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Welcome
Ray Alden: July 2, 1942 － September 19, 2009
Our dear friend and the founder of the Field Recorders' Collective died this fall after a long and valiant struggle with cancer.
During the last project-filled months of his life, Ray worked to restructure the Field Recorders’ Collective as a new not-for-profit entity under expanded leadership. The current officers of the new FRC include Ambrose Verdibello, Executive Director, Lynn Frederick, Secretary and Susie Goehring, Treasurer. Susie is handling the orders and fielding special requests; it is her email address that is on this website. The seven board members include the officers as well as Diane Alden, Ray’s wife, Jim Garber, John Schwab and Kilby Spencer. By continuing to preserve and produce recordings of valuable and original performances of traditional old time music, the board members of the FRC are dedicated to sustaining Ray’s vision of the FRC.
As a tribute to Ray and his longtime work and love of old time music, Bruce Molsky and the FRC produced “Ray’s Dream,” a very special collection of Ray playing with many of his friends. It was Ray’s request that this CD be produced and distributed at the service celebrating his life which was held in November of 2009 and that it also be made available free to those who purchase at least 5 other FRC CDs. In addition we are offering it for the standard price of $15. You can buy it in our online store.
2009 CDs - Available for sale as of June 2009
In this, our sixth year of issuing traditional music, we are offering 13 powerful and far-reaching new CDs for 2009. The older generation is well represented by some miraculous discoveries of fiddle and banjo music focused on locations in North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Tennessee. This includes two marvelous CDs of Tommy Jarrell in concert with Mike Seeger and Paul Brown, the Shelor-Blackard Family who, in 1927 went to Bristol, Tennessee and recorded the classic fiddle tune Sandy River Belle, Dock Boggs in a rare 1966 Concert, the Ola Belle Reed and Alex Campbell Radio shows, the terrific Fiddlin' Van Kidwell of Ohio, as well as the wonderful banjo music of Addie Leffew, Claude Wolfenbarger and Walter Babson. The younger generation is represented by the eclectic free-form Nee Ningy Band, old time music’s answer to the Fugs and the Holy Modal Rounders.
3 new DVDs are available: FRC1003 - Clyde & Ralph Troxell; FRC1004 - Clyde Davenport; and FRC1005 - Virgil Anderson. You can view the trailer here (see below). Each disc is available for sale at $20 per disc or all three as a set for $45. You can buy them on our store page.
Map showing the locations in the USA of musicians who appear on the FRC recordings.
To celebrate our sixth year in existence, we are offering the entire 13 CD 2009 series for only $136.50 plus shipping, giving you reduced wholesale pricing of only $10.50 per CD. We have also added a page of discounts for specific Special Sets (see the box below). Please also remember that we have four DVDs, available separately from the CDs. In 2007 we produced the powerfully primordial sounds of the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers (see a video clip here). In 2009 we added three DVDs all concentrating on south-central Kentucky, one on Clyde Davenport, a second one on Virgil Anderson and the third on the fiddle-banjo duets of the Troxell Brothers. To order these CDs and DVDs, please visit our online store.To listen to excerpts from all our CDs, please visit our Listen page.
Field Recorders' Collective on NPR
Remembering Some Remarkable Lives Lost In 2009 - Talk of the Nation (December 30, 2009) - Paul Brown's remembrance of Ray Alden starts around 33:00 and lasts about 5 minutes
Saving Folk History, One Recording At A Time (January 22, 2009)- Click on "Listen Now" at the top of the page to hear the actual broadcast. David Gura did a LOVELY job and it is interesting to boot.
Field Recorders' Collective in The Old Time Herald
Paul Brown's memorial, The Connector: Ray Alden appears in The Old-Time Herald Volume 12, Number 2.
Letters from Musicians' Families
I received the CDs yesterday along with the check. I have just finished listening to it with tears of sadness and joy. I wanted to write to you and thank you for recording this CD. This is my favorite one of him, getting to hear his voice again is an added bonus. When I was a young girl my favorite fiddle tune that I always asked my Uncle to play for me was "Turkey in the Straw." I never thought that I would be blessed to hear this tune by my uncle again. I remember my uncle listening to those old 78rpms. He would practice and practice till he got the tune to his satisfaction. And if you talked you got hit in the head with his fiddle bow. Since my nickname was "gabby" you can imagine how many picks I received on my head with that fiddle bow.
I also had the pleasure of listening to Perry Riley, Jimmy Wheeler and Morris Allen when I was younger. I had this privilege because Leona (Stamm, played guitar on Buddy's Rounder CD) was my mother and either Uncle Bud was at our house or we were at his. I have to tell you with much sadness that my mother passed away November 1988. Out of the ten children my grandmother had, only Aunt Jean and Aunt Bessie are left living. I know this CD will be the family's favorite one.
– Noretta Thomas, January 2006
Ray, I received the CD. Thank you for doing this for me. When I listen to it I cried. It seemed like Lonnie was sitting in our room playing like he did every day till he became ill with cancer. He couldn't play but he had me to get his fiddle so he could hold it and look at it. Our son Fred wishes to thank you also.
– Betty Seymour, January 2006
Translated from a review in Trad Magazine, France, June 2007
We have made the discovery of a remarkable record label, the Field Recorders' Collective, which is dedicated to the promotion of rural American music. Collectors of traditional music are often confronted with this problem: how to make a larger public aware of their best recordings. This particular brand of music, interesting as it is, is not always the record stores' cup of tea…
Now let's talk about the music, the most important thing after all! The emphasis is placed on the traditional repertoire of the Appalachians, in the Eastern United States, a region of fiddlers and banjo players. Good singers, too! Not a bad record in the bunch! And beyond the music itself, there's the human story: these old musicians are the representatives of a quickly disappearing world.
A Note from the Field Recorders' Collective
"All things pass; all that lives must die. All that we prize is but lent to us, and the time comes when we must surrender it. We are travelers on the same road that leads to the same end."
The Field Recorders' Collective, originally formed with five collectors, is now a growing group of collectors who have generously agreed to share their field recordings with the old time community. Both the collectors and the musicians they recorded have traveled parts of the same old time music road. Members of the collective, just as did the musicians they recorded, wish to share the tunes and creative individual styles that developed in isolated communities with others seeking their own right of way on the road.
Virtually none of these musicians have been heard on commercially released recordings, and certainly none of these performances have been previously available on recordings with such good sound quality. Attention to the best possible sound re-mastering has been accomplished through use of digital audio workstations featuring advanced software that applies techniques such as noise reduction, compression, fast Fourier analysis and multi-band frequency equalization. Most of the musicians recorded by the collective have passed on; however, in many cases we are in touch with their immediate families and, when so, are able to share financial benefits of these recordings with them. We are extremely pleased to yearly receive letters of appreciation from these families for honoring and keeping the memory of their treasured musician-relative alive.
