Category: Southern Traditional Music Culture

Ham Hound Crave – Paul Kaye

Paul Kaye has recorded before, but this is a record that he wanted to make, proudly released June 29, 2024. He is another lefthanded player (like Roman), and his guitar heroes are likewise from all over the South, clustering in Mississippi. He played behind Honeyboy Edwards (from Shaw, Mississippi) for twenty years, learning the title song from him. Honeyboy in turn had learned it directly from the legendary Rube Lacey, so in that sense, he is a tradition-bearer, third generation style. He’s lived in Chicago since the early nineties, but his guide through the blues thickets in his New York years was Jean Ritchie’s son, John Pickow. John showed him who to listen to and how to listen, and he did. To keep body and soul together and add to his folksinger income level, he teaches at the Old Town School and transcribes music for Hal Leonard.

Used To Ain’t Here No More – Ken Tillery

Ken Tillery: You can tell how much Ken loves the music he plays. He caresses and cajoles it with a soft touch, a sure hand and an ear that won’t quit. He hears the subtleties in a piece and respects them. Now, it’s hard to make a living doing that, especially these days when everything is raucous and overloud. Fortunately, he has a day job that sustains his bad habits, and an understanding wife. The music he plays – he only plays instrumentals – can come from anywhere but commonly it’s rural American, one way or another.

Mildly Popular – Harry Orlove

Harry has mainly been a sideman for most of his musical life, backing the likes of Vassar Clements on guitar and playing banjo with the Bottle Hill bunch. He recently moved east after living in LA for a number of years, playing in Country-Western and R & B ensembles, at gigs and in the studio. Here, along with some of his LA buddies and the help of Reddy Kilowatt, he presents a panoply of Blues, R & B and some unusual pop songs covering roughly the last century.

Death’s Little Black Train – Roman Barten-Sherman

Roman turned twenty making this record of hundred-year-old material. The sources combine Deep-Blues 78s with material mined from the collection of Arizona State Folklorist Jim Griffith. Roman’s in college now, studying Ethnomusicology and playing Jelly Roll Morton pieces on the piano. Roman is a ‘restringing’ lefty player, very unusual to start with, but even perceiving the music backwards, is a flat virtuoso player on whatever chosen instrument.

The Last Trip Home – Wendy Grossman’s New Album

The Last Trip Home – Wendy Grossman: Wendy, now in her seventies no, gave the Folk World a shot back in the seventies and eighties but has relied on her writing skills since then for her daily bread. She writes mainly about The Computer Wars and publishes a magazine called The Skeptic. She never stopped playing though. On this CD, released June 29, 2024, her first project in forty years, she mixes archaic ballad material with more contemporary stuff, backing herself forcefully on guitar, Autoharp and a couple of different squeezeboxes.