Customer Reviews

Shakin' Down the Acorns, Volume 1

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I have listened to all of Tony Elman's music since 1983. When the weather turns cool, the frost is on the pumpkin, Tony is on the Stereo. Perfect for baking cookies, bobbing for apples, drinking hot mulled cider or wine, or just enjoying the beauty of autumn!! A must have for all bluegrass/old timey music lovers.

Simply one of the loveliest trad music recordings I have ever heard. All but one of the tracks centers around the hammer dulcimer, which is passionately and sensitively played. While mostly brisk, rhythmic, and dancing, there is something quite contemplative about the music; somehow, Elman draws a remarkably cantabile ("singingly") quality from the tunes, without compromising the strictness of the time or the energy of the pieces. The final track, "Star of the County Down", which is not a hammered dulcimer piece but a recorder duet with accompaniment, is the most lovely, heartbreaking, haunting rendition of that tune I have ever heard. Twenty years after first getting this recording, it still raises goosebumps.

Tony Elman's "Shakin' Down the Acorns" is an outstanding recording. His renditions of traditional folk music are lively and well-performed, and his interpretations of the music are fantastic. This album is a must for anyone interested in hammered dulcimer music, but is enjoyable for anyone who likes toe-tappin' good music!

I'm so glad these traditional tunes are being preserved and passed on. Both Volumes 1 and 2 of this collection are real gems. Most people have probably heard a couple of the tunes (especially The Muffin Man and The Irish Washerwoman), but the rest have not been in common circulation for 100 years (outside of traditional and frontier music circles). There's a wonderful old-time feeling about them, each and all.

Hammered Dulcimer is an acquired taste in music; it can sound too jangly for some (or even for one who likes it, if not in the right mood). But it's well worth listening through the percussive jangle of the instrument to hear the wonderful traditional melodies in this collection. And once you relax into it, the dulcimer itself becomes part of the magic. It's something you don't hear every day, and it communicates the melodies of these tunes in ways that you just don't get from guitars or mandolins. It can carry you away.

These tunes can bring many emotions from sorrow to joy, and evoke many different aspects of life and human contemplation of life and work, from simplicity to a busy and industrious rush. Shakin' Down The Acorns takes my mind to the hills, to farms and mines and old bridges and rushing streams and old apple groves.

I first heard this as a cassette while visiting my in-laws in the late 1980s. A copy was dubbed off for us and I listened to it until it wore out. I was learning to play the recorder at the time, I loved the slower rendition of Star of County Down, and taught myself both that and Golden Slippers. Seeing these tunes in digital format was a treat. Tony Elman is a first-class dulcimer player in the Appalachian-Celtic tradition. As a thank you, I bought a copy of the first volume and sent it off to my ex-mother-in-law. Tony has several other albums out in the same series (Volumes 2 and 3) as well as Earth Tones, a volume of his own compositions. I have purchased all four, but know this album the best. Highly recommended.

Hi everyone~

I have loved Tony Elman's music since the 1980s, but I can appreciate it more as the music is period correct for the 1860s. If you are a Civil War Re-enactor, this CD is a very lively must-have to add to your collection!!!!