Powerful banjo/fiddle duets in the strong tradition of Southwest Virginia by two former first place winners of the Appalachian Stringband Festival held near Clifftop WV.

22 MP3 Songs in this album (55:53) !
Related styles: COUNTRY: Old-Timey, FOLK: String Band



Details:
These guys carry the soul of old time music. As the late Tommy Jarrell used to say, they don't just play at it; they play it.

They were raised in Virginia, but well east of the Blue Ridge mountains. Each one went looking for something more genuine and traditional than the modern, contemporary sounds emerging out of country music. They found it in the strong old banjo and fiddle tunes and songs of the southern mountains.

Mac got there first, and he knew he was home. In the late 70's, Mac could  be found on many a Sunday afternoon at Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway, playing banjo alongside fiddler Ivan Weddle for the old time flatfoot dancers who gathered there. Mac found that the musicians and dancers interacted, matching rhythms and building a sound together. In learning to play old-time music, Mac felt a strong pull to the older musicians of the region, to their unique versions of songs and tunes, their distinctive fiddle bowings and rhythms and banjo licks.  

Along about 1984, Shay was looking for someone to show him some fiddle. A friend pointed him to Mac. Soon after, the two of them were tooling around the hills together, stopping in on old timers whom they found more than eager to pass along tunes learned from their forebearers. Today, Shay's fiddling manages to be melodic and rhythmic at the same time.  It's direct. You'll find no pretense here. But you'll recognize deep skill and hear an unusual take on any tune. Mac claims that he now learns fiddle from Shay.

And where does that bring us? To what we could call a local sound, even if it's not specific to one tiny community. It's definitely homebuilt, by Mac and Shay. You may know the titles to some of the tunes and songs on this recording, and you may recognize the melodies. But as often as not, you'll also notice that these are special versions, local versions learned from people Mac and Shay have met, people they've heard at fiddlers' conventions, or from old recordings that brought alive for these two young players the musical days and nights of people long passed away. - Paul Brown



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