Spring Fed Records, a label associated with the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, release Home Made Sugar and a Puncheon Floor, a CD of home recordings made by John Hartford and Howdy Forrester.
Serious fans of acoustic and bluegrass music will know John Hartford as both a pop culture figure and an icon of early 20th century string music. He achieved success in the music business through performing with Glen Campbell on television, and writing his hit song, Gentle On My Mind. This gave him the artistic freedom to pursue his own devilish mix of old time and bluegrass, based on his sincere passion for the artists who preceded him and his own quirky sense of musical humor. Forrester had been “the man” in Nashville during the 1940s.
320 kbps | 116 MB UL | MC ** FLAC
He worked with Bill Monroe on fiddle before and after a stint in the Army, and later recorded with Flatt & Scruggs.
But as a member of Roy Acuff’s band he achieved more mainstream recognition, leading to a string of successful fiddle albums from the late ’50s until shortly before his death in 1987.
In his life long quest to better understand traditional American fiddle music, Hartford befriended as many masters of the style as he could, and this set tunes were recorded during a visit with Forrester in 1986. The album includes numbers that Howdy recalled learning from his Great Uncle, Bob Cates, as opposed to the show numbers he was famous for playing on the Grand Ole Opry.
Greg Reish, Director of the Center for Popular Music, tells that they acquired this tape after Hartford’s passing in 2001.
“The whole album is John on banjo and Howdy on fiddle. The tape, made by John, is one of many remarkable home or field recordings in the CPM archive. We acquired it as part of the Charles Wolfe Collection.
We just took over Spring Fed Records in the middle of 2014, and this is one of our first releases. We decided on this one because the music is great, it’s regional (part of our misssion), and both of these performers generate considerable interest.”
01. Warm Up (0:11)
02. Dugler with a Shoefly On (1:38)
03. That Must Have Been a Tie (0:13)
04. McKinley (1:27)
05. Home Made Sugar and a Puncheon Floor (1:09)
06. Arthur Smith’s Twinkle Little Star (1:54)
07. I’ve Never Heard Anybody Play It but Arthur (0:44)
08. Stump Tail Dog (1:36)
09. Well It’s Different (0:13)
10. Uncle John Wills’s Lost Indian (1:50)
11. You Did a Whoop (1:00)
12. Still on the Hill (Sells Brothers Circus Rag) (1:58)
13. Tumbling Creek Liza Jane (2:06)
14. Tell You Where I First Heard That One (0:38)
15. Ladies in the Ballroom (1:01)
16. Benny Didn’t Get into That Part (1:27)
17. Going Across the Sea (1:45)
18. That’s More Like a Scotland Tune (0:56)
19. Cotton Eyed Joe (1:36)
20. Sugar in the Gourd (1:38)
21. Possum up a Gum Stump (1:39)
22. Balance All (1:43)
23. Paddy on the Turnpike (1:46)
24. Polly Put the Kettle On (1:46)
25. You Ever Heard Secesh (0:28)
26. Secesh (2:15)
27. Greenback Dollar… Vernon Solomon Never Heard That (0:25)
28. Lady of the Lake (1:46)
29. Roy Talked About Grandpappy George Wilkerson (3:26)
30. Going Uptown (0:45)
31. Even Back in Those Days (2:42)
32. Bitter Creek (0:50)
33. Run out of Tunes (0:16)