Little Black Train's A-Comin' (Old Garden Records, 2019) is a 16-track collection of traditional old-time songs performed on clawhammer banjo by Riley Baugus, a North Carolina instrument builder, multi-instrumentalist, and tradition bearer who learned the music directly from older practitioners. Baugus's banjo playing is well known beyond the old-time community — he provided the banjo sound for Anthony Minghella's film Cold Mountain and for Joe Henry's album Scar — and this solo recording offers a sustained statement of his art within the living tradition. Supporting musicians contribute bass and pedal steel on select tracks. The album's repertoire moves through sacred pieces, ballads, and dance tunes with the unhurried authority of a player whose primary debt is to the sources rather than to any revival consensus about what old-time music should sound like.
Tracklist
- 1 Little Black Train's a Comin' 4:19
- 2 Train on the Island alt version 1:44
- 3 Danville Girl 4:10
- 4 Undone in Sorrow alt version 3:24
- 5 Roust-a-bout alt version 2:30
- 6 Pastures of Plenty alt version 3:44
- 7 Shady Grove alt version 2:59
- 8 Last Pale Light in the West 4:45
- 9 Things in Life alt version 3:07
- 10 Cole Younger 3:17
- 11 Mother 5:53
- 12 Reuben’s Train alt version 3:34
- 13 Black Jack Davy 4:26
- 14 Tater Patch 2:04
- 15 Waterbound alt version 3:57
- 16 Little Black Train alt version 2:55