Track Listing

1. In the Sweet By and By - Elizabeth Cotten
2. Tie Your Dog Sally Gal - Will Adam
3. Banjo Instrumental - J.C. "Cleve" Sutphin
4. Lost Train Blues - Vernon L. Sutphin
5. Shortening Bread - J.C. "Cleve" Sutphin, Vernon L. Sutphin
6. Train That Carried My Girl from Town - J.C. "Cleve" Sutphin, Vernon L. Sutphin
7. Old Gambling Man - J.J. Neece
8. John Henry - J.J. Neece
9. Shout Little Lulu - Louise Foreacre
10. He Will Set Your Fields on Fire - Kilby Snow
11. Gather in the Golden Grain - Hattie Stoneman
12. Going to Lay Down My Burdens - Elizabeth White
13. John Henry - Lesley Riddle
14. Pretty Fair Damsel - Clarence Ashley
15. It's These Hard Times - Pearly "Grandma" Davis
16. Old-Time Reel - Pearly "Grandma" Davis
17. Jackson Schottische - A.L. Hall
18. Lone Prairie - Wade Ward
19. Molly Put the Kettle On - Wade Ward
20. Last Gold Dollar - Bill McElreath
21. John Henry - Bill Davis, Jean Davis
22. Three Nights Drunk - Blue Ridge Buddies
23. Jimmie Sutton - Blue Ridge Buddies
24. Going to Lay Down My Old Guitar - Ira Dimmery, Snuffy Jenkins
25. Black Mountain Rag - Kirk McGee, Sam McGee, Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith
26. Talk on the World - Clyde Lewis
27. Red Wing - Ray "Lost John" Koken, Walt Koken
28. Leather Breeches - The New Lost City Ramblers, Eck Robertson
29. Blackberry Blossom - Sherman Lawson
30. Alabama Gals - Emmett Cole
31. Old Joe Clark - George Landers
32. Sugar Baby - Dock Boggs
33. Queen Sally - Archie Sturgill
34. Poor Orphan Child - Kate Peters Sturgill
35. My Virginia Rose Is Blooming - Scott Boatright
36. I'm Leaving You - Sara Carter, Mother Maybelle Carter
37. He Said, If You Love Me, Feed My Sheep - The Stancer Quartet
38. I Would Not Live Always - Clarence Ferrill

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #182458 in Music
• Brand: Old
• Released on: 1997-06-17
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Album Description
In the 1950's and sixties musician-collector Mike Seeger, inspired by the great folksong collectors of the 1930's, visited traditional musicians of the rural South. This is his handpicked selection of the recordings made during those visits. Included in the 38 selections are previously unreleased recordings by the well-known Sara & Maybelle Carter, Arthur Smith, Elizabeth Cotten, and Dock Boggs, as well as treasures by lesser-known artists. The enclosed booklet contains photographs and notes on the performance, which include virtuoso fiddle, banjo, and guitar music, unaccompanied ballad singing, and a story-teller entertaining his buddies in a fiddler's convention parking lot.

Amazon.com
Mike Seeger's fame is often overshadowed by his older half-brother Pete Seeger's notoriety, but his contributions to the American folk canon--both as a member of the New Lost City Ramblers and as a song collector--are pretty impressive in their own right. Close to Home is Seeger's hand-picked selection of recordings he made on visits to the south in the 1950's and 60's. It's a refreshing, very well annotated sampler, chock full of previously unreleased old-timey tracks by important artists like Sara & Maybelle Carter, Elizabeth Cotten, Dock Boggs, Wade Ward and Texas fiddler Eck Robertson. Some of the lesser known musicians, though, steal the show--just check out Kilby Snow's stunning autoharp solo, "He Will Set Your Fields on Fire." --Michael Ruby

Customer Reviews

A great guide to old time
I am fairly new to Old Time music, but I found this album a great resource/roadmap for finding out more about this style & the people who play(ed) it. Many of the artists on the disc are not as obscure & forgotten as I first thought. The fact that the music is recorded live makes it easier to listen to than reissue compilations from poorly remastered 78s and there are some great songs. The liner notes are informative & interesting. I highly recommend this CD.

He laid his banjo down and he died
With Mike Seeger's death on 8/7/09, we've lost someone who did a great deal to help America discover America. A real America made up of people who worked hard, played and sang hard, lived what they sang about and developed cultural traditions and creativity well above any of the ways they've been misrepresented in the mainstream media.

I've long thought of this as a sister cd to High Atmosphere, though be it a less successful one for my tastes. This disc is softer, overall. It doesn't have as much grit as I generally prefer, though I've still always enjoyed much of it. Wade Ward is one of the all-timers of 20th Century music... but there's more and better of him on High Atmosphere. Remember, all those Boggs recordings Mike mentions in the liner-notes later came out as Dock Boggs: His Folkways Years 1963-1968. Clarence Ashley makes an appearance here, though unlike Boggs who became grittier and more hard-hitting with age, Clarence became smoother. When I crave Clarence, I reach for Greenback Dollar: 1929-1933. This is the disc that first turned me onto autoharp genius Kilby Snow, though even he went on to be much better represented with the release of Masters of Old-Time Country Autoharp.

An understated, subtle highlight for me is Clarence Ferrill's I Would Not Live Always. I've never been able to shake the notion that this guy was a major influence on Bruce Molsky's haunting Man of Constant Sorrow on Fiddlers 4.

Hopefully Smithsonian/Folkways will still see fit to release the full recordings of Wade Ward even though Mike won't be here to light the fuse. All in all, this is a nice little disc but never one that I've been compelled to reach for as often as Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia or Blue Ridge Legacy - The Alan Lomax Portait Series.

excellent collection
Another great release from Smithsonian Folkways. This is an excellent collection of ballads, songs, fiddle tunes and banjo tunes collected by Mike Seeger from ordinary folks in the Southern United States. Recorded by Seeger on a series of trips spanning several decades, there is a nice balance between better known performers like Dock Boggs and more obscure musicians such as J.J. Neece. While some of these artists (Boggs, Sara and Maybelle Carter, Clarence Ashley, etc.) had commercial careers, these are all field recordings - folk music in its natural state.