Winter 2024 Acquisitions ･ﾟ✧

January 29, 2024. Show and tell. Mostly tell because I never shut up.

Whew! Now that my website is quasi-under control, I can make a habit of writing blog posts.

It feels good. It took a while to get rolling, but I love what neocities offers. It takes me back to the late 90s / early 2000s wild west internet where everyone’s personal page was a customized eyesore (eyesore in the BEST ways)... where the internet WAS personal pages instead of antisocial media and clickbait content mills.

I’m alwayusually a miser (yes, alwayusually is a word), but I’ve been laying low on collecting so that I can fund a cosplay I’m trying to make before September. This cosplay will require endless hours of hand embroidery and is beyond my skill level… I’m a-doin’ it anyway! Wish me luck!

Still. I’ve stumbled into fantastic music finds I couldn't refuse. Here are the newest acquisitions to my dragon hoard:

ALFRED G. KARNES VICTOR 20840 I Am Bound For The Promised Land / Where We’ll Never Grow Old (1927): I’m stoked and grateful to hold this record. When I began learning about country music, the Bristol Sessions - the eponymous “Big Bang” of commercial country - enchanted me, and, to this day, sends shivers up my spine. Of course, there were successful country music records in the years before Bristol, and most Bristol musicians never saw the light of fame… but Bristol is a tale of epic proportions, and with its discovery of Jimmie Rodgers, we were never the same since.

I’ve loved the Bristol “nobodies,” the musicians who barely knew the bow from the bowhair, who recorded once then never again. There were gems in the recordings, too. Alfred Grant Karnes (1891-1958) is a diamond in the rough; he did well enough to record again, but he never received widespread recognition. I’ve been hunting Karnes’s records since I learned about Bristol and first heard him.

Karnes cut among the most polished and sophisticated music here. A Baptist preacher, all of Karnes’ recordings were religious in nature. He used a harp-guitar! Harp-guitars are unwieldy, difficult instruments that take a guitar and throw more strings above the traditional guitar neck. You know, like a harp. Harp-guitar. This distinguishes Karnes as the ONLY old-time musician to record with harp-guitar. Booyeah, delectable stuff.

SAMANTHA BUMGARNER AND EVA DAVIS COLUMBIA 167-D Cindy In The Meadows / John Hardy (1924): Another long-hunted one with historic intrigue. Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis were the first women to record in country music, using banjo, fiddle, and vocals. BOOM! They’re among the first if not the first country bands to record, and I’ve heard it said Bumgarner was the first old-time banjo picker put to commercial record, but I’ll want to fact-check that. Based on what I know of 1922-1924 old-time recordings, I’d believe it.

This is the true old-time stuff. Listening to this record, it’s jaw-dropping how much country has metamorphosed in a mere hundred years. My copy has audio graying, but I don’t mind… I’m in awed reverence holding this at all!

Bumgarner gained a reputation as an old-time picker and her reputation was maintained into the Folk Revival (1960s-1970s). Bumgarner’s style influenced one of the most influential pickers out there, a man who’s largely responsible for old-time banjo being retained… name starts with S and ends with eeger. ;)

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO ENTERPRISE 501 Who’s On First? (1947): AHHHHHH! As an Abbott and Costello fan, this is YET another long-chased acquisition. I want more A&C records, but naturally I had to start with their magnum opus.

坂本九 - 上を向いて歩こう / あの娘の名前はなんてんかな (1961): Sakamoto Kyu’s recording Ue o Muite Arukou “I Look Up as I Walk” hit the charts internationally. For instance, Sakamoto’s song stayed several weeks at the top of the USA’s Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, one of the only non-English songs to accomplish this and the first that wasn’t in a European language. I love this song. The emotions are so palpable, regardless of the language you speak. It’s a shame it got renamed “Sukiyaki,” though, for international English audiences… the song’s lyrics are emotive and have nothing to do with a freakin’ beef dish.

R. H. B. EXPRESS ROSE 30912 Jesse James / Flower Blooming In The Wildwood / Old Kentucky / Roving Eyes (1973): Impulse purchase of doom. I saw it go for sale online, listened to the sample track, and fell in love. This would be on the earlier end for female vocals in bluegrass, and these hit GOOD. The best women’s vocals in bluegrass are when they hark into the grit and power of high lonesome, it’s so hard to find, but this… nailed it! MVP instrumentalist goes to the dobro with sickly-sweet breaks. It’s an obscure record and I’ll have to research more.

AL JONES AND THE SPRUCE MOUNTAIN BOYS GLENMAR 1000 Out In The Country / Reaching For The Sun (1965): The first release by a certain Al Jones. I can’t believe I only learned about this man in the last two weeks, given as his secret’s been out since 2005.

See, Bill Monroe, Our Holy Father of Bluegrass, May His Picking Sustain Us, Amen, must have listened to radio soap operas and thought, “Hold my beer non-alcoholic-drink-of-choice” * because that man went on to have a drama-resplendent love life that reality TV would be jealous of. I’ve always suspected he had more than the three kids (two in marriage, one not-so-much-in-marriage) I knew of.

Lo and behold, enter bluegrass singer Al Jones, who at a bluegrass festival in Bill Monroe’s hometown Rosine announced onstage that Bill was his pappy. Turns out Al’s mom told him his parentage at ten and Jones entered a career in bluegrass in the 1960s. Man literally went in and did the same thing dad did, despite dad’s identity being a secret. Wonder how many people figured it out just from listening to this guy?

Because see, learning about Jones, I couldn’t stop howling in disbelieving laughter. In his old age, Jones looks so much like Monroe as to be unbelievable… fluffy mutton chops, strapping physique, sharp eagle nose, the whole deal. And when I heard Jones sing for the first time, my jaw flew to the floor so fast it broke my toe. I’m still trying to find one of the eyes that bugged out of my skull. Bill Monroe’s voice is extremely distinct. Extremely. And here Jones is, singing so much like Bill I could’ve been forgiven if I thought it WAS Bill. YOOOO. I am still shocked, amazed, incredulous, dumbfounded, flabbergasted, dumbgasted, and flabbergounded that this man has been running around, less a son of Monroe and more a clone. GENETICS SURE DO GENETIC, DON’T THEY?

^ Bill Monroe on left, Al Jones on right. These ARE two different men!

Anyhowsits, upon learning about Jones, I HAD to snatch a record. His singing is a delight. It’s cool I got his first release. Can you imagine performing in a genre your father invented for forty years before you tell the public, “Eyo, that’s my dad!”??

* Bill Monroe is widely know to have loathed, loathed, loathed beer and given anyone in his band crap he saw “drinking that slop.”