And here's Brother Kazee, "part-time banjo picker, full time servant of Christ", singing his traditionnal mountain songs, with his "trained" voice and accompanying himself on his rippling banjo. The music on his instrument goes twice as fast as his voice, which is not the usual rough and untraid one of his fellow mountaineers, but an "educated" one. His style of banjo picking is a very tight clawhammer sound, matching perfectly his precise diction of the words. At the end of the 1920's, in the studio recording, he was told to "countrify" his voice when he sang his mountain songs... Buell H.Kazee, born in 1900 in Kentucky, was a baptist minister who loved to sing the old songs and play the banjo. He recorded 52 sides between 1926 and 1929, some, like "Little Mohee", were pretty succesful but the depression put a stop to his recording career and he went back to preach and to teach the Bible in Kentucky. Thanks to the Anthology, he was rediscovered by the folk revival in the 60's and cut an lp for Folkways and another one for June Apple (re-issued last year by Appalshop) before his death in 1976.
-For a more complete biography, go here.
-On "Root hog or die" an excellent radio program as well as a blog, you can read this article, which gives good insights also on the Harry Smith Anthology.
-I've compiled 15 sides which focus on his clawhammer banjo style. Some of his recordings features also guitar or banjo played in a different style and apart from mountain ballads he sang a lot of sentimental songs. Some are very good but i tend to prefer the ones i picked for you (The three sides that appears on the Anthology will be featured elsewhere).
The Bucher's boy (or "The Railroad Boy" as it's often called in America) is a british folk song that derived from an amalgam of a couple of Broadside ballads. This ballads were printed on paper and sold and distibuted in the cities from the 16th up to the early 20th century. They were recasting the news of the day in song form and were very popular in the cities as well as in the country where many became folk songs. A lot of them were telling sad tales of murder and betrayed love, much like the traditionnal folk ballads, and this one ,"the butcher's boy" is a particulary sad one. It tells of a poor girl that hang herself because of her lover who betrayed her with a whealthier girl. The girl's father finds a note next to her dead body where she asks to be buried in a grave with a dove placed on it to "tell the world that i died for lo
-For a more complete biography, go here.
-On "Root hog or die" an excellent radio program as well as a blog, you can read this article, which gives good insights also on the Harry Smith Anthology.
-I've compiled 15 sides which focus on his clawhammer banjo style. Some of his recordings features also guitar or banjo played in a different style and apart from mountain ballads he sang a lot of sentimental songs. Some are very good but i tend to prefer the ones i picked for you (The three sides that appears on the Anthology will be featured elsewhere).
The Bucher's boy (or "The Railroad Boy" as it's often called in America) is a british folk song that derived from an amalgam of a couple of Broadside ballads. This ballads were printed on paper and sold and distibuted in the cities from the 16th up to the early 20th century. They were recasting the news of the day in song form and were very popular in the cities as well as in the country where many became folk songs. A lot of them were telling sad tales of murder and betrayed love, much like the traditionnal folk ballads, and this one ,"the butcher's boy" is a particulary sad one. It tells of a poor girl that hang herself because of her lover who betrayed her with a whealthier girl. The girl's father finds a note next to her dead body where she asks to be buried in a grave with a dove placed on it to "tell the world that i died for lo