North Fork Flyer, by Black Twig Pickers (VHF)

North Fork Flyer

by Black Twig Pickers (VHF)

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1.	Spike Driver's Blues 03:49	buy track
2.	Sail Away Ladies 02:10	buy track
3.	Poor Boy Long Ways From Home 02:47	buy track
4.	Isak's Blues No. 1 01:09	buy track
5.	Get Along Home Cindy 03:48	buy track
6.	Cold, Frosty Morning 02:22	buy track
7.	Reuben's Blues 04:10	buy track
8.	Lonesome Clinch Mountain 01:56	buy track
9.	Ebeneezer 03:13	buy track
10.	Two White Horses in a Line 03:24	buy track
11.	Rambling Hobo 02:39	buy track
12.	Angelina Baker 03:32	buy track
13.	Isak's Blues No. 2 01:44	buy track
14.	Fair and Tender Ladies 01:01	buy track
15.	Little Sadie 02:41	buy track
16.	Great Valley Mine 02:45	buy track
17.	Train on the Island 06:18	buy track

about

First CD by this now well-known group, raw edged takes on Appalachia, old time, etc. Completely authentic. The Black Twigs represents the continued persistence of a type of Appalachian folk music that has come and gone from the popular radar over the years, but has never really disappeared from the band's Southwest Virginia home. The songs on "North Fork Flyer" are mostly traditional numbers (with a few originals sprinkled in) that form the backbone of a century-old tradition - the music of bonfires, front porches, coal miner's festivals, and informal gatherings. Over the years, "mountain ragas" (as the group calls them) like "Angelina Baker," "Spike Driver's Blues," "Poor Boy Long Ways From Home" and "Sail Away Ladies" have been recorded, performed, and revised continually by luminaries such as Bukka White, Mississippi John Hurt, John Fahey, Bob Wills, Holy Modal Rounders, New Lost City Ramblers, etc, etc - a who's who of true American artistry. Recorded live to DAT on front porches and in family rooms, "North Fork Flyer" blends fiddle blues, sinewy guitar and the drone and twitch of fretless clawhammer banjo with the band's rough-around-the-edges but warm harmonies. Played to the accompaniment of night insects, passing trains, and the noise of wandering children, the music retains the charm of tradition but is free of fake antiquarianism and nostalgia - regardless of age, the music is just as relevant today as it was 100 years ago and the band plays it like they mean it. The band name comes from the oldest, most crotchety apple variety in the orchard that fiddler Ralph Berrier's family maintains along the musically fertile Virginia-North Carolina line.

credits

released May 22, 2017

Ralph Berrier Jr: Fiddle, Vocals
Mike Gangloff: Banjo, Vocals
Isak Howell: Guitar, Harmonica, Vocals

with Dan Crawford: Spoons

Recorded on front porches and in front rooms in Ironto and Roanoke, VA, Autumn and Winter 2000. Thanks to Amy, Chris, Ruth and Tycho, to Bill Kellum, to Tom Angleberger for Artwork, and to the many people who helped write these songs. A few notes: Spike Driver's Blues is from John Hurt, the Monroe Brothers, and all the Nine Pound Hammers; Ralph's Cousin Rafe Brady had a lot to do with Ebeneezer, but Coolidge Winsett showed us how to play it; We wrote Great Valley Mine for the Montgomery-Pulaski County Miner's Association; Reuben's Blues came from Kentucky but ended up somewhere else.

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