My Epitaph (Folkways FA 2493) was issued in 1976 with the subtitle “A Documentary in Song and Lyric.” Kevin Roth produced it, and it was recorded by the King Street Recording Company from a live interview with Ola Belle Reed made in the summer of 1976. Smithsonian Folkways describes it as an autobiography: Reed talks about her childhood in the mountains, her experiences and her opinions, and each stretch of talk leads into one of six songs, all of them hers.
Reed was born Ola Wave Campbell in 1916 at Grassy Creek, Ashe County, North Carolina, and learned the clawhammer style of banjo as a child. On the record she plays guitar and banjo and sings, with her son David Reed on banjo, guitar and vocals and her husband Bud Reed on harmonica. The side-one songs are “High on a Mountain,” “I’ve Endured” and “Sing Me a Song”; side two has “My Epitaph,” “Springtime of Life” and “Fortunes.” In “I’ve Endured” she looks back on being born in the mountains, going barefoot as a child, and working for the rich and living among the poor; “My Epitaph,” she explains in the notes, was written after the death of a young man who had worked for her, and it asks that flowers be given to people while they are alive. Del McCoury, Tim O’Brien and Marty Stuart have recorded “High on a Mountain,” and McCoury and O’Brien “I’ve Endured.”
Tracklist
- 1 High on a Mountain alt version 2:38
- 2 I’ve Endured Source Recording 2:34
- 3 Sing Me a Song 7:56
- 4 My Epitaph 8:10
- 5 Springtime of Life 6:08
- 6 Fortunes 6:14
