Powers, guitar;
• Ada Powers, ukulele

Despite what Henry Ford thought, a lot of these old time songs are pretty filthy. ‘She lays eggs for the whole darn crew.’ Indeed.

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Courtesy of Archive.org

We played a show at the Abbey Pub a few months back, opening for Hot Buttered Rum (nice folks, they). Our friend Brian taped both band’s sets, and they’re available for download at Archive.org. Here’s a tune from midway through our set: a fiddle tune medley of The Takeup Reel, Cold Frosty Morning, and Grey Eagle.

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The clip should play in the flash player dealie above, or you can download the show at Archive.org.

A studio recording of this medley will be on our forthcoming 3rd CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, due out soon. The first tune in the medley is a fiddle tune that I wrote for the band about a year ago. I included sheet music for it in an earlier post, should you feel motivated.

This appealing side was cut on July 10, 1928 in Richmond, Indiana, for the Gennett label. It was paired with a tune from a session five days earlier (‘Somebody’s Waiting for Me’) on Gennett 6620.

The personnel:

• Herbert Sweet: fiddle;
• Earl Sweet: banjo, vocal;
• Ernest Stoneman: guitar, vocal

I don’t know much about the tune. The text seems to be a combination of verses unique to this song with commonplace stanzas. Nor do I know much about the Sweet Brothers, whose recorded output doesn’t seem to extend beyond these sessions in Richmond. I assume that they were fellow Virginians, given their work with Stoneman, but am far too lazy to verify this at the moment.

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Courtesy of Archive.org. This is included on the Old Hat compilation Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard’s Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s, which I recommend unreservedly.

This side, recorded in Memphis in December, 1927, represents one half of the total recorded output of Weems String Band. It’s a pity, too, because it’s a rather extraordinary record. With more weemses than one could shake a stick at.

The personnel:

• Dick Weems, fiddle;
• Frank Weems, fiddle;
• Alvin Condor, banjo/ voc;
• Jesse Weems, cello

While the inclusion of the cello is unusual, the loose two fiddle and banjo sound is classic old-time country: multiple instruments playing simultaneous variations on a melody. There’s not really much accompaniment per se, just thick, glorious heterophony.

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Courtesy of Archive.org

This acoustical recording from 1922 is among the earliest examples of rural Southern vernacular fiddling we have on record. Alexander Campbell (’Eck’) Robertson was a skilled contest fiddler from Texas whose recording career extended into the folk revival of the 1960s. This was recoded in New York on July 1st, 1922, the second day of a 2-day session for Victor that yielded ten sides.

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Courtesy of Archive.org

I’ve raved about Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s work several times before on this site. This is an early video clip of Lunsford’s fiddle playing. The tune is, for all intents and purposes, Cumberland Gap. His vocal performance in this ensemble piece is impressive, and displays a power not necessarily evident in his solo recordings.

The film speeds up and slows down over the course of the performance, causing the music to sound a little wobbly. Deal with it.

The excellent site Juneberry78s.com has an extensive listening room with a vast collection of prewar music from a wide variety of genres. The collection of old-time country music is impressive.

It includes a favorite track of mine that has seldom been reissued: The Roanoke Jug Band’s Johnny Lover. The tune is a simple fiddle tune in D with short 4-bar strains. The Jug Band seems to be throughly devoid of a juggist. Try as I may, I can’t hear any jug on the recording. There is, however, some very fine fiddling, rock solid Riley Puckett-esque guitar accompaniment, and some pretty nifty mandolin as well. The energy of the piece is fantastic–it could go on forever.

There’s a transcription of the tune in my now out-of-print, wildly unpopular book.

Johnny Lover (MP3)
Courtesy of Juneberry78s.com. Please consider purchasing a CD-R or DVD-R from them.