Friends of American Old-Time Music and Dance review
Walk Chalk Chicken

All I really want to say is that this CD is excellent and that if you like old time music then you really need to buy it, but I don’t think the editor will let me get away with that so here issome more detail.

One of the things that struck me about this CD was the variety of different kinds of music and among the 13 tracks here there is something for everyone (as a long time lover of old time music I hate to say this but some old time CDs can be a bit repetitive). There are fast fiddle tunes, slow fiddle tunes, fiddle tunes with and without words, there are gentle melodic songs and dark and lonesome songs. And it is all right within the tradition so the old time thought police will have nothing to complain about!

Kate is a very versatile musician and we hear her on fiddle, banjo, guitar and of course singing,all of which she does so well. Her voice has that slightly husky quality which can make sentimental songs sound more real but is perfectly suited to the more lonesome traditional ones.

Kate has managed to gather around her some of the best musicians who are currently keeping the traditions of West Virginia old time music alive. Dave Bing is well known to us in the UK as a fiddler and fiddle teacher although here he is playing some of the best back-up guitar I have heard in a while. Other members of the Bing Brothers and Gandydancer are also here – Tim Bing playing excellent banjo, Jim Martin (bass and production) and Mark Paine (vocal). Singing harmony on just two of the tracks is Ginny Hawker, a great singer of old time songs and one of my personal favourites.

From outside West Virginia are Kate herself and Woody Lissauer who are from Maryland and Johnny Whelan, keeping the UK in the picture. I’m not sure who Dolly Doppelganger Douglas is – she is accompanying Kate’s fiddle on banjo on one track and I have a suspicion she may be Kate’s alter ego!

The quality of the musicianship is as good as you would expect from this distinguished company and the production has done real justice to all of it except ( and this is odd since he was involved in the production) that I can’t quite hear Jim Martin’s bass, but maybe it’s just that I need a better sound system.

I don’t really know what to else to say except that I loved this CD and I think you will too and I’m off to try and learn “Faded Coat of Blue”!