a m e r i c a n r o o t s m u s i c • t r a d i t i o n a l c o u n t r y • b l u e s • f o l k • a m e r i c a n a m u s i c • a m e r i c a n r o o t s
m u s i c • t r a d i t i o n a l c o u n t r y • b l u e s • f o l k • a m e r i c a n a m u s i c • a m e r i c a n r o o t s m u s i c • t r a d i t i o n
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Stephen Collins Foster Jul 4, 1826 - Jan 13, 1864 Stephen Foster was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of his era. Many of his songs,
such as "Oh! Susanna", "Camptown Races" and "Beautiful Dreamer", are still popular over 150 years
after their composition. Foster was born in Lawrenceville, which later became part of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, and grew up the youngest of ten children in a relatively well-off family. His education
included a month at college, but little formal music training. |
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James Charles Rodgers Sep 8, 1897 - May 26, 1933 Jimmie Rodgers is considered to be the father of country music. Known as "The Singing
Brakeman" and "The Blue Yodeler," Rodgers was born September 8, 1897 in Pine Springs,
Mississippi, and spent most of boyhood accompanying his father on railroad jobs. He eventually
became a railroad brakeman, an extremely dangerous and highly skilled job. |
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Van Williams Feb 16, 1926 - Apr 24, 2005 Van Williams has been referred to as 'America's Foremost Purveyor
of Jimmie Rodgers Music.' But Van was much more than just a Jimmie Rodgers singer. His love and
knowledge of classic traditional songs was incredible. Born in Rayville, Louisiana in 1926,
Williams began playing music at the age of 15. In 1945 while serving in World War II, Williams was
blinded in both eyes by a sniper's bullet, also losing both the sense of taste and smell. After this unfortunate incident, he turned
his full attention to music and began performing in public in the mid-60s. |
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The Original Carter Family
Considered to be country music's first family, the Carter Family was a rural
country music group that performed between 1927 and 1943. The original group was a trio comprised
of Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter (A.P.), his wife, Sara Dougherty Carter (autoharp), and Maybelle
Carter (guitar). Maybelle was married to A.P.'s brother Ezra (Eck) Carter. All three were born and
raised in southwestern Virginia where they were immersed in the tight harmonies of mountain gospel
music and shape note singing. Maybelle's distinctive and innovative guitar playing style quickly
became a hallmark of the group. Maybelle's daughter, June Carter joined the group in the early
1940s. |
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Sidney J. Harkreader Feb 26, 1898 - Mar 19, 1988 "Fiddlin'" Sid Harkreader grew up in the farmlands of Middle
Tennessee's Wilson County. During World War I, he left his father's farm to work at a
munitions plant just outside of Nashville. It was at Melton's Barbershop, a well-known
hangout for Nashville's growing community of "old-time" musicians, he met Uncle
Dave Macon, a banjo-playing vaudevillian who liked the young fiddler and promptly asked
him to join his act. The two toured the southern vaudeville circuit. By the fall of 1925,
Sid was performing regularly on Nashville's newly inaugurated
WSM radio station on the Barn Dance (soon to be renamed the Grand Ole Opry). |
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Roy Claxton Acuff Sep 15, 1903 - Nov 23, 1992 Roy Acuff was born in Maynardville, Tennessee, the third of
five children. He played semi-professional baseball, but an injury in 1929 and a nervous
breakdown in 1930 ended his aspirations to play for the New York Yankees. He then turned
his attention to his father's fiddle and began playing traveling medicine shows touring
the South. In 1936, he recorded a cover of the traditional song "The Great
Speckled Bird," however, his performance of it on his Grand Ole Opry debut was not well received. |
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Clarence Eugene Snow May 9, 1914 - Dec 20, 1999 Hank Snow, was born in Nova Scotia, Canada. When he was 14, he ordered
his first guitar from Eaton's catalog for $5.95, and played his first show in a church
basement in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia at the age of 16. A successful appearance on a local
radio station led to him being given a chance to audition for RCA Records in Montreal,
Quebec. In 1936, he signed with RCA, staying with them for more than forty-five years. |
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Kitty Wells August 30, 1919 - Born Ellen Muriel Deason, in Nashville, Tennessee, she was given the name Kitty Wells, by
her husband Johnny Wright. Johnny got the name from the old folk ballad recorded by
the Pickard Family, entitled "Sweet Kitty Wells." Considered to be the Queen of
Country Music, she created the role for all other female country singers. "It Wasn't God Who
Made Honky Tonk Angels" recorded in 1952, was her first number one song.
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Hiriam "Hank" Williams Sep 17, 1923 - Jan 1, 1953 Hank Williams was born in Mount Olive, Alabama, the second child of Lon and Lillie Williams.
Afflicted with spina bifida at birth, Hank may well have gravitated toward music as an
alternative to sports. It was while living in Georgiana, AL, he
befriended Rufe Payne, a black street musician better known as "Tee-Tot." who years later Hank would say had given him "all the music training I ever
had." Most music biographers consider Payne the source of the noticeable blues influence
running through Hank's music. |
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Robert Leroy Johnson May 8, 1911 – Aug 16, 1938 Robert Johnson is among the most famous Delta Blues musicians and arguably the most
influential. Considered by some to be the "Grandfather of Rock-and-Roll," his
vocal phrasing, original songs, and guitar style influenced a range of musicians, including
Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, U2, and Eric Clapton, who called Johnson "the
most important blues musician who ever lived."
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Woodrow Wilson Guthrie Jul 14, 1912 – Oct 3, 1967 Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma. His parents named him after Woodrow Wilson, who was
elected president in the same year. At age 19, he left home for Texas, where he met and
married his first wife, Mary Jennings, with whom he had three children. He used his musical
talents to earn money as a street musician and by doing small gigs. He left Texas and his
family with the coming of the Dust Bowl era, following the Okies to California.
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Ola Belle Reed Aug 17, 1915 - Aug 16, 2002 Born Ola Wave Campbell in Lansing, North Carolina, was one of thirteen children born
to Arthur Harrison
Campbell and Ella May Osborne Campbell. Arthur Harrison was an educated man who spent his life
as a school teacher. He also owned a general store and was a dedicated farmer during summer months on his
farm in the New River Valley. The Great Depression brought a huge economic burden on the large
Campbell family, and they followed many Appalachian mountain people to Northeastern Maryland. |
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Dave Reed Dave Reed is the son of the "very special, the very famous, the one
and only Ola Belle Reed." Dave is a very fine bluegrass player and appeared with his
mom and his dad, Bud, at festivals throughout the Northeast. His first CD release, Blue Grass
Gospel, is long overdue and is a
wonderful collection of 11 of his very own compositions as well as several of Ola Belle's
songs. It
was always Ola Belle's wish that Dave would carry on her music as well as his own. "The last day I
was with her alive I made a promise to her. I took her by the hand and with excitement I told her I was
going to record some of her songs along with mine." |
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Rattlesnake Annie
Rattlesnake Annie was born Rosan Gallimore and raised on her family's cotton and tobacco farm near Puryear, Tennessee. Her father was a renowned blues and country singer, and in her spare time Annie began writing poetry and learning to play the guitar. When she was about 12, she and two cousins formed the Gallimore Sisters and performed professionally at local churches and political rallies, as well as funerals. Read on … |
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Bob Pyle Bob Pyle is an award-winning, old time banjo player who has performed at
fiddler's conventions nationwide. His new release, Apples and Oranges features some of the
Baltimore-Washington area's finest musicians, including
bluegrass legend DeDe Wyland and musical virtuoso Billy Kemp. Also featured is concert
violinist, Janice Martin, who plays her genuine Antonio Stradivari Cremona 1708. |
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Carl Jones & Beverly Smith Jones & Smith have
appeared on the traditional music scene playing just about anything with strings or
tossing in vocal harmonies wherever there was the oppportunity. In
their recordings they bring those years of experience to the art of the duet—songs and
tunes, old and new, done simply and with love. |
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Buddy Spicher
Buddy Spicher has been one of "Music City's"
most in-demand studio musicians for three decades. His versatile, precision fiddle
style has made enormous contributions to the commercial success of classic earlier
recordings by Ray Price, Kitty Wells and Hank Snow, as well as those of George Strait,
Henry Mancini, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones, to name a few of the
countless artists with whom he as worked. Having been aptly called "the Jascha
Heifetz of the country fiddle " Spicher's genius for arrangements and harmony
made him a favorite with Nashville record producers. |
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The Singing Sweethearts The Singing Sweetheearts first met in December of 1951, when Dan Poehland traveled from Baltimore, Maryland to Moosup, Connecticut as
an inspector of aircraft parts for the Glen L. Martin Company. And it was there
he first met Cecile his "singing sweetheart." Fellow inspector and friend, Pete MacGane,
first boasted to Dan of a girl that worked at Majestic Metal Specialties that likewise sang
Country and Western Music on WERI, the local radio station. |
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Fishken & Groves
Fishken & Groves occupy a category that seems
to have been abandoned in folk music, that of song interpreters, or song stylists.
Brooklyn-born Fishken was 'raised' on Ramblin' Jack Elliott records, and Groves wanted to be
first a cowboy, and then a hobo, when she grew up. Here is a case of ‘city folk yearning
to be where the buffalo roam,’ and the realization that you can do it in song. And that
they do. |
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"Since migrating from Cambridge,
Mass to Nashville some three decades ago, Mark Brine has carved out a strong
reputation as an uncompromising traditionalist on the country music scene which
has made him one of the elder statesmen of Americana."
-- Shaun Dale, Cosmik Debris Magazine
"I could listen to him sing all night long … he does a good job that boy does." -- Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb Midnight Jamboree "A fine young man who I think has a great future." -- Hank Snow, Grand Ole Opry "Brine could easily have been added to the cast of 'O Brother, Where Art Thou' without raising an eyebrow. He belongs to that group of artists whose individuality and quirkiness consign them to the periphery of what's commercially viable. But God bless him for not just being another cog in the musical wheel." -- James McSweeney, Flyin Shoes |
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"Brine has made a long career of flying under the
folk/country radar for a long time and has picked up a bunch of awards and recognition just the same. A real Americana act, Brine fuses elements of all the stuff we've been listening to for years that you really can't compare to anything else that’s sure to really draw you under it's spell." -- Chris Spector, Midwest Record Recap "I think Mark Brine must be Americana's
best kept secret. A singer/songwriter for over thirty years, friend of the late and legendary
pioneer fiddlin' Sid Harkreader, Brine writes wonderful story songs about ordinary people and
ordinary places. To tell these stories, Mark has a voice that is as comfortable as a favourite
coat." -- Pete Smith,
Country Music Round Up "His career has pursued the path of a truly independent artist - someone who follows his soul and does things his own way – his ability to write and produce has made his name synonymous with quality." -- Doug Floyd, AltCountryTab.com "I think what makes Mark Brine such a gifted songwriter/storyteller is the fact that he seems to be such an obvious fan of many genres of music. He's someone who is like a sponge when it comes to reintegrating influences into his own work." -- Gail Worley, Ink 19 ©2004 Mark Brine Music. All rights reserved. |
