Blind Dog Radio

Worried Blues: The Complete Commercial Output Of Frank Hutchison & Kelly Harrell (With Sessions By The Tenneva Ramblers & The Blue Ridge Highballers)

Label: JSP Records.
Release Date: September 13, 2005.
Recording Time: 302 minutes.
Recording Date: January 7, 1925 - July 9, 1929.
Release Info: Compilation (JSP7743) Studio Recording, Remastered.

Styles: Country Blues, Old-Timey, Traditional Country, Appalachian, North American Traditions, Acoustic Blues, Folk-Blues, Pre-War Country Blues, Traditional Folk.

This intriguing four-disc set collects the complete recorded works of guitarist Frank Hutchison and singer Kelly Harrell, then splits the final disc between two very different mountain string bands, the Tenneva Ramblers and the Blue Ridge Highballers. All of these artists were active in the Virginia/West Virginia area in the 1920s. Hutchison, in particular, was an arresting talent, with a striking and consistent slide guitar style and a rough but charmingly everyman vocal style that gives the songs he recorded for OKeh Records like "Worried Blues," "Train That Carried the Girl From Town," "The Miner's Blues," "The Last Scene of the Titanic," and the impressive guitar instrumental "Logan County Blues," an individualistic twist almost unique in Appalachian music. Much like banjoist Dock Boggs, he incorporated a high degree of black blues into his repertoire.

Not nearly as steady a performer as Hutchison, singer Kelly Harrell recorded 40 some sides for Victor and OKeh Records between 1925 and 1929, which was an accomplishment in itself considering he didn't play an instrument and possessed a voice that creaked and cracked around the melodies of his ballad-based folk material. The two tracks of his that stand out the most are "My Name Is John Jo Hannah" and "Charles Giteaux." The former is a variant of "The State of Arkansas" set to a "Maggie Walker Blues" melody and it benefits mightily from the fiddle playing of Posey Rorer, but Harrell's wild and loose vocal is a good part of why it works. "Charles Giteaux" has the assassin of President Garfield telling his story, and again, Harrell's cutting, barely in control singing gives the song a haunting kinetic push. "Peg and Awl" is also interesting, since it details the effects of new technology on workers in the shoe industry, but the balance of Harrell's output tends to the generic and maudlin. His earliest sides also suffer from being backed by big city musicians unfamiliar with the southern musical traditions from which Harrell drew his inspiration.

The Tenneva Ramblers were actually the Grant Brothers (guitarist Claude Grant and mandolin ace Jack Grant) with Jack Pierce on fiddle and Claude Slagle on banjo, and for a time they were Jimmie Rodgers' backup band, although the Ramblers never made any recordings with Rodgers. The group, on their own, issued 13 tracks between 1927 and 1929 for the Victor and Columbia labels, most notably their haunting version of "The Longest Train I Ever Saw," a song that has been recorded countless times and had many titles but is probably best known as "In the Pines."

The Blue Ridge Highballers (Charley La Prade on fiddle, Arthur Wells on banjo, and Lonnie Griffith on guitar) were a hyper-charged instrumental string band that prefigured the pace of bluegrass by a quarter of a century, and they tore through their mountain dance tune repertoire like a train at full steam.

Taken together like this, these four very different acts form a kind of survey of the kinds of traditional music being played in a very specific region of the southern mountains in the mid to late 1920s, which gives this generous box set a unique horizontal and historical sweep. These were commercial recordings at the time they were made, but the record industry was in its infancy and wasn't yet placing marketing over musical substance to the degree that would come later which gives these old 78s an added collective authenticity. ~ Steve Leggett

Credits: Lonnie Austin - Fiddle; The Blue Ridge Highballers - Performer, Primary Artist; Luther B. Clarke - Primary Artist, Vocals; Sam Freed - Violin; Gorodetzer - Fiddle; Claude Grant - Guitar, Vocals; Jack Grant - Mandolin, Vocals; Lonnie Griffith - Guitar; Kelly Harrell - Primary Artist, Vocals, Whistle (Human); Pat Harrison - Liner Notes; Raymond D. Hundley - Banjo; Frank Hutchison - Guitar, Harmonica, Primary Artist, Soloist, Spoken Word, Vocals; Charley La Prade - Fiddle; Sherman Lawson - Fiddle; Henry Norton - Vocals; Jack Pierce - Fiddle, Vocals; Carson Robison - Harmonica; Posey Rorer - Fiddle; Claude Slagle - Banjo; Roy Smeck - Harmonica, Jew's-Harp; Joseph Alfred Stegall - Guitar; The Tenneva Ramblers - Primary Artist; Arthur Wells - Banjo; Henry Whitter - Guitar, Harmonica.

Tracklist: 
1-01. Worried Blues - Frank Hutchinson
1-02. Train That Carried The Girl From Town - Frank Hutchinson
1-03. Stackalee (Instrumental Version) - Frank Hutchinson
1-04. The Wild Horse - Frank Hutchinson
1-05. Long Way To Tipperary - Frank Hutchinson
1-06. The West Virginia Rag - Frank Hutchinson
1-07. C&O Excursion - Frank Hutchinson
1-08. Coney Isle - Frank Hutchinson
1-09. Old Rachel - Frank Hutchinson
1-10. Lightning Express - Frank Hutchinson
1-11. Stackalee (Vocal Version) - Frank Hutchinson
1-12. Logan County Blues - Frank Hutchinson
1-13. Worried Blues - Frank Hutchinson
1-14. Train That Carried The Girl From Town - Frank Hutchinson
1-15. The Last Scene Of The Titanic - Frank Hutchinson
1-16. All Night Long - Frank Hutchinson
1-17. Alabama Girl, Ain't You Comin' Out Tonight? - Frank Hutchinson
1-18. Hell Bound Train - Frank Hutchinson
1-19. Wild Hogs In The Red Brush - Frank Hutchinson
1-20. The Burglar Man - Frank Hutchinson
1-21. Back In My Home Town - Frank Hutchinson
1-22. The Miner's Blues - Frank Hutchinson
1-23. Hutchinson's Rag - Frank Hutchinson
1-24. The Boston Burglar - Frank Hutchinson
1-25. The Chevrolet Six - Frank Hutchinson
2-01. Cumberland Gap - Frank Hutchinson
2-02. The Deal - Frank Hutchinson
2-03. Railroad Bill - Frank Hutchinson
2-04. Johnny And Jane:1 - Frank Hutchinson
2-05. Johnny And Jane:2 - Frank Hutchinson
2-06. Cannonball Blues - Frank Hutchinson
2-07. K.C. Blues - Frank Hutchinson
2-08. New River Train - Kelly Harrell
2-09. Rovin' Gambler - Kelly Harrell
2-10. I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again - Kelly Harrell
2-11. Butcher's Boy - Kelly Harrell
2-12. I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago - Kelly Harrell
2-13. Wild Bill Jones - Kelly Harrell
2-14. Peg And Awl - Kelly Harrell
2-15. I Was Born In Pennsylvania - Kelly Harrell
2-16. I'm Going Back To North Carolina - Kelly Harrell
2-17. Be At Home Soon Tonight, My Dear Boy - Kelly Harrell
2-18. The Wreck On The Southern Old - Kelly Harrell
2-19. Blue Eyed Ella - Kelly Harrell
2-20. New River Train - Kelly Harrell
2-21. Rovin' Gambler - Kelly Harrell
2-22. I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again - Kelly Harrell
2-23. Butcher's Boy - Kelly Harrell
2-24. O! Molly Dear Go Ask Your Mother - Kelly Harrell
2-25. Broken Engagement - Kelly Harrell
3-01. The Dying Hobo - Kelly Harrell
3-02. Beneath The Weeping Willow - Kelly Harrell
3-03. My Horses Ain't Hungry - Kelly Harrell
3-04. Bright Sherman Valley - Kelly Harrell
3-05. The Cuckoo She's A Fine Bird - Kelly Harrell
3-06. Hand Me Down My Walking Cane - Kelly Harrell
3-07. Bye And Bye You Will Soon Forget - Kelly Harrell
3-08. Oh, My Pretty Monkey - Kelly Harrell
3-09. I Love My Sweetheart The Best - Kelly Harrell
3-10. Henry Clay Beattie - Kelly Harrell
3-11. I Want A Nice Little Fellow - Kelly Harrell
3-12. My Name Is John Jo Hannah - Kelly Harrell
3-13. In The Shadow Of The Pine - Kelly Harrell
3-14. Charles Giteau - Kelly Harrell
3-15. I'm Nobody's Darlin' On Earth - Kelly Harrell
3-16. She Has Gone And Left Me - Kelly Harrell
3-17. Row Us Over The Tide - Kelly Harrell
3-18. I Have No Loving Mother Now - Kelly Harrell
3-19. Seven Long Years I've Been Married - Kelly Harrell
3-20. Charley, He's A Good Old Man - Kelly Harrell
3-21. The Henpecked Man - Kelly Harrell
3-22. She Just Kept Kissing On - Kelly Harrell
3-23. All My Sins Are Taken Away - Kelly Harrell
3-24. Cave Love Has Gained The Day - Kelly Harrell
3-25. I Heard Somebody Call My Name - Kelly Harrell
4-01. The Longest Train I Ever Saw - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-02. Sweet Heaven When I Die - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-03. Miss Lisa, Poor Girl - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-04. Darling Where Have You Been So Long - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-05. If I Die A Railroad Man - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-06. I'm Goin' To Georgia - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-07. The Curtains Of The Night - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-08. Seven Long Years In Prison - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-09. When A Man Is Married - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-10. Goodbye My Honey I'm Gone - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-11. Tell It To Me - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-12. Johnson Boy - The Tenneva Ramblers
4-13. Green Mountain Polka - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-14. Skidd More - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-15. Flop Eared Mule - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-16. Darneo - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-17. Soldier's Joy - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-18. Darling Child - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-19. Under The Double Eagle - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-20. Fourteen Days In Georgia - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-21. Sandy River Belle - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-22. Round Town Girls - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-23. Wish To The Lord I Had Never Been Born - Blue Ridge Highballers
4-24. Going Down To Lynchburg - Blue Ridge Highballers