Various Artists
Songcatcher II: The Tradition That Inspired the Movie
Vanguard Records

by William Michael Smith

While it was certainly the most popular, O Brother, Where Art Thou was not the only recent movie featuring traditional Appalachian music. Songcatcher, while not the huge financial success of O Brother and its Grammy-winning soundtrack, was a hit with fans of traditional music due to its realistic portrayal of the folklife and music of Appalachia in the period before electronic recording. The plot revolved around a professor who went into the remote areas of Appalachia and recorded the unique folk music she found there that was handed down generation by generation through word of mouth and performance. Many of the tunes could be traced back across the generations to England, Scotland, and Ireland.

While the movie soundtrack featured noted current artists like Emmylou Harris and Iris Dement performing the music, Songcatcher II: The Tradition That Inspired the Movie, is the real deal, an aggregation of almost mythical Appalachian musical figures who predate the likes of Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, and Flatt and Scruggs. We have Vanguard Records to thank for the fact that these priceless performances by the early 20th century pioneers have been preserved and passed down to us. Vanguard collected many of the earliest field recordings in a variety of genres and had the foresight and historical perspective to preserve them. The most recent recordings here are 40 years old (some live tracks from the Newport Folk Festival).

The performer list is packed with almost mystical legendary names: Almeda Riddle, one of the last links to the a capella ballad singing tradition; Hobart Smith and Clarence "Tom" Ashley, who performed as duo in the early 20's and had distinct banjo styles that contributed to the development of the bluegrass sound; Dock Boggs, a banjo player and vocalist who recorded in the 1920's and then gave up music for almost 40 years before reemerging during the revival of interest in old-time traditional music in the 1960s; Roscoe Holcomb, the great Kentucky singer who Eric Clapton lists as his favorite and whose singing style inspired documentary filmmaker John Cohen to coin the term "high lonesome sound" in 1963 while filming Eastern Kentucky musicians; Sarah Ogan Gunning, a forerunner of the "protest singers," who with her sister composed songs related to the conditions in the mines of Kentucky in early 20th century; Cynthia May "Cousin Emmy" Carver, who taught Grandpa Jones the banjo; Fiddlin' Arthur Smith, who is credited as one of the prime inspirations for bluegrass fiddlers; and Mother Maybelle Carter and Doc Watson, who need no musical introduction. All of these artists except Watson are now deceased.

What stands out in the 17 tracks is the rawness and sincerity of these Appalachian oral-tradition folk songs that trace their origins far back into Anglo-Saxon musical tradition (as Sheila Ray Adams points out in her liner notes, the songs here document "the culture that nurtured a tradition that was ancient by the time of Mozart.") Tunes like Boggs' intense rendering of "Oh, Death" and Hobart Smith's gritty, seemingly "possessed" performance of "The Coo Coo Bird" seem almost foreign in this day of processed tone-perfect productions. With its three Doc Watson renditions of English traditional folk ballads, we get a glimpse of the now-legendary and extremely prolific Watson in the pureness of his early development. Roscoe Holcomb's "Little Bird" is so raw and potent it makes Billy Monroe and the Stanley Brothers' recordings seem both modern and tame. Almeda Riddle sings "Black Jack Davey," which traces its origins at least back to the Scottish Highlands in the 1600s. And Cousin Emmy's rollicking version of "Wish I Was a Single Girl Again" belies the image of the subservient, browbeaten, intimidated Appalachian woman living in a man's shadow. Cousin Emmy sings it like she means it.

When I was single, a man was my crave
Now I am married, in trouble to my grave
Oh, I wish I was a single gal again

These songs are filled with basic needs and faults that have been part of the human condition through the ages. There are bandits and outlaws, lords and ladies, rich and poor, illicit love and lifelong true love, birth and death. They don't make music like this anymore, so we are fortunate that Vanguard has preserved it and is making it available to a public that, based on the success of the O Brother soundtrack, has a yearning for the real thing, for the music that lies at the seminal core of our culture.

* Our musical forefathers are still pickin' and singin' at www.vanguardrecords.com


Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

 
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