Something Got Hold of Me · I Believe in the Old Time Way

Charlie Moore and Bill Napier recorded for King Records as a duo during the mid-1960s, placing their work within one of the most significant independent labels in American country and roots music. King, based in Cincinnati and founded by Syd Nathan, had built a catalog spanning country, R&B, and gospel, and its bluegrass and hard-country roster included artists whose recordings were aimed at a working-class audience that retained a strong appetite for traditional performance styles even as Nashville production values were shifting toward a smoother sound.

Bill Napier was a guitarist and vocalist whose association with the Stanley Brothers — one of the foundational acts in bluegrass music — had placed him within a specific and clearly defined traditional current. His partnership with Moore brought together two performers whose musical instincts ran in compatible directions: direct, unadorned vocals, straightforward instrumentation, and a commitment to the emotional plainness that hard-country and traditional bluegrass demanded. "Something Got Hold of Me" / "I Believe in the Old Time Way" (King 45-6073), released in 1966, is representative of their King output — material that announced its allegiances in the title.

King Records' country and bluegrass recordings of this period have been reassessed by later generations as documents of a tradition that the mainstream Nashville industry was in the process of moving away from. The Moore and Napier duet sides occupy a specific place within that body of work — the output of two artists who understood what they were doing, recorded for an audience that understood what it wanted, and produced music that made no concessions to the prevailing commercial direction of the moment.

Session details drawn in part from the Bluegrass Discography.