HOBART SMITH
Blue Ridge Legacy (Rounder)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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This installment in Rounder Records ongoing Alan Lomax Collection project offers 31 selections from Hobart Smith, who was first recorded by Lomax in the field in 1942. Over the next two decades, through recordings and festival appearances, Smith would become a seminal influence on the folk revival. His style and repertoire were studied and appropriated by a new generation of string band and old-timey players who may never have set foot near the Blue Ridge Mountains, but who found the universal appeal of Hobarts instrumental proficiency and musical authenticity unavoidable.

Blue Ridge Legacy includes tracks featuring Smith's work on banjo, guitar, fiddle, piano and vocals. Particularly significant is the inclusion of 19 previously unreleased tracks, including interview material describing the old-timey dances that provided the primary performance outlet for Appalachian musicians. This new material is a valuable addition to the legacy of an invaluable American musical treasure.

Track List:

The Devil's Dream * Drunken Hiccups * The Cuckoo Bird * Banging Breakdown * Arkansas Traveller * Railroad Bill * Claude Allen * Hangman, Swing Your Rope * Wayfaring Stranger * Sourwood Mountain * Going Down The Road Feeling Bad * Pateroller * Chinquipin Pie * Last Chance * Jim Along * Two Brothers (The Little Schoolboy) * Ellen Smith * Graveyard Blues * K.C. Blues * Unidentified Electric Guitar Tune * Cindy * At An Old Timey Dance (interview) * Cindy * The Thrill Of Dance Music (interview) * What Did The Buzzard Say To The Crow * Buck Dance * Old Joe Clark * Dixie * Sourwood Mountain * Hawkins County Jail * Rocky Mountain

© 2001 - Shaun Dale