1981 Dry Branch Fire Squad Antiques & Inventions Bluegrass Vinyl LP Record

Description: Yes we combine shipping for multiple purchases.Add multiple items to your cart and the combined shipping total will automatically be calculated. 1981 Dry Branch Fire Squad Antiques & Inventions Bluegrass Vinyl LP Record Vinyl / Jacket Grade per Goldmine Standard: VG / VG+; Jacket still in shrink Side One1.Bachelor’s Hall2.It’s Too Late Now3.Golden Ring4.I’ll Forget the Tears I’ve Cried5.Midnight on the Stormy Deep6.Travel, Travel On7.Old RiverSide Two1.Leona2.Goin’ Across the Mountain3.Jessie’s Waltz4.Cabin of Love5.I’m Only Human6.Oh! What a Storm7.Dak’s SongWB ouki you like to knowr why this band is sodifferent from others? Itis a bit complicated, but Ican tell you.It is a matter of receptivity, ofopenness to a tradition. The leader ofthis band, Ron Thomason, is fiercelyproud of the ancestry of the music heplays and his models and materialsare drawn from a longer span of timethan most musicians know or use. Ata time when most bands conform tothe idea that progress requiresfusing bluegrass with popularmusics, Ron ?s readying further intothe well-spring.His well-spring is deep. He comesfrom Honaker in the SouthwesternVirginia mountains and beganplaying there at age 12. He heardold-time fiddlers, learned the oldhymns and part singing in church,and accompanied his dad to concertsby Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs,and Jim and Jesse. When his familymoved to Ohio, he began playing inbluegrass bars with Frank Wakefieldand others. He rode the bus for aseason with Ralph Stanley andGeorge Shuffler, playing one-nighters. A virtuoso instrumentaliston mandolin and guitar, he grew upknowing bluegrass is vocal music,that the flash of the superpickerattracts but never holds, that bandsgrow best when the instrumentalspirit is one of supportive restraint.He learned about artists, materialsand forms which existed long beforebluegrass.For example, from this recordingsession we receive a new recordingof Bachelor’s Hall, a song bothhumorous and beautiful that seemsto have not been recorded commer-cially since Fiddling John Carsonshouted it into the Okeh microphonefrom behind his droning fiddle fifty-seven years ago. Even then the songwas an antique. W. J. Worshamlisted it as a widespread favorite ofhis Confederate Army comrades.Why so long between recordings?One suspects the song was avoidedbecause of the “fod” (nonsensewords) refrain that Dry Branchsings so beautifully here. Suchrefrains began going out of popularfashion with the minstrel bands.Many of today’s bluegrass bands canaccept a doo-wah chorus, but not“sing fah ah riddle ah day.”Accepting the old does not requirerejecting the new: the only require-ment is that it fit the tradition. Theslavish imitations of the revivalistantiquarians are at least as sterile asthe drive toward popular fusion. Tbput it another way, MuleskinnerBlues was most often a black man’s. blues piece until Bill Monroe added it/to.h’s repertoire. Here Ron and JohnBaker turn George Jones’ and/Ihmmy Wynette’s Golden Ring intoa traditional bluegrass song. Theyplace the beautiful original songsRon contributed to this session justas firmly into the tradition.If you knowf this music, some oftheir models will be obvious: BillMonroe, The Stanley Brothers, TheBlue Sky Boys. But some are lessobvious. The guitar style Ron usesfor Golden Ring was created byGeorge Shuffler, for example.Like Ron Thomason, John Bakergrew up with this music. He wasreared at Jenkins, in the coal-miningregion of eastern Kentucky. Hisfather, Kenny Baker, is a fiddler aswas his grandfather. Kenny’s fiddlingis heard on this LP John’s motherwas a singer who took him to churchtwo or three times a week. Hers wasthe greatest influence. John prefersvocal music and he must be num-bered among the greatest harmonysingers bluegrass has produced. Thefine tenor here is his as is some of thebass and baritone. On Leona youhear John with the beautiful WestVirginia singer Hazel Dickens in aperformance that literally definescountry soul.This band shows sensitivity andrespect for the people who made thismusic as well as its forms. Ron playstrailing banjo for Going Across theMountain, the song Frank Proffitt’s“Mountain Yankee” grandfathersung the day in 1863 when he leftJohnson County, Tennessee, to walkto Kentucky to join Col. James W.M. Grayson’s* 13th Tennessee (U.S.)Cavalry. Why? Frank disliked thethree-finger banjo. He has been deadfor seventeen years, but oneremembers.When Ron and John took theirmusical interests to Ohio, they foundthe natives friendly and willing tofraternize, some going so far as tolearn bluegrass. This industrial statehas been a magnet to mountainmigrants for more than five decadesand its cities number their Appala-chian people in the tens of thousandsand even hundreds of thousands.Bluegrass has flourished there fromits beginnings in the 1940s. As amusical form, it is as native to Ohioas to Kentucky.Bassist Dick Irwin, banjoist JohnHisey and guitarist-singer-managerMary Jo Dickman are Ohio nativeswho have known this music all theirlives. John plays the drivingstraight-ahead style of banjo thatvocalists prefer and Dick and MaryJo join Ron and John to form one ofthe strongest vocal quartets inbluegrass. Dick sings bass orbaritone with great clarity, powerand dependability. Mary Jo’s voicehas a mountain quality in the groupsinging that is reminiscent of voicesheard in little mountain churches.Even in Ohio she’s asked where shecame from. She understands thecompliment inherent in the question.Here’s a bit of advice: go see thisband. What you hear here isbeautiful, but there is another side tothis band that must be experiencedin the flesh. The other side is humor.While all participate in the humor inone way or another, the master isThomason. His ability to direct anaudience is amazing. Under hisdirection I’ve seen full barroomsgrow so quiet I could hear the soda inmy glass fizz. And I’ve seen audi-ences so convulsed with laughterthat minutes had to pass before theshow could go on.Much of Ron’s humor has to dowith the foibles, misconceptions andstereotyping that plagues all of us.Good comedy is always more than ajoke. By distorting perception it canmake us see. In a recent monologueRon said, in essence, that musicshould never be more than a sidelineoccupation for those seriouslycommitted to it. The audiencelaughed, yet it understood. Earninga living requires concessions of allwho work and concessions canweaken music. Dry Branch is a part-time band. Ron worked his waythrough college in the bluegrassbars. He is committed to his family,to junior high teaching, to joggingand to the personal aesthetic he hasbeen honing since before he leftHonaker. By retaining thesecommitments he can be truly seriousabout this music which needs alarger context than today’s show bizwork offers.Joe Wilson, August 1980★This is the Grayson of the Tbm Dooleyballad and an excuse for a fat footnote. Afterthe Civil War Col. Grayson and a posse of hisold 18th Cavalrymen tracked down escapedm urderer Thomas Dula after North Carolinalawmen chased him into Johnson County.Some fifty years after that, in 1929, Col.Grayson's grandnephew, Gilliam BanmonGrayson, made the first recording of TbmDooley for Victor. A fine fiddlerand singer, G.B. Grayson composed material still popularin bluegrass, most notably Train 45 and LeeHighway Blues. He also made the firstrecordings of Handsome Molly and RoseConnelly. Some of Carter Stanley'scompositions use Grayson’s melodies.Ironically, the current popularity o/TbmDooley did not result from his recording butrather from one Frank Proffitt made forCreditsRecorded and mixed at CumberlandSound Studios, Nashville.Recording & mix engineerRobbie Osborne.Photography by Camilla Thomason.Illustration by Greg Powers.Design by Mel Green.The Dry Branch Fire SquadJohn BakerGuitar, tenor and lead vocalsDick ErwinBass, counter-tenor and bass vocalsJohn HiseyBanjo and bass, bass vocalsRon ThomasonMandolin, lead guitar, overhandbanjo; lead vocalsGuestsKenny BakerFiddleHazel DickensTbnor vocal on “Leona”Mary Jo DickmanHigh baritone vocal on “Oh! What aStorm”Also on Rounder:0119 Dry Branch Fire Squad“Born lb Be Lonesome”Rounder Records186 Willow AvenueSomerville, MA 02144 lp5587-BC-ELR2

Price: 7.96 USD

Location: Kingsport, Tennessee

End Time: 2025-01-19T22:10:38.000Z

Shipping Cost: 5.95 USD