The Art Of Old-Time Mountain Music

1	Old Molly Hare / Haywood Blevins 2:04
2	Old Blind Sow, She Stole the Middlins / John W. Summers 1:38
3	The High Toned Dance / Glenn Ohrlin 3:35
4	Po' Black Sheep / Frazier & Patterson 3:13
5	High on a Mountain / Ola Belle Reed 2:36
6	McMinnville's Breakdown / Owen Chapman previously unreleased 1:44
7	One More River to Cross / Wilson Douglas 1:54
8	Rocky Mountain / Bruce Molsky & Big Hoedown 3:29
9	Protecting the Innocent / Oscar & Eugene Wright 2:38
10	Death of J.B. Marcum / Asa Martin previously unreleased 2:23
11	Benton's Dream / Smokey Val Boys 3:00
12	The House Carpenter / Dorothy Rorick 3:04
13	Rabbit, Where's Your Mammy? / Jim Herd previously unreleased 1:23
14	Black Eyed Daisy / Odell Thompson 3:28
15	The Boatman Song / Marvin Gaster 1:50
16	Kicked Up a Devil of a Row / Charlie Kinney previously unreleased 1:11
17	Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie / Fields Ward 3:51
18	Red Bird / Clark Kessinger 2:32
19	Farewell Trion / Bob Carlin 2:41
20	Lost Indian / Mose Coffman 1:45
21	Old Time Fire on the Mountain / Dent Wimmer 2:16
22	Fox Chase / Dink Roberts 2:22
23	Tucker's Barn / Gaither Carlton 3:03
24	Feed My Horse on Corn and Hay / Perry Riley 1:33
25	I'm a Long Time Travelling Here Below / Almeda Riddle 3:55
26	Blackberry Blossom / Ralph Blizard & The New Southern Ramblers 2:57
27	Go on, Nora Lee / Sam McGee previously unreleased 3:09
28	A Conversation With Death / Lloyd Chandler 4:09

Barnes & Noble

Although the performances on The Art of Old Time Mountain Music are of fairly recent vintage -- most of the 28 tracks were recorded in the '70s -- many of the songs come from the basement of time and are performed by artists deeply informed by ancient traditions. The disc features few artists known to the casual listener, but the lack of household names has never seemed more inconsequential, given the performers' emotional involvement with their material and instrumental and vocal virtuosity. Of the few marquee names here, Doc Watson makes a memorable appearance, circa 1964, in a sprightly fiddle-guitar rendering of "Tucker's Barn" with one of his musical mentors, fiddler Gaither Carlton, who was also his father-in-law. Early country music giants Uncle Dave Macon (banjo) and Sam McGee (banjo, guitar) team up on a rollicking, banjo-flailing treatment of the minstrelsy-inspired and previously unissued 1930 recording of "Go On, Nora Lee." Country fans ought to get a kick out of Ola Belle Read's mournful, mid-tempo bluegrass band version of her original tale of loss and longing, "High on a Mountain," retooled by Marty Stuart in 1992 as a blast of red-hot country-rock. Proving the power of the unadorned human voice to stir the soul at the deepest level, Almeda Riddle and Lloyd Chandler turn in haunting, a cappella versions of the hymn "I'm a Long Time Travelling Here Below" and "A Conversation with Death" (popularized by Ralph Stanley as "O Death" on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack), respectively. Stirring the soul, though, is what all these artists do exceedingly well on this big-time anthology. David McGee

All Music Guide

Northwestern fiddler Kerry Blech selected this 28-track compilation from the Rounder label's voluminous catalog of studio and field recordings of old-time music. The term "old-time" usually denotes a style of country music that is non-commercial and which predates bluegrass. The fiddle is often prominent, and while the five-string banjo is often involved, it is usually played in the older "clawhammer" style rather than the more ornate three-finger bluegrass or Scruggs style. But this album takes the listener far beyond the standard fiddle-guitar-and-banjo instrumentation, and even beyond the Appalachian region, to include unaccompanied singing (Almeda Riddle's "I'm a Long Time Traveling Here Below" is a gorgeous example), cowboy song (Glenn Ohrlin's hilarious "High Toned Dance"), and even one piano solo (Haywood Blevins' arrangement of the old-time standard "Old Molly Hare" that opens the program). There are also a couple of fine examples of the African-American banjo and fiddle traditions from Joe & Odell Thompson and Dink Roberts and, of course, plenty of the kind of old-time fiddling that most listeners will recognize as typical of the genre. Blech's annotations are extensive and insightful. Highly recommended. Rick Anderson