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FRC Store – 2007 CDs

Here you will find the issues for 2007: 11 CDs for sale (plus 2 video DVDs). You will find the most recent (2008) issues on this page. Please follow the links to our Special CD Sets, 2004, 2005, 2006, and Young Musician Series CDs and our photograph store.

Ordering information

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For track listings and sample sound clips, click on the links below.

2007 CD Releases

FRC2007 - 2007 eleven-CD audio set– all for one price of $125.

FRC107– Esker Hutchins (From the collection of Ray Alden) $15 per disc
Esker Hutchins lived in Dobson, North Carolina and was neighbor to Frank and Oscar Jenkins. He was a fiddle mentor to Benton Flippen (FRC 102) of nearby Round Peak. Benton played banjo with Esker's band, the Surry County Ramblers. Esker learned some of his tunes from older area fiddlers such as Crawley Hamlin (tracks 3, 4) and Frank Jenkins (track 14), some from newer fiddlers such as Arthur Smith (track 9) broadcast on the radio. Esker and his band regularly appeared at the Union Grove Fiddler's Convention (tracks 1, 38 and 39) and he often played with Oscar Jenkins (tracks 2, 37). This CD offers a rare visit to Esker's home, while at the same time giving an idea of the powerful music he made at conventions. - Ray Alden Track list Sound clip

FRC108– John Ashby and the Free State Ramblers (From the collection of Ray Alden) $15 per disc
John C. Ashby (1915-1979) began playing fiddle in 1926 at his home near Warrenton, Virginia. Influenced by his Uncle Joe, local postmaster John Sullivan and neighbors Walt Graham, Cy Kines and John Sinclair, John learned tunes such as "Hornpipe in A" and "Rattlesnake Bit the Baby." Circa 1940 John formed the Free State Ramblers, a band consisting of family and musician friends. "Free State" refers to a 12 square mile area near Warrenton that declared itself "free" in 1806, refusing to pay rent or taxes to landowner Chief Justice John Marshall. Visit our website to read Sandy Hofferth's Old Time Herald article about the Ashby Family. These recordings were made in New York City at a concert given in April, 1972. - Ray Alden Track list Sound clip Additional Notes #1 Additional Notes #2

FRC207– Dewey Balfa with Friends & Family
(From the collection of the Brandwine Friends of Old Time Music) $15 per disc
Fiddler Dewey Balfa was born on March 20, 1927 near Mamou, Louisiana, one of nine children in a family of sharecroppers. He learned to play the fiddle from his father, taking early inspiration from the music of Leo Soileau, Harry Choates and Bob Wills. During World War II, he continued playing music, sitting in with a variety of western swing bands. By the late 1940s, Dewey returned home to Louisiana, where he teamed with his siblings Rodney, Will, Harry and Burkeman to play local parties and dances as The Musical Brothers. In 1964, Dewey led a group of Cajun musicians at the Newport Folk Festival, ending in a standing ovation from the 17,000-plus attendees, providing concrete proof that Cajun music could find a wide audience. With Rodney and Will, daughter Nelda and accordionist Hadley Fontenot, Dewey officially formed The Balfa Brothers band in 1965, and with them returned to Newport in 1967 to similar acclaim. Deweyﾕs worked closely with the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana to increase studies of the French language in state schools; he also campaigned successfully for a Cajun music festival. Tragedy struck in 1979, when Will and Rodney were both killed in an auto accident and in 1980, Deweyﾕs wife Hilda died as well. Dewey re-formed The Balfa Brothers with daughter Christine and nephew Tony. In 1982, he was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor given folk artists by the National Endowment of the Arts. After a long battle with cancer, Dewey Balfa died on June 17, 1992. - Brandywine Friends of Old Time Music Track list Sound clip

FRC208– The Dixie Hummingbirds & the Little Wonders
(From the collection of the Brandwine Friends of Old Time Music) $15 per disc
Sunday morning at the Brandywine Mountain Music Convention was always special. Ola Belle Reed first introduced us to the Little Wonders, a gospel group originally formed in 1941 from Havre de Grace, Maryland. The Little Wonders broadcast on AM radio each Sunday from their church and specialized in older-style "jubilee" singing. In later years we engaged the legendary Dixie Hummingbirds gospel quartet residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Dixie Hummingbirds first formed in 1928 in South Carolina and later became well-known, appearing circa 1942 at New Yorkﾕs Cafè Society club alongside the Golden Gate Quartet and Billie Holiday. Though both groups used one guitar, they sang essentially in a cappella style. Read more about them at www.fieldrecorder.com and from Jerry Zolten's book, "Great God A'Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds". - Carl Goldstein, the Brandywine Friends of Old-Time Music Track list Sound clip

FRC307– The Ross County Farmers - 1948 Radio Shows (From the collection of Betty Seymour) $15 per disc
These selections reflect a variety of traditional and popular music played by the Seymour family and their community in the late 1940s. Several tracks are from Saturday night programs of The Ross County Farmers (Lonnie Seymour, Joe Elliot, Eldon Shoemaker and others), broadcast by local radio station WBEX. A few are from other broadcasts; the rest are home performances of family and friends. The recordings were made on a disc-cutting ﾒUltratoneﾓ machine owned by Lonnie Seymour. - Lynn Frederick & Susan Goehring Track list Sound clip

FRC308– Dennis McGee & Sadie Courville (From the collection of Jack Bond) $15 per disc
Dennis McGee (1893-1989) and Sady Courville (1905-1988) formed the musical bedrock for Cajun fiddling. As Roger Weiss described their complex twin fiddling styles; "a less-beautiful form of musicﾉrawﾉimpassioned." Dennis and Sady recorded eight tunes for Vocalion in 1929. Afterwards, Dennis recorded additional songs with Ernest Frugè Amedè Ardoin, and Angelas Le Jeunne. In July 1972, after Dennis and Sady performed at the National Folk Festival, they traveled to Joe Bussardﾕs home to be recorded by Charles Faurot for the first time since 1929 for Richard Nevins' now rare Morning Star LP #16001. This CD includes the LP's twelve songs plus sixteen previously unreleased tunes from that recording session. - Jack Bond Track list Sound clip

FRC407– Franklin George with John Hilt –(From the collection of Fred Coon) $15 per disc
Frank George is a West Virginia icon. No fiddler, banjo player, hammered dulcimer player or bagpiper grows up in West Virginia without knowing the name Frank George. Frank and his wife Jane have founded festivals, supported local historical events and been the backbone of West Virginia traditional music for fifty years. Forty years ago, when these recordings were made, Alan Jabbour remarked that Frank had forgotten more tunes than Alan knew, saying further that Frank could play well over 1000 tunes. Frank knew, played with and shared the West Virginia fiddling tradition with French Carpenter, Ira Mullins, Doc White, and Virginia fiddler, John Fitzgerald Hilt, who appears on this recording. Frank George personifies traditional West Virginia Old Time Music. - Fred Coon Track list Sound clip

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FRC408– Aunt Jenny Wilson –(From the collection of Fred Coon) $15 per disc
Aunt Jenny was born in 1901 (some say 1900) and grew up in Logan, West Virginia and remained on Peach Creek most of her life. She was a true "Mountain Woman" in every way possible. Her double thumb style of playing on her old store bought "banjer," combined with her gravely-throated singing offered all who listened a chance to move into another time and place in history as she shared her extraordinary repertoire of ballads, indigenous West Virginia songs and fiddle tunes on her "banjer." She was a truly remarkable person, a wonderful musician and my friend. - Fred Coon

In the summer of 1972, several years after Fred recorded Aunt Jenny and after eating a hearty lunch of meat loaf and vegetables at the railroad workers cafeteria in Logan, Dave Spilkia and I spent a colorful afternoon with Aunt Jenny. Some of those recordings are included here. - Ray Alden Track list Sound clip

FRC507– Wade Ward
(From the collection of Peter Hoover) $15 per disc
Wade Ward, of Independence, Virginia, is perhaps best known for his playing in two bands, the Buck Mountain Band and the Bogtrotters (the Library of Congress recorded nearly 200 songs of this band, which included Wade and his brother Crockett Ward, Crockett's son Fields and their neighbor Alec Dunford). But Wade played in smaller, more intimate settings as well. Here, in Peter Hoover's recordings from almost half a century ago, is a selection of that music. It gives taste of what it was like in Wade's living room in those long-ago late summers. - Peter Hoover Track list Sound Clip

FRC508– Heywood Blevins –(From the collection of Peter Hoover) $15 per disc
This recording is an infrequent glimpse into Appalachian Mountain piano playing. Oddly enough, there were more than just a sprinkling of pianos in the mountains, a fact corroborated by Virginia pianists such as Hobart Smith, Clarice Shelor of Meadows of Dan and Mabel Dalton of Galax. John Hoffman, writing about Peter Hoover's recording trips, described Heywood's style; "Mr. Blevins, from Baywood, VA, said that he played piano the way that his father played the banjo. The tunes have that banjo bounce bearing some resemblance, or feel, to Hobart Smith's piano playing. What is interesting about Heywood's playing is the fact that many of the tunes are played in atypical mountain music tunings, F, E, G#, etc. Peter noted how often Haywood was playing on the black keys." These recordings come from two other sources beside Peter Hoover, including those of the late Blanton Owen and Carol Holcomb, whose father Howard Joines plays fiddle with Heywood on several tracks of this CD. - Ray Alden Track list Sound clip

FRC601– Jeff Goehring –(From the collection of Ray Alden) $15 per disc
Jeff Goehring was born into a musical Missouri family in 1957 and raised near Columbus, Ohio. As a teenager his fiddling was greatly influenced by Ward Jarvis (FRC401), whom Jeff often visited in southern Ohio. Jeff also sought out and learned from a number of other Ohio fiddlers, and from both young and old musicians of Missouri, Round Peak and elsewhere (documented on FRC402, 403, 404, 405, and 406). By the early 1980s Jeff, wife Sue and brother Rick were the musical core of the Red Mule String Band. In various band permutations and as a tightly-knit trio, the Mules continued to perform until shortly before Jeff's death in 2001. - Lynn Frederick Track list Sound clip

2007 DVD Video Releases

FRC1001– Hiram Stamper –(From the collection of Marynell Young) $20 per disc
This rare video of Hiram Stamper (born 1892), featuring tunes such as "Glory in the Meetin' House," opens a door to a past era previously only represented to us by the 1937 John Lomax Library of Congress recordings of Luther Strong, Boyd Asher, and Bev Baker. In fact, Hiram explains at the beginning of the video the confusion created when Lomax put in his field notes, Bev Bailey, instead of the correct Bev Baker. In the summer of 1985, when this was recorded, Hiram was working a three-acre corn field by hand at age 93 at his home in eastern Kentucky's Knott County. Hiram's recollections give us an oral history of the region's music as, according to Hiram; "Brushy Forks of John's Creek" was the last tune played in the Civil War. Hiram said "I remember the day the song, John Hardy, came into these hills: I was 16 years old." - Marynell Young Track list

Please Note: This DVD is encoded ONLY for REGION 1 (USA, Canada)

FRC1002– Roan Mountain Hilltoppers –(From the collection of Ray Alden) $20 per disc
In July, 1987, one month after I had hired the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers to play at New York's Clearwater Revival, I went to Shell Creek, Tennessee to visit them. Previous to this trip, the only video depiction of the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers was from British punk musician Malcolm McLaren's 1983 "Duck Rock" project (see www.YouTube). This DVD focuses on the fun, charisma and strength of the Birchfield's personalities and music. Included on this DVD are Joe Birchfield (fiddle), his son Bill (guitar) and his brother Creede (banjo), lacking only Bill's wife Janice, washtub bass player with the group. Joe's 8 siblings and his father played music, but it was Joe's uncle Johnny who most influenced his strong "sawmill" style fiddling. - Ray Alden Track list Video Clip

Please Note: This DVD is encoded ONLY for REGION 1 (USA, Canada)

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