Customer Reviews

Close to Home: Old Time Music from Mike Seeger's Collection, 1952-1967

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am fairly new to Old Time music, but I found this album a great resource/roadmap for finding out more about this style & the people who play(ed) it. Many of the artists on the disc are not as obscure & forgotten as I first thought. The fact that the music is recorded live makes it easier to listen to than reissue compilations from poorly remastered 78s and there are some great songs. The liner notes are informative & interesting. I highly recommend this CD.

With Mike Seeger's death on 8/7/09, we've lost someone who did a great deal to help America discover America. A real America made up of people who worked hard, played and sang hard, lived what they sang about and developed cultural traditions and creativity well above any of the ways they've been misrepresented in the mainstream media.

I've long thought of this as a sister cd to High Atmosphere, though be it a less successful one for my tastes. This disc is softer, overall. It doesn't have as much grit as I generally prefer, though I've still always enjoyed much of it. Wade Ward is one of the all-timers of 20th Century music... but there's more and better of him on High Atmosphere. Remember, all those Boggs recordings Mike mentions in the liner-notes later came out as Dock Boggs: His Folkways Years 1963-1968. Clarence Ashley makes an appearance here, though unlike Boggs who became grittier and more hard-hitting with age, Clarence became smoother. When I crave Clarence, I reach for Greenback Dollar: 1929-1933. This is the disc that first turned me onto autoharp genius Kilby Snow, though even he went on to be much better represented with the release of Masters of Old-Time Country Autoharp.

An understated, subtle highlight for me is Clarence Ferrill's I Would Not Live Always. I've never been able to shake the notion that this guy was a major influence on Bruce Molsky's haunting Man of Constant Sorrow on Fiddlers 4.

Hopefully Smithsonian/Folkways will still see fit to release the full recordings of Wade Ward even though Mike won't be here to light the fuse. All in all, this is a nice little disc but never one that I've been compelled to reach for as often as Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia or Blue Ridge Legacy - The Alan Lomax Portait Series.

Another great release from Smithsonian Folkways. This is an excellent collection of ballads, songs, fiddle tunes and banjo tunes collected by Mike Seeger from ordinary folks in the Southern United States. Recorded by Seeger on a series of trips spanning several decades, there is a nice balance between better known performers like Dock Boggs and more obscure musicians such as J.J. Neece. While some of these artists (Boggs, Sara and Maybelle Carter, Clarence Ashley, etc.) had commercial careers, these are all field recordings - folk music in its natural state.

Arrived quickly and in excellent shape.