Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Country: US
Released: 1980
Genre: Folk, World, & Country
Style: Country, Old Time
[Tracklist]
A1 Gate To Go Through: Jimmie Johnson's String Band
A2 Wink The Other Eye: Hack's String Band
A3 Soldier's Joy: Taylor's Kentucky Boys
A4 Richmond Blues: Rutherford And Foster
A5 Soap In The Washpan: Jimmie Johnson's String Band
A6 Monroe County Quickstep: Rutherford And Foster
A7 Gray Eagle: Taylor's Kentucky Boys
B1 Cumberland Gap: Rutherford, Burnett And Moore
B2 B-Flat Rag: Madisonville String Band
B3 Old Blind Dog: Jimmie Johnson's String Band
B4 Let Her Go I'll Meet Her: Rutherford And Foster
B5 Washington Quadrille: Jimmie Johnson's String Band
B6 Pretty Little Girl: Hack's String Band
B7 Forked Deer: Taylor's Kentucky Boys
[Credits]
Producers: Guthrie T. Meade and Richard Nevins, Designer: Anita Karl, Illustrator: Robert Crumb
[Notes]
This LP was issued in 1980 by Morning Star Records, a short-lived record company owned by Richard Nevins, who would continue Nick Perls' work with Yazoo Records a few years after. It's a superb compilation of 78rpm records of Kentucky string bands made in the 1920's and 1930's for Gennett. Like Nevins said: "As the Mississippi Delta is to Blues, Kentucky is to fiddle music, banjo playing, and classic old ballads and songs". The emphasis here is on string band music, with a few songs included as well. The Gennett 78 records are famous for their bad quality pressing and it shows here with lots of surface noise and scratchs. But the music is excellent all the way through, especially the fiddle playing on the dance numbers, with great fiddlers like Doc Roberts, Leonard Rutherford, Andy Palmer or Jim Booker. Booker was the only black fiddler who recorded with a hillbilly string band (Taylor's Kentucky Band) back then but many of this white Kentucky musicians talked about black fiddlers who were sharing the same repertoire of old-time tunes in the region.
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