Far in the Mountains, Vol. 5, Echoes from the Mountains: Songs and Tunes from Mike Yates' Appalachian Collections, 1979-1983
2014; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2056-6166
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Musicological Studies
ResumoCD + booklet (Musical Traditions MTCD513, 2013). [pounds sterling]12.00. This collection is a fine successor to Mike Yates's two previous double CD albums under the Far in the Mountains title, issued by Musical Traditions more than a decade ago. As on those CDs, the performances here were recorded during collecting trips made in Virginia and North Carolina in 1979, 1980, and 1983, and feature many of the same performers. As he reveals in the accompanying notes, Yates's interests moved in other directions for a time after the release of the first two Far in the Mountains collections and he set aside the field recordings for several years; a recent return to the remaining material prompted him to compile the present collection. Despite being an 'afterthought', however, both the quality and interest of the performances offered on this CD remain high. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Some of the performers included are known from other recording projects. There are tracks here from Tommy Jarrell, Benton Flippen, Stella and Taylor Kimble, and Doug Wallin, for example. Guitar and banjo virtuoso Walt Davis first recorded in 1931 and was subsequently a regular radio performer. Singer Eunice Yeatts MacAlexander was first recorded by the Virginia Folklore Society in the early 1930s. Yates was introduced to these and others through networks of fellow collectors, musicians, family members, and neighbours in the mountains; he met banjo player Howard Hall when he knocked on his door to ask directions and saw a banjo case in the hall! The tracks here from Hall and fiddler William Marshall are among the most spirited in the collection. The range of material is wide: numerous instrumentals on banjo and fiddle individually and in duet (and a small portion of 'string hand' performances including guitar) from the traditional stock, and others derived from the nineteenth-century minstrel and stage repertoire and the early twentieth-century sheet music catalogue. There are also a few sung verses potentially used to accompany dancing (Morris Norton's 'Mirandy', Dan Tate's 'Sally Ann' and 'Groundhog'). The instrumental tracks are mostly short: in many cases they are almost 'demonstrations' of the tunes and of individuals' playing styles rather than sustained 'performances'. It is a moot point whether this is a consequence of 'collecting'--performers were intent on ensuring that the collector acquired a 'sample' of their material and their interpretation of it--or of the wider decline and/or disappearance of the social and functional contexts in which these mostly elderly musicians had previously performed their music. (Equally, individual musicians, when asked if they know a particular tune or to demonstrate their playing style, typically quite modestly run through a tune a couple of times and then stop--'performances' result from other circumstances.) Songs include two local murder ballads (Dan Tate's 'Poor Ellen Smith' and Rob Tate 'The Lawson Family Murder'): lyric songs, such as Inez Chandler's 'The Leaves Are Green', Dan Tate's 'Wagoners Boy', and Doug Wallin's 'Let Her Go, Let Her Go' (each evidently constructed from other songs or more widely distributed floating verses); a couple of comic items (Eunice Yeatts MacAlexander's 'Preacher and the Bear', which she used to sing to her charges as a teacher in a one-room school, and Inez Chandler's 'Daddy Had a Billy Goat); and a fine 'white gospel' piece, 'Beautiful Star of Bethlehem' from Evelyn and Douston Ramsey. …
Referência(s)