Broadway no. 8128
Paramount no. 3036
You might ask yourself, like I have in the past, who were the "Old Smokey Twins"?
As well as recording under their own name for Paramount, they were also known as "the Quadrillers". On Broadway, they went by the "Old Smokey Twins" and also as the "Lone Star Fiddlers", and as the Blue Grass Boys" for the Herwin label.
Doc Roberts-mandolin, Dick Parman-guitar and vocals, and Ted Chestnut-vocals.
They had two recording sessions in 1927 (April 13-14th and September 19th- 21st) that produced 18 recordings.
I've heard only a handful of this stuff! Has it all been re-issued and I don't know about it? Are there no known copies of this stuff?
Try googling Kentucky Thoroughbreds. It's depressing... Unless you like horses... Then you'll be like, "oh hell yeah!".
I've found a couple of their 78's, some stuff online (takes some digging), and one or two re-issue albums I've seen, have a small selection of their stuff. I thought the complete recorded works of Fiddlin' Doc Roberts would yield all his Kentucky Thoroughbreds recordings but alas.
So, I wanted to post both sides of this record but when I went through my collection, I realized I must of left it in storage back on the west coast (I'm in N.C.)... But have no fear my friends, I did bring with me, the Paramount record of the same titles.
I already had the "Preacher and the Bear" side recorded from the Broadway record, so I just recorded "In The Shade Of the Old Apple Tree" off the Paramount.
Also, for those of you that don't collect 78's, like I said earlier, Broadway was a budget label of Paramount. Paramount cut costs wherever they could, and as a result, used the cheapest, most horrible materials they could find to make records.
Brand new, these things sounded like someone had played them with a rusty finishing nail for days!
Who knows how many cheap cost saving ingredients went into the record batch mix to fill it out.
I wouldn't be surprised, if in the next issue of 78 Quarterly I saw an article entitled: "disgruntled underpaid Paramount employees, defecating in "Batch" mix; partly responsible for poor audio quality".
... Or maybe I'd just like to see an article like that....
... Anyways, my point being, is they're a little worn sounding y'all... But they show improvement. "In the Shade Of the Old Apple Tree" starts out pretty quiet... but it gets louder and cleans up a little.
This is a great record.
Enjoy the music folks!
Cheers~Stymee
the INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER: "Kit gets serious for a second".
Im sure for most people this shouldn't be an issue but...
Sometimes in old music you will hear certain words, pertaining to race that were common place back in the day, but socially, they're not really kosher today.This might offend some people if they were to judge them by todays standards. If this is you, I remind you to please view these in their historical context or don't listen.
download these sweet sides!
download these sweet sides!
I linked to your site from Allen's Archive, and have enjoyed your selections. Unfortunately, after downloading this post, I found it impossible to open. I had no problems with other posts from your site.
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The Old Smokey Twins and the Kentucky Thorobreds (and the Quadrillers not mentioned in your post here) were a combination of Fiddlin Doc Roberts and two other Kentucky musicians who made a series of recordings in Chicago in April 1927. Doc Roberts recordings were based his discovery by his KY neighboring farmer and businessman Dennis Taylor. Taylor had a racket of bringing Kentucky blues and old time musicians up to Gennett records in Indiana, taking the lion's share of royalties and paying the musicians chump change. He is reputed to have taken 100 musicians to Gennett and was making about 900 bucks a months out of this. Roberts became disenchanged with this and complained to Gennett Records. A top official of Gennett told Roberts that if he wanted to make up for what Taylor was ripping him off for, they did not mind if he went to other record companies and made records as long as he did not use the name Fiddlin Doc Roberts. So in April 1927 Roberts went to Chicago, pointedly at the time that Taylor had scheduled a trip to Gennett for Roberts and other musicians he exploited. So far, we know of the recordings made as the Quadrillers, The Kentucky Thoroughbreds, and these Old Smokey Twins sides. However, it is not clear to me if the Old Smokey Twins sides are simply "stencil label" issues of Broadway recordings that Robeerts made. But thanks for posting this.
ReplyDeleteI am working on this because I am working with Document Records on Black old time music sold as white old time music in the 1920s. Because Roberts did not show up for the April 26 and I think 27 session Taylor had scheduled for his artists with Gennett. Taylor brought Jim Booker Jr., an African American fiddler from Kentucky to the Gennett session. Booker's participation in these sessions is the first session where we know an African American participated in old time music recordings sold as white Hillbilly music. Gennett advertised the recordings by showing a picture of Dennis Taylor--who according to his wife could not even hum or whistle properly--holding a fiddle with the banjoist and guitarist Jim Booker recorded with. The session seemed to work so well that at the next session in August 27 with Roberts coming back to the fold, Taylor brought not only Jim Booker Jr., but his brother Joe, a fiddler and guitarist, and his brother John a guitarist. Both John and Joe contributed superb guitar backup to 8 Doc Roberts recordings made at this session. Jim Jr, played fiddle on several Marion Underwood and Aulton Ray recordings, and Roberts actually joined in on one of two recordings attributed to the "Booker Orchestra" .
ReplyDeleteTaylor and Gennett's tactics in all of this and the wishful thinking of 20th and 21st century folkies and old time music revivalists has nourished the fiction that all of these folks were members of an old time music band called "Taylor's Kentucky Boys," an "interaccial" KY old time man led by Jim Booker Jr. This name was used only for instrumental fiddle tunes in both sessions. In the same sessions same personnel if anyone sang, even chanting a few verse on "Soldier Joy" (sic) the tune was attributed to the singer. There are even a few tracks in these sessions where banjoist Marion Underwood sings, but the track lists himself as a banjoist and his pseudonym "Kenneth Borton" as the singer. Of the "Taylors recordings only two, the masterpiece performances by Jim Booker Jr. and Underwood of "Forked Deer" and "Grey Eagle" were ever issued as Taylor's Kentucky Boys recordings. None of the three "Taylors" recordings in the August session was issued as such although Gennett apparently sold "Sourwood Mountain" from the August sessions to Sears for its budget label, but under another name. Wolfe writes he thinks it was Roberts who did not want the second batch of "Taylors" recordings issued, either because he did not like them or did not like recording with another fiddler, or was mad at Dennis Taylor. There is no suggestion that Roberts didnt like working with the African American musicians, since he had learned much of his repertoire from an African American fiddler and probably knew the Booker family who had been renown for fiddling and music making in KY since the Civil War. His eight recordings with either John or Joe Booker backing him in August 1927 are considered some of the best guitar and fiddle recordings in the history of old time music.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing suggests that rather than the rustic romanticism that many old time revivalists look at the music and recordings, the business of creating nostalgic images around the recordings, and creating the fiction that the music was white collides with the realities that Black people were prominent in creating this music on one hand, and that the record companies exploited artists Black and white. Most of the Gennett releases were sold with or often without any payments to the artists or to Taylor to multiple recording companies or labels, especially the various store-brand labels. Often these stencil label recordings sold much more than the original Gennett recording, and at least in the case of "Sourwood Mountain" recodings were issued on the stencil labels that Gennett never release. Capitalism is capitalism and capitalism is bad. Thanks for having a place where information about this stuff can be shared and discussed. Please keep doing what you do!