Molly O'Day & The Cumberland Mountain Folks [Import]

Molly O'Day | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 25, 1999)
• Original Release Date: 1992
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Bear Family
• ASIN: B00000AT9Y
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #247,210 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Tramp on the Street

2. When God Comes and Gather His Jewels

3. The Black Sheep Returned to the Fold

4. Put My Rubber Doll Away

5. The Drunken Driver

6. Tear Stained Letter

7. Lonely Mound of Clay

8. Six More Miles

9. Singing Waterfall

10. At the First Fall of Snow

See all 18 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Mother's Gone But Not Forgotten

2. The Evening Train

3. This Is the End

4. Fifteen Years Ago

5. Poor Ellen Smith

6. Coming Down from God

7. Teardrops Falling in the Snow

8. With You on My Mind

9. If You See My Saviour

10. Heaven's Radio

See all 18 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Molly O'Day and the Cumberland Mountain Folks is a double-disc, 36-track collection that compiles all of the recordings O'Day made for Columbia Records between 1946 and 1951. Though her music presages the upcoming honky tonk era, O'Day was more closely tied to the mountain music that dominated country music in the first half of the 20th century. As such, her music can be a little difficult for contemporary ears -- her thick nasal twang is something that modern listeners will have to accommodate. For country historians, however, Molly O'Day and the Cumberland Mountain Folks is a worthwhile. Not only did she bridge the gap between string bands and honky tonk with her old-timey banjo playing and twang, but she was one of the first country artists to record a Hank Williams song. As such, this double-disc set is worth investigation for serious musicologists. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Female Hank Williams In All Her Glory, December 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Molly O'day & the Cumderland F (Audio CD)

The greatest female Country Music singer to me is and always will be Molly O'Day (born LaVerne Williamson in Pike County, Kentucky in 1923 but today more associated with West Virginia). She had the same raw voice, power and emotion that Hank Williams brought to the world; and her fans responded to her the same way.

The two careers are forever tied together. Before Hank became a recording artist, his mentor, Fred Rose, signed Williams as a writer, giving O'Day several songs to record for Columbia in December 1946. The songs were "When God Comes And Gathers His Jewels" and "Six More Miles To The Graveyard;" and "Singing Waterfall" and "I Don't Care If Tomorrow Never Comes" one year later. Hank, of course, later recorded the songs on his own.

These four songs are part of a 36-song collection on two CDs, her entire recorded output on Columbia from 1946 to 1951. Among the many other gems are "Teardrops Falling in the Snow," the self-penned "When My Times Comes To Go," and the traditional, secular song "Poor Ellen Smith." Most of the songs are religious (including everything on the final two recording sessions), but having said that's where she drew her strength, that's what she recorded.

The vocals are either Molly's or shared with her husband. She was an excellent clawhammer banjo player and guitarist and we hear both here. The Cumberland Mountain Folks band included brother `Skeets' Williamson on fiddle until the next to last recording session in June 1950. George `Speedy' Krise played dobro on the first 16 songs Molly recorded. Noted singers today, Mac Wiseman was her first bass player.

Although at the height of her popularity in 1951, Molly developed tuberculosis and a recording session the next year had to be cancelled. She did some home recordings in 1961 and 1968, but Molly never performed in public again outside of church functions. She had promised herself at age 14, at a church service which she felt she had been saved, that singing in public was seeking world fame and that it was the wrong path in life.

Molly O'Day died on cancer in December 1987. Her spirit and music live forever on this beautiful keepsake from Bear Family Records.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Molly O'Day fan in Tennessee, May 14, 2003

By 

Steve Daugherty (Hixson, Tennessee United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Molly O'Day & The Cumberland Mountain Folks (Audio CD)

Often called "the female Hank Williams," Molly O'Day is over-looked in country music. This is a great collection, with liner notes from her husband (who was her singing partner professionally). This stuff is so real and raw that it will bring you to tears. When Fred Rose hired Hank Williams as a writer, Molly O'Day was who Hank was hired to write for. Some of Hank's later hits were covers of Molly's songs. This is great stuff.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Molly Remains a Mystery, July 2, 2004

By 

C. Hicks (Concord, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Molly O'Day & The Cumberland Mountain Folks (Audio CD)

This is a pricey volume. Bear Family gives the listener everything Molly O'Day recorded for Columbia with excellent sound reproduction; but Ivan Tribe's 27 page essay (with rare photos) raises more questions than it answers. Above all, who was Molly O'Day? We get an extensive overview of her career, but apart from oblique references to her religious faith we still don't know what made her tick.

That aside, it's her penetrating voice that makes this a worthy collection to own. Molly embodied the elusive Appalachian soul; she was the forerunner and template for artists like Loretta Lynn. Her plaintive, throaty voice exuded conviction and, above all, authenticity. This record also demonstrates the uneasy merging of styles that occured in Southern Appalachia following WWII. On tracks like "Poor Ellen Smith" and "Coming Down from God" Molly unleashes a feverish clawhammer banjo barrage, harkening back to the Old-Time music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But "Singing Waterfall" and "I Don't Care if Tomorrow Never Comes" reflect the emergent honky-tonk style of country music (the Dobro, which was just beginning to impact country music, is prominent throughout). In between are spurious hints of proto-bluegrass. But the unifying theme throughout these 36 tracks is Molly's unswerving Christian faith. It was the unresolved tension between faith and show business, we are told, that ultimately led her to choose an early retirement from country music.

The listener will be left to project his or her own imagination onto Molly O'Day, a shape-shifting artist whose voice still reaches into the soul and shakes it.