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Snakewinder

Roger Wilford Cooper

Roger Wilford Cooper is a “younger generation” fiddler from Garrison, Kentucky (Lewis County). There were musicians on both sides of the family, and Roger grew up surrounded by aunts and uncles who played and sang old-time music. Roger can recall around thirty fiddlers living within the county and there were many more in the surrounding counties. But his main influences were Joe Stamper, Bob Prater, and Buddy Thomas, a noted fiddler in the northeast Kentucky style. In recent years, Roger has performed as part of the Kentucky Folk Music Tours sponsored by the Kentucky Folklife Program, and he has been recognized as a master folk artist through the Kentucky Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program. Includes Old Bell Cow, Pumpkin Vine, Greek Melody, Headwaters of Tygart, Feed My Horse Corn and Hay, Soapsuds Over the Fence, Old Blackberry Blossom, Portsmouth Airs, Snakewinder, Short’s Addition, Salt Lick, Flannery’s Dream, General Lee, Brickyard Joe, and Dance All Night. Research and liner notes by John Harrod.

($8.00)

Puncheon Camps

Clyde Davenport

Clyde Davenport, from Wayne County, Kentucky, is one of America’s finest old-time fiddlers and banjo players. He won a prestigious National Heritage Award in 1992 from the National Endowment for the Arts for his musicianship and contribution to the preservation of traditional arts in America. This cassette (recorded in 1990 by Jeff Todd Titon) features 29 tunes including: Jenny in the Cotton Patch, Sugar in My Coffee, Blackfoot, Puncheon Camps, Ladies in the Ballroom, Old Cow Died in the Forks of the Branch, Johnny Come Along, Iowa Center, Cornstalk Fiddle and Shoestring Bow, and Smokey Hornpipe. Notes on 5-panel insert by Jeff Todd Titon. Clyde performed at the Celebration of Traditional Music with W. L. Gregory in 1975 and with folklorist, Bob Fulcher, in 1984 and 1987.

($8.00)

Rocky Island

Reverend Philip Kazee

Kazee descends from musical people on the Mash Fork in Magoffin County, Kentucky. His father, the Reverend Buell Kazee, was a noted recording artist in the 1920’s. Philip Kazee is a Southern Baptist minister and is pastor of the First Baptist Church in Oneida, Tennessee. He mostly keeps his folk music separate from his church music, but he has performed at many functions and festivals. His interest in traditional music has grown in recent years. He mainly plays and sings the music performed by his father, a rich and varied legacy. Includes Darling Cory, Blackjack Davy, Rock Little Julie, Blind Man’s Lament, The Moonshiner, Look Up and Down That Lonesome Road, Rocky Island, The Roving Cowboy, The Butcher Boy, Gambler’s Blues, Wild Bill Jones, The Orphan Girl, Little Bessie, and Barbara Allen. Research and liner notes by Loyal Jones.

($8.00)

Blackjack Grove

Walter McNew

Walter McNew is a fiddler from Rockcastle County, Kentucky. As a boy, he listened to his father, a telegraph operator for the L&N Railroad, play late into the night at the train depot. His music idol, however, was Fiddlin’ Doc Roberts from Madison County. As a young man, Walter won a fiddle contest in Louisville but passed up a chance to enter show business on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, preferring to lead a quiet life at home. Walter’s music reflects a mixture of styles but stands apart from “modern” or “contest” fiddling commonly heard today. Some rare tunes like Blackjack Grove and Pinetop are included, and Doc Roberts’ fans will be amazed to hear Walter’s rendition of pieces like All I’ve Got’s Done Gone and Brickyard Joe. Also included: Cluck Old Hen, The Cat Came Back, Rickett’s Hornpipe, Waynesburg, Billy in the Lowground, The Lost Girl, Hawk Caught a Chicken, Martha Campbell, Callahan, Dreamy Georgiana Moon, Goodnight Waltz, Mamie Potts’ Schottische, and ten other great fiddle solos. Field recordings and liner notes by Stephen Green.

($8.00)

Raglif Jaglif Tetartlif Pole

Leonard Roberts

As a storyteller, Leonard Roberts was always a delight. In his lectures he often dropped into a narrative style, with storyteller’s inflections, but underneath was a thorough knowledge of literature, folklore and culture. He taught and headed English departments at several Appalachian colleges. Although he had grown up in Floyd County, Kentucky, in the midst of ballad and folktale traditions, it was not until he began teaching and collecting at Berea that he discovered the richness of Appalachian tradition and its aesthetic and social value in a new age. His students and their families became his teachers, and they led him to a rich vein of traditional lore. Although he was known mostly for his published collections of folktales, songs and riddles, he was also a consummate storyteller with a wonderful repertoire of material. These recordings were made in classes at Berea College when Dr. Roberts was a guest lecturer-storyteller. Includes Raglif Jaglif Tetartlif Pole, The Irishman and the Pumpkin, Pat and Mike and the Snake, Jack Outwits the Giants, Daniel Boone’s Hunting Trip, Jack and the Bullstrap, and also riddles and comments. Research and liner notes by Loyal Jones.

($8.00)

Home Recordings 1941-1942, Volume I

John Morgan Salyer

John M. Salyer, born in 1882 in Magoffin County, Kentucky, was no ordinary fiddler; he was master of an older eastern Kentucky style that is only barely discernible in the playing of fiddlers today. In 1941-42, his sons Grover and Glen Salyer used a home disc cutting machine to record some of their father’s old-time fiddle and banjo tunes. Many of these tunes have not been documented elsewhere. After five years of production work, the Appalachian Center is proud to make John Salyer’s music available to a wider audience. The old home recordings are rough by today’s standards, but technical difficulties retreat before the power and beauty of this music. Includes Last of Harris, Jenny Get Around, Vance No More, Indian Ate the Woodchuck, Lost Boy, Gilda Roy, William Riley, Bill Brown, Featherbed, Duck River, Flander’s Dream, Polly Grand, Sallie Cooper, Little Bobby, Speed the Plow, Jeff Sturgeon, Rose of the Mountain, and thirteen other tunes. Research and liner notes by Bruce Greene.

($8.00)