This popped up on my iPod this morning, a live recording from June, 2006, at the Ark in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was shortly before our second CD, Where You Been So Long, came out, and we were playing our first real out-of-town shows.

The Ark was a good place to start–it’s a nice-sounding room, with an attentive and appreciative crowd. The show was an opening set for the Hackensaw Boys. Decent folks, they, and a good band as well.

Fun fact: the hollering you hear in the background is me yelling cues to a band member.

You can download the whole show @ Archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/Tangleweed_The_Ark_20060623

…Of course, the word ‘Original’ in the title more or less ensures that it’s not the original, but what the heck. Originality notwithstanding, this is the rarest of the rare. There is only one known copy of this recording, and it’s in Joe Bussard’s collection.

This was recorded in Chicago in 1927, and issued on the revered Black Patti label. Black Patti was unusual among so-called ‘Race’ record labels of its era in that it was black owned.

The song is one of the most enduring ‘bad man’ ballads in American music, surviving well into the rock and roll era. The prominient III chord is a ragtime artifact.

Courtesy of Archive.org. This track is included on the Old Hat compilation CD Down in the Basement, which every American should own.

This 1924 session for Columbia is among the earlier examples of rural vernacular song on a commercial record. The song is not, as one might suspect, a minstrel song, but rather a Tin Pan Alley tune by George Cobb and Jack Yellen that passed into the oral tradition. Note that the song text is not in the mock dialect of many similar songs of that era, and the sheet music cover is rather dignified when compared to other contemporaneous publications with similar subject matter.

Are You From Dixie has since become an old-timey and bluegrass standard. Click the link at left for a high-resolution scan of the sheet music, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Thompson sings and accompanies himself on guitar and harmonica.

Courtesy of Archive.org

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.

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.

Courtesy of Archive.org

Before he was a singing cowboy, Gene Autry was a Jimmie Rodgers imitator, and a good one. His earliest recordings include several titles from the Rodgers canon, as well as new songs in Rodgers’ style, delivered in a vocal style remarkably similar to the Singing Brakeman’s.

Autry was a national radio star before he transitioned to films, performing on the WLS National Barn Dance in Chicago from 1930-1935.

This track was recorded in New York in October, 1931, and issued on a slew of cut-price labels: Banner, Oriole, Conqueror (one of the Sears house labels), Melotone, Perfect, Romeo, and Panachord. The tenor banjo accompaniment is by Roy Smeck, one of the most versatile instrumentalists of his era.

Download MP3

Courtesy of Archive.org

Here’s the second installment of TweedRadio, a bite sized sample of music from this site: old-timey and trad recordings from the archives, as well as contemporary takes on the tradition. You can learn more about the tracks by clicking the links below. Enjoy.

1. Ernest Thompson playing Weeping Willow Tree
2. Preview of the new Tangleweed CD
3. Are you ready, Hezzie? The Hoosier Hot Shots playing San
4. The Viper and His Famous Orchestra playing Winnebago Bay
5. Frank Hutchison playing Last Scene on the Titanic
6. Fields Ward playing Ain’t That Trouble in Mind
7. The Carter Family playing Wildwood Flower
8. Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas playing Pick Poor Robin Clean
9. Geeshie Wiley playing Last Kind Words
10. Doc Walsh playing in the Pines
11. 1924 recording of Lonesome Road Blues

Way back in the wondrous days of yore, or, more precisely, the mid-to-late 1990s, I was fortunate to cross paths with a jive-talking, ukulele-playing, yodeling hipster who called himself The Viper. He led a Spirits Of Rhythm-inspired combo called The Famous Orchestra, who recorded two CDs before The Viper left the corn belt to teach Jive in Turkey.

I played steel guitar on the second disc, Everything for Everyone, on this ditty, a Hawaiian song about Wisconsin.

Read more about the record on the Viper Blog

Buy the CD on CDBaby.com