Ola Belle Reed and Family cover

Ola Belle Reed and Family

Ola Belle Reed

Album · 1977 · Rounder 0077

Ola Belle Reed & Family (Rounder 0077, 1977) features three members of the Reed family. Ola Belle Reed sings and plays banjo on all fourteen songs, her husband Bud Reed plays harmonica, banjo and guitar, and their son David Reed plays guitar. The LP came with an insert of notes on the songs, and David Whisnant wrote the liner notes.

Reed was born in western North Carolina in 1916, and her family moved to northeastern Maryland during the Depression. There she played old-time banjo with the North Carolina Ridge Runners, and after marrying Bud Reed in 1949 she formed the New River Boys with her brother Alex. The band also staged shows at country music parks, among them the New River Ranch in Rising Sun, Maryland.

The songs include “The Butcher’s Boy,” “The Ranger’s Command,” “My Doney, Where Have You Been So Long,” “The Ninety and Nine,” “When I Can Read My Titles Clear” and “Lamplighting Time in the Valley.” The LP closes with “I’ve Endured,” the autobiographical song that the National Endowment for the Arts quoted in its profile when it named her a National Heritage Fellow in 1986. In 2006 Rounder reissued the album on CD with nine more tracks, among them “Wild Bill Jones” and “The Train That Carried My Girl From Town.”

Tracklist

  1. 1 Going To Write Me A Letter 3:22
  2. 2 My Doney, Where Have You Been So Long? 2:30
  3. 3 The Ninety And Nine 3:07
  4. 4 Lamplighting Time in the Valley alt version 2:08
  5. 5 Only The Leading Role Will Do 3:47
  6. 6 Undone in Sorrow alt version 3:20
  7. 7 Sing Me A Song 5:12
  8. 8 You Led Me To The Wrong 4:19
  9. 9 The Ranger's Command 3:41
  10. 10 Boat's Up The River 2:07
  11. 11 When Can I Read My Titles Clear 3:29
  12. 12 The Butcher's Boy 3:26
  13. 13 Where the Wild Wild Flowers Grow Source Recording Ola Belle Reed · key G · 102 bpm 2:29
  14. 14 I’ve Endured alt version 2:34
  15. 15 No Sorrow Will Be There 0:53
  16. 16 Wild Bill Jones alt version 3:23
  17. 17 Away Out On The Mountain 3:53
  18. 18 Old Banjo Tune 2:26
  19. 19 The Train that Carried My Girl From Town alt version 1:59
  20. 20 Fortunes 4:30
  21. 21 Shoo Fly 1:24
  22. 22 Let Me In 3:20
  23. 23 Bury Me At The Foot Of The Mountain 2:03

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