Search - Doug Wallin & Jack :: Family Songs And Stories From The North Carolina Mountains

Pure Gold

T. W. | Northeastern United States | 08/02/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The liner notes for this record mention an occasion when Doug Wallin interrupted his singing of "House Carpenter" to remark, "Now there's a lonesome note!" Lonesome notes are here in plenty. If you are interested in listening to one of the truest and ablest exponents of an ancient ballad tradition, this CD is for you. The virtue of this recording is that we hear the songs interpreted by men who, while adhering to a quite conservative strain of the English/Scots-Irish ballad tradition, are no less consummate MUSICIANS for that. The power and passion of these recordings, ranging from astonishingly stark and sparse to fuller arrangements with banjo that are no less true, are simply not arguable. This is the real thing, and will affect anyone who has a taste for traditional music that tends to carry a tinge of fearsome melancholy energy. Now, I ordered this CD and another because I wanted some old time music of the region to listen to as I sit up here on a mountainside in Haywood County, North Carolina, where I am working for a few weeks. (As I write this, a bat is flying through the mists of a clearing storm.) I tried to choose carefully, and I really hit the jackpot with this one. I paired it with "Songs from the Mountain," an effort from Dirk Powell, Tim O'Brien, and John Herrmann to recreate with some fidelity the 19th century music that pervades the popular novel "Cold Mountain." There is no comparison between the two--"Songs from the Mountain" reeks of the modern "folk" concert venue, and we hear little of the raw power or true rhythms that fill "Family Songs and Stories." (By the way, the two tracks of stories add some real flavor without interrupting the music for too long.) In short, if you got as far as this page, don't miss this record--it is a true gift to have these real traditional musicians' work preserved."