Kentucky Mountain Ballads cover

Kentucky Mountain Ballads

Cousin Emmy

Album · 1947 · Decca A 574

Kentucky Mountain Ballads was an album set of four 78 rpm records issued by Decca in 1947 (A 574), containing eight sides by Cousin Emmy and Her Kinfolks. Cousin Emmy was Cynthia May Carver, born in 1903 in Lamb, Kentucky, a five-string banjo player, fiddler and singer. She had won the National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest in 1935, and by the early 1940s she was broadcasting over KMOX in St. Louis, which led to her recording contract with Decca. It was the only album she made for the label.

Seven of the eight sides were cut on 26 March 1947 at the Decca Recording Studio on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, in two sessions produced by Perry Botkin, with John Will Drake and Wesley Tuttle on guitars and Arthur Shapiro on bass. They are “Lost John,” “Lonesome Road Blues,” “I Wish I Was in Bowling Green,” “I Wish I Was a Single Girl Again,” “Johnny Booker,” “Come All You Virginia Gals” and “Pretty Little Miss Out in the Garden.” The eighth, “Free Little Bird,” had been recorded in New York City on 12 April 1946. The four records were Decca 24213 to 24216, and the sides were reissued in Britain in the 1950s on two Brunswick EPs, each also titled Kentucky Mountain Ballads.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Sugar Hill 3:35
  2. 2 Bill Morgan and His Gal 2:57
  3. 3 Country Blues 3:53
  4. 4 Little Sadie alt version 2:46
  5. 5 Susannah Gal 2:59
  6. 6 Wednesday Night Waltz 3:08
  7. 7 Cyclone of Rye Cove 3:06
  8. 8 I'm Leaving You This Lonesome Song 2:38
  9. 9 Carroll County Blues 1:42
  10. 10 Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down alt version 2:13
  11. 11 Trouble in Mind alt version 4:17
  12. 12 Chilly Winds 1:08
  13. 13 Going Down the Road Feeling Bad 2:26
  14. 14 Pretty Polly alt version 3:33
  15. 15 Bonaparte’s Retreat alt version 3:32
  16. 16 Concord Rag 2:16
  17. 17 John Henry alt version 3:12
  18. 18 I Wish I Was in Bowling Green alt version 1:49
  19. 19 Fine Times in Our House 3:13
  20. 20 Streets of Glory 2:11
  21. 21 Policeman 2:53
  22. 22 Love Somebody (Soldier's Joy) 2:16
  23. 23 House of David Blues 1:27
  24. 24 Ship in the Clouds 1:46
  25. 25 Way Downtown alt version 2:43
  26. 26 Look Down That Lonesome Road alt version 3:28
  27. 27 Down Yonder alt version 3:34
  28. 28 Jaybird March 1:52
  29. 29 John Brown's Dream 1:36

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