Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Soldier's Joy
2. Down in the Willow
3. Brown's Ferry Blues
4. Too Tight Rag
5. Little Birdie
6. Darling Corey
7. Democratic Donkey (Is in His Stall Again)
8. Poor Ellen Smith
9. On Some Foggy Mountain Top
10. Cackling Hen
11. Battleship of Maine
12. Worried Man Blues
13. Unquiet Blues
14. Lady of Carlisle
15. Groundhog
16. Orange Blossom Special [#]
17. East Virginia Blues [#]
18. Country Blues
19. Little Maggie
20. Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake
21. Keep Moving
22. Fortune [#]
23. She Tickles Me
24. Arkansas Traveller
25. Saddle Up the Grey

Disc 2:

1. Sally Goodin
2. Old Bell Cow
3. It's Hard to Leave You, Sweet Love [Stereo]
4. Dark Holler Blues [Stereo]
5. Locks and Bolts [Stereo]
6. Wildwood Weed [Stereo]
7. Milk 'Em in the Evening Blues [Stereo]
8. Madeleine [Stereo]
9. Sourwood Mountain [#]
10. Black Bottom Strut
11. Jordan Is a Hard Road to Travel
12. Old Man at the Mill [#]
13. Tom Sherman's Barroom [#]
14. Turkey in the Straw (Introduction)
15. Turkey in the Straw [#]
16. Old Joe Clark [Stereo][#]
17. Rabbit Chase [#]
18. Poor Old Dirt Farmer
19. Tennessee Blues [Stereo][#]
20. Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar [#]
21. I've Always Been a Rambler [#]
22. Baltimore Fire [#]
23. Three Men Went A-Hunting [#]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #273867 in Music
• Released on: 2001-06-12
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Live

Amazon.com
On their 20 or so studio albums, the New Lost City Ramblers come across as musical antiquarians who are as concerned with the source of an old ballad or the tuning of a banjo as they are with the performance of the song in question. But on 40 Years of Concert Recordings they drop the scholarly pose and revel in the wild, wonderful, and sometimes weird world of early 20th-century rural string-band music. The 48 songs on this two-CD set include fiddle tunes, murder ballads, train songs, political songs, and love songs, interspersed with erudite, but always witty, commentary from the band. The songs may be spooky, as on Tracy Schwarz's chilling a cappella rendition of "The Unquiet Grave," or silly, such as "Too Tight Rag," which features John Cohen and Tom Paley in a kazoo duet. They may even be recently composed, like Mike Seeger's version of the Jim Stafford hit "Wildwood Weed," but the performances are always inspired. If you want to learn the history of these old-time classics, you should track down some of the Ramblers' studio recordings and pore through the liner notes. But if you want to hear this music the way it was meant to be heard, in front of a live audience played by enthusiastic musicians, then you should give 40 Years of Concert Recordings a listen. --Michael Simmons

Customer Reviews

Nice Update
True keepers of the flame, the New Lost City Ramblers have staunchly preserved rural 1920s-30s music, especially the primitive southern string band sound eventually dubbed old-timey to distinguish it from the bluegrass it fathered. Mike Seeger (half-brother of Pete), Tom Paley and documentary filmmaker John Cohen formed the trio in 1958, with Cajun enthusiast Tracy Schwarz replacing Paley in 1962. Though they seldom perform together now, this two-CD, 48-song set expands and updates the trio's 1988 20 Years/Concert Performances on Flying Fish, with the thorough discographical source notations of old 78s that marked the trio's Folkways LPs.

Whereas The Holy Modal Rounders treated old-timey styles with levity, The NLCR have ardently repeated the original forms. Still, these are no frozen, sterile museum pieces. Some songs are funny - take "She Tickles Me" and, from a scared Spanish-American War grunt, "Battleship Of Maine." Comparing Ian & Sylvia's "Lady Of Carlisle" and the McGarrigles'
"Baltimore Fire" (both learned from the Ramblers) with the NLCR's versions shows they aren't always the greatest vocalists, but with their fiddle, banjo, autoharp and tiny, twangy jew's harp, they've been vital links in a chain leading from The Carter Family and Charlie Poole down to Jerry Garcia and now The Liva-Snaps.

Hear Them Live!
If you're familiar with the NLCR only through their studio recordings, you're in for a real treat with this compilation. If you've never given the Ramblers a chance, this is as good a place as any to start. This compliation is a recap of their long career (I'd dare say that the Ramblers may be one of the longest running musical acts around), and a very good one at that. What struck me about this album is how they've changed over the decades and still have managed to keep their old-time music fresh, faithful to tradition, yet open to innovation. A nice addition to anyone's old-timey music collection.

40 Years of Concert Performances
This is what folk music was really all about. It is not slick or commercial, but it has the heart of performers who really believe in what they are doing and saying. It is a must for everyone who wants to understand our folk and country roots.