TEXAS GLADDEN
Ballad Legacy
(Rounder)
Ballad Legacy is a collection of folklorist/historian Alan Lomax's recordings of Virginia folksinger Texas Gladden. Recorded mostly in 1941 and 1946, these pieces document the encyclopedic repertoire of a fascinating and talented performer.
Never a professional singer, Gladden nevertheless deserves her heralded place in folk music. In John Cohen's extensive notes we learn time and time again that the songs we're hearing date back hundreds of years. "That's an old English ballad that dates back about forty years before Columbus, I think," Gladden tells Lomax after the haunting "The Devil's Nine Questions."
Aside from the songs' origins in antiquity, possibly their most fascinating characteristic is just how dark and disturbing they tend to be. Largely rendered a cappella in Gladden's untrained, coarsely pretty alto, the songs are frequently about murder ("Mary Hamilton," which is about infanticide), disease ("One Morning in May," which is about syphilis), and dealings with the devil (take your pick of several).
Gladden is occasionally accompanied by her brother, Hobart Smith, on harmony vocal, guitar, fiddle or banjo. One of their most interesting duets is "Rose Connelly," an Irish murder ballad, on which Smith's fiddling manages to mimic Gladden's vocals as well as bagpipe phrasing.
Curiously, the liner notes, while extensive and engrossing, are riddled with lyrical errors, as well as some prominent typos. Cohen edited his own piece; neglecting to bring in a copy editor did a disservice to the final product. But any collection of Alan Lomax recordings is a goldmine of music history, and Ballad Legacy is certainly among the most important. Brian Briscoe [buy it]
For fans of: The O Brother Where Art Thou? Soundtrack, Gillian Welch, Flatt and Scruggs
HOBART SMITH
Blue Ridge Legacy
(Rounder)
When Hobart Smith began recording in 1942 for Alan Lomax, he was a living, breathing encyclopedia of old-time American music. Along with his sister Texas Gladden he was a major force in the preservation of Appalachian folk music—not because of any conscious effort, mind you, but simply because he couldn't help but play the music he loved. The 31 selections on Blue Ridge Legacy, part of Rounder's ambitious Alan Lomax Collection, cover seemingly every aspect of pre-rock & roll acoustic music, and Smith is a master of them all. He can intone a solemn ballad ("Claude Allen"), tear out a fiddle breakdown ("The Devil's Dream"), assay close-harmony gospel ("Wayfaring Stranger," sung by his daughters), rip it up on guitar ("Railroad Bill"), moan the blues ("Graveyard Blues") and give James P. Johnson a run for his money on barrelhouse piano, even if it's on an old folk tune ("Sourwood Mountain"). There's even a fragment of Smith picking out a tune on electric guitar.
But his most impressive legacy comes from his work on the banjo. Like his fellow folk iconoclast Dock Boggs, Smith was a demon on the five-string, but not as a bluegrass player. Smith's technique pre-dates bluegrass, with a stronger rhythmic attack and more attention to melodic fills to spice up the chords—sort of the folk music equivalent of Bob Mould or Pete Townshend. Not many banjo pickers can get away with unaccompanied solo pieces without the performance becoming dull, but on cuts like "Pateroller," "The Cuckoo Bird" and "Jim Along", Smith does just that.
Despite the studious liner notes and the air of musicological discovery, though, this is music meant for entertainment, for dancing and singing and having a good time, not for academic study. The best thing about Blue Ridge Legacy, though, is that you don't have to be a folklorist to enjoy it. Michael Toland [buy it]
For fans of: Roscoe Holcomb, Dock Boggs, the Carter Family
