Customer Reviews

Feed Your Babies Onions: Fat City Favorites

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Submitted for your approval: it's the '70s, and you're an awkward teenager who has just been "initiated" into the little-known parallel universe known as the Old-Time Country Music Revival. In this dimension, the timeframe is permanently locked on the 1920s and '30s-- yet the Revival's festivals, called "FIDDLERS' CONVENTIONS," look like mini-Woodstocks and most of it's participants like Dead Heads... except they're clutching vintage fiddles, guitars, mandolins, upright basses, 5-string banjos and weird "banjoid" instruments, like banjo-ukeleles and banjo-mandolins. All over the given festival's campsite are jam sessions that go on for hours where old friends and new merrily swap obscure tunes learned from scratchy 78 rpm records and field recordings.

Then, you mosey on down to the main stage. Check it out-- there are four guys and one gal up there who look like you and your friends, except for one difference; they can play the grits out of this stuff on high-octane and they're having a blast doing it.

You've now entered the HIGHWOODS STRING BAND Zone.

Thanks to Rounder Records, you can recapture the magic of the Highwoods String Band on this reissue of recordings made from 1972 to 1978. Here you can hear the tight-- but fun-- band arrangements that helped define today's old-time string band sound. Taking the lead are Walt Koken's and Bob Potts' twin fiddling and Mac Benford's racous 5-string banjo, while the rhythm section, made up of Jenny Cleland' bass fiddle and Doug Dorschug's guitar, propels the band and gives it a driving back beat.

The Highwoods repertoire are tunes and songs culled mainly from old-time music's Golden Age, the 1920s and '30s, when fiddlers, banjo players and string bands from all over the South were eagerly recorded by the major labels of the day and the Grand Ole Opry was born. Sources include seminal bands, like Uncle Dave Macon & the Fruit Jar Drinkers and Charlie Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers, and the great fiddle & guitar duos, such as Grayson & Whittier and Narmour & Smith, too name but a few. Yet, the Highwoods main influence is clearly the racous North Georgia style of Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers.

Old-time musicians coming up today could definitely learn a thing or two about performance style and presentation from Highwoods. For example, the Highwoods String Band, emulating their sources, saw themselves as professional performers and were not adverse to using "shtick" like Skillet Licker-style funny skits to introduce numbers and entertain their audiences. Likewise, our current generation of old-time banjo players should follow Mac Benford's example and delve into the rich variety of playing styles found in those early recordings-- ranging from two and three-finger picking to the present-day favorite, clawhammer.

The sound quality and production of this album are first rate. My only complaint is that the liner notes tell us nothing about the individual cuts or the sources of the material presented.

Be that as it may, I highly recommend this album: it's great for parties and car trips. So, pop FEED YOUR BABY ONIONS into your Shopping Cart... if for no other reason than to find what the heck the title means.

If you never had the chance to see and hear the Highwoods String Band live then you need to get this CD. It will be the closest you will ever get to true mountain music. You can feel the closeness Mac, Walt, Doug,Bob, and Jenny share and experience their love of the root of music as it must have been so many years ago. I'm not a writer, I'm a lover of music. I long for the days back in 1972 in Norfolk, Va. at the Old Dominion Folk Festival seeing this group in action. You owe it to yourself to own this piece of art. I want more!

If you can only listen to one old-timey pickin' album, this is it! The energy alone is downright incendiary, and the virtuosity is first rate. I can't count how many times I've listened to it, completely under its spell. The best!

If that's not high enough praise, let me tell you some of the other reasons I love it. First of all, the rendition of "Wild Bill Jones" is so far above any other I ever heard, that I consider this now to be THE Definitive version of that song. Even the subtle baritone harmonies behind the twangy lead voice give it a fullness and energy unheard elsewhere. And the instrumentals are downright breathtaking, for an overall transcendent listening experience. I'd buy the album just for that song.

But wait -- there's more. They don't let the sublime quality of their music interfere with the need to be plain old silly when they feel like it. In the song "Who Broke the Lock" (of the chicken coop), they have fun making whacky chicken sounds with the fiddle, and shucking and clucking in their lyrics. You'll feel like you're right there, joking around with them. And despite their mastery of instruments, the lyrics are always clear and easy to follow so you won't miss out on any of the fun.

I've shown this album to many friends. After they see the title, they look at me like I'm nuts; then they hear the music and ask if they can "borrow" it for a while. I just email them the Amazon link so they can buy their own. So there!

If you do not tap your feet, drum your fingers, or get up and dance - then you're dead.

Never in my wildest imagination did I think this CD would be such a HIT with my children! They BEG to listen to it, and have most of the songs with words memorized! I bought it because I have joined an old time fiddle group jam session, and it had some of the tunes on it that we play...but it is more than that...it is PURE fun to listen to! The rendition of Hawks and Eagles is unbelieveably GREAT!

I've got the old original albums this compilation comes from, so I'm busy putting my vinyl on my computer rather than buying here. But let me put it this way...Highwood Stringband's version on Lee Highway Blues is the reason I bought a vinyl-to-computer pre-amp at all! They're one of those bands that makes you glad you're alive to hear them.

Personally, I think the idea of copy old recordings exactly--right down to the side patter--is a bit weird but a lot of OT revival bands in the 1970's were doing it, so, oh, well.

This is a fun album with a lot of good tunes. The HWSB were great musicians. Highly recommended.

I realy enjoy listening to thid CD. Such great music and the wat it is played. This is truly an awesome CD.

The Highwoods String Band was not the first old-time string band in the folk music revival that began in the 1950s. However, it just might have been the best.

From the first to the last track, you're foot will be thumpin' and your heart will race, so if you have tachycardia, watch out! I was part of the 1970s revival to which they contributed so much (where is the Hall of Fame?). Walt Koken, one of the two fiddlers, is also an extremely accomplished old-time banjo player, and his recordings are already classics. With the twin fiddles of Walt and Bob Potts cranking up to speed to start another instrumental medley or some old-time song captured from and old 78, every song was an individual hit. I was fortunate to see them play a number of times, up and down the East Coast, while the band was most active, from 1971 through 1977. Every concert was an inspiring thrill.

To any of current banjoists or fiddlers, the simplicity--yet complexity--of this band's music will astound you. If you don't know of them, prepare for a great surprise.

They had a 30th anniversary concert recently--and I'd love to see a DVD of it. Even better, a DVD of film of some of their antics from the 1970s. Please, someone out there bring it to life!!! I once contacted Walt, and discovered they had done a Public TV broadcast in Kentucky--unfortunately, the tape was long gone.

These four guys and gal (Jenny) were great (and a great bass player can make or break a band), and wherever they still play in whatever form, it is the best. If you don't know the Highwoods String Band, and you think you know Old Time music, you don't know nuttin'.

Crank it up again, for those Lee Highway Blues...."tell 'em boy, tell 'em!!!