Back Roads to Cold Mountain

by BACK ROAD TO COLD MOUNTAIN / VA

Overview

Charles Frazier's novel Cold Mountain is a powerful, widely celebrated novel that takes places during the Civil War. But Frazier's book is not about the war itself so much as the lives lived in the rural American South during its long dark night. Back Roads to Cold Mountain is a collection of music assembled by ethnomusicologist and roots musician John Cohen, featuring the songs, hollers, and hymns that served as inspiration for Frazier during the writing of his book. There are no modern, O Brother, Where Art Thou?-styled revisionings of the music from the Civil War era. Instead, Cohen went through the Smithsonian's and the Library of Congress's vast collections of field and commercial recordings of a cappella narratives, string band songs, fiddle tunes, and sacred harp singing and assembled this volume from sources that were close to the originals. In other words, many of the performers here had learned these songs as hand-me-downs from their ancestors. They were familiar not only with tune, but style, arrangement, and grain. The end result is a 27-track collection of stunning music that is haunted, ghostly, raw, sparse and ultimately dignified in its presentation. What is particularly stunning is the brilliant sound of these recordings. Recorded between 1944 and 2002, these selections, assembled from previously released compilations and all but unheard field recording volumes, have something strange and unwieldy at their core. There are well known personages here like Roscoe Holcomb, Dock Boggs or Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers, whose tunes from here have been heard before in other settings. But there are many more obscure entries, as well, from the wild wooly balladry and spoken word narration of Oscar Parks, the shambolic banjo blues of Dink Roberts, and the hunted, forlorn soul-searing darkness of Dorothy Melton, and the roof-raising joy of the Sacred Harp Singers. In either case, the effect is the same: one of true Otherness, where dislocation, quark strangeness, and untamed spirits gather in order to whisper, cry, moan, shout and laugh in a language that has not so much died as disappeared. Cohen's notes and annotations are fantastic, as always; they are not merely informative and authoritative, but offer (because of his welcoming prose) a glimpse of the ciphers themselves; they speak from the hollowed out place in his own heart that has been touched by these songs and the people who sang them. This is essential listening for anyone interested in authentic American roots musics. ~ Thom Jurek

Product Details

Release Date:	10/19/2004
Label:	Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
UPC:	0093074014929
Rank:	100932

Tracks

1. Field Holler  - T. J. Chesser
2. I Wish My Baby Was Born  - Dillard Chandler
3. Look Down That Lonesome Road  - "Banjo" Bill Cornett
4. Morning Sun  -  Sacred Harp Singers
5. Camp Chase  - French Carpenter
6. John Brown's Dream  - Dacosta Woltz
7. Bright Sunny South  - Dock Boggs
8. The Battle of Stone River  - Oscar Parks
9. Sweet Glories Rush Upon My Sight  -  Old Regular Baptists
10. Roustabout  - Dink Roberts
11. Fox Race  - Joe Patterson
12. Jim and John  - Ed Young  - G.D. Young  - Lonnie Young  -  Young
13. The Day Is Past and Gone  - John Leland  - Dorothy Melton
14. Omie Wise  - Roscoe Holcomb
15. The Silk Merchant's Daughter  - Dellie Norton
16. Hicks Farewell  - Dillard Chandler
17. Three Little Babes  - Texas Gladden
18. Wayfaring Stranger  - Bill Monroe  -  Traditional
19. Rank Stranger  - Albert E. Brumley  -  Stanley Brothers
20. Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over  - Fiddlin' John Carson
21. And I Am Born to Die  - Gaither Carlton  - Doc Watson
22. Pullin' the Skiff  - Ora Dell Graham
23. Pumpkin Pie  - Joe Thompson  - Odell Thompson  -  Traditional
24. Give the Fiddler a Dram  - James Crase
25. Angel Band  - E.C. Ball  - Orna Ball  -  Ball
26. The Old Man Below  - Gaither Carlton
27. When Sorrows Encompass Me 'Round  - Fred Cockerham  - Tommy Jarrell

Album Credits

Performance Credits

E.C. and Orna Ball   Primary Artist
Lonnie & Ed Young   Primary Artist
Roscoe Holcomb   Primary Artist,Vocals
Old Regular Baptists   Primary Artist
Ora Dell Graham   Primary Artist,Vocals
Tommy Jarrell   Primary Artist,Vocals,Fiddle
Dorothy Melton   Primary Artist,Vocals
Dock Boggs   Primary Artist,Banjo,Vocals
T. J. Chesser   Primary Artist,Vocals
Dillard Chandler   Primary Artist,Vocals
Lonnie Young   Primary Artist,Drums (Bass)
Sacred Harp Singers   Primary Artist
"Banjo" Bill Cornett   Primary Artist,Vocals,Banjo
Dacosta Woltz   Primary Artist,Banjo
Joe Patterson   Primary Artist,Quills
French Carpenter   Primary Artist,Fiddle
G.D. Young   Primary Artist,Drums (Snare)
Gaither Carlton   Primary Artist,Fiddle,Vocals
Dink Roberts   Primary Artist,Vocals,5-string Banjo
Joe Thompson   Primary Artist
Fred Cockerham   Primary Artist,Fretless Banjo
Dellie Norton   Primary Artist,Vocals
Oscar Parks   Primary Artist,Vocals
The Stanley Brothers   Primary Artist
Odell Thompson   Primary Artist,Banjo,Fiddle
Orna Ball   Primary Artist
Ed Young   Primary Artist,Fife
James Crase   Primary Artist,Fiddle,Vocals
Texas Gladden   Primary Artist,Vocals
Bill Monroe   Primary Artist,Vocals,Mandolin
Fiddlin' John Carson   Primary Artist
E.C. Ball   Primary Artist
Doc Watson   Primary Artist,Vocals
Carter Stanley   Vocals
Peter Rowan   Guitar,Vocals
Ralph Stanley   Vocals
Richard Greene & Beryl Marriott   Fiddle
Joe & Odell Thompson   Banjo,Fiddle
Benny Jarrell   Fiddle

Technical Credits

John Cohen   Liner Notes,Concept,Engineer,Producer,Annotation,Cover Photo
Dellie Norton   Composer
Wayne Martin   Engineer
Pete Reiniger   Mastering
Roscoe Holcomb   Instrumentation
Ralph Stanley   Instrumentation
Ralph Rinzler   Engineer
Dan Sheehy   Production Supervisor
Christopher C. King   Disc Transfers
D.A. Sonneborn   Production Supervisor
Jeff Place   Editorial Assistant
Dillard Chandler   Composer
Lonnie Young   Composer
"Banjo" Bill Cornett   Engineer
Ray Alden   Engineer
Leonard Stokes   Cover Collage
Jeff Todd Titon   Engineer
Emily Gremlich   Production Assistant
Ken Davidson   Engineer
Pat Dunford   Engineer
Francis Harper   Engineer
Amelia Ramsey   Engineer
Charles Frazier   Liner Notes
Carter Stanley   Instrumentation
Frederic Ramsey, Jr.   Engineer
John A. Lomax   Engineer
Mike Seeger   Engineer
Thom Canova   Mixing,Disc Transfers
Alan Lomax   Engineer
Albert E. Brumley   Composer
Orna Ball   Performer
Art Rosenbaum   Engineer
William Haley   Disc Transfers
John Leland   Composer
Ed Young   Composer
Cece Conway   Engineer
Margot Nassau   Production Coordination
Mary Monseur   Production Coordination
Toby Breeding   Leader
Texas Gladden   Arranger
Roger Haile   Photography,Digital Photography
Traditional   Composer
Fiddlin' John Carson   Performer
Earl Johnson & His Dixie Entertainers   Performer
E.C. Ball   Performer