08 February 2012

Music from the Mountain

With winter still here and the garden fast asleep, sitting indoors and enjoying music while I knit or read is the best possible way to spend these cold dark months.

'Songs from the Mountain' is one of the wonderful gifts I received from a dear friend several years back. It features fiddler Dirk Powell, instrumentalist and vocalist Tim O'Brien, and banjoist John Herrmann performing traditional Appalachian ballads and tunes like “Backstep Cindy”, “Skillet Good and Greasy”, “Mole in the Ground”, and “Cluck Old Hen”.
 

"Old time country music has been kept pure and pristine hidden in the mountains of North Carolina and wherever else the immigrants from Ireland, Scotland and England settled in the 1700s. The music is played on the fiddle, the guitar, the mandolin, occasionally the banjo and in some instances accompanied on the hammered dulcimer and it has endured for several centuries."

Eerie, haunting, poignant, heart-stopping and soul-searching. This music is the soul of the mountain come to life. You can hear some clips here for free if you scroll down the page and click the little arrow to the left of any song.

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