WARNER COLLECTION, VOL. 2: Nothing Seems Better to Me - The Music of Frank Proffitt and North Carolina

Warner Collection, Vol. 2

Nothing Seems Better to Me - The Music of Frank Proffitt and North Carolina

© 2000 Appleseed Recordings (611587103628)

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More field recordings of traditional American music collected by Anne and Frank Warner along the Eastern Seaboard from 1940 to 1966 - "real deal" folk songs from the source.

tracks

1 Mule Skinner Blues - Frank Proffitt
2 Going 'Cross the Mountain - Frank Proffitt
3 Tom Dooley - Frank Proffitt (1940)
4 Conversation with Frank Proffitt
5 Tom Dooley - Frank Proffitt (1959)
6 Conversation with Buna Vista Hicks
7 Sally Ann - Buna Vista Hicks
8 Drunkard's Doom - Buna Vista Hicks
9 Awake, Awake, My Own True Loveyer - Lee Monroe Presnell
10 My Sweet Soldier Boy - Lee Monroe Presnell
11 Oh Bud - J. B. Sutton
12 When Sorrows Encompass Me Around - Linzy Hicks
13 George Collins - Nathan & Rena Hicks
14 Bolamkin - Frank Proffitt
15 Cripple Creek - Frank Proffitt
16 Hangman - Frank Proffitt
17 Poor Soldier - Frank Proffitt
18 Pretty Polly - Frank Proffitt, Jr.
19 Paul Jones - Charles K. Tillett
20 The Southern Girl's Reply - Eleazar Tillett
21 Only a Friend - Curt Mann
22 Rocky By Baby - Rebecca King Jones
23 Captain, O Captain - Rebecca King Jones
24 Wake, O Wake, You Drowsy Sleeper - Rebecca King Jones
25 Sweet By and By - Frank Proffitt
26 Cindy - Frank Proffitt
27 Groundhog - Frank Proffitt, Jr.
28 Nothing Seems Better to Me - Joseph Henry Johnson
29 The Snow is on the Ground - Eleazar Tillett
30 Conversation with Eleazar Tillett
31 Fisherman's Girl - Eleazar Tillett & Martha Etheridge
32 Beaver Dam Road - Frank Proffitt
33 Conversation with Frank Proffitt
34 W P and A - Frank Proffitt
35 Going Where) My Troubles Will Be Over - Frank Proffitt
36 Kicking Up Dust - Frank Proffitt, Jr.
37 Johnny, O Johnny - Buna Vista Hicks
38 The Two Sisters that Loved One Man - Lee Monroe Presnell
39 Old Virginny - Lee Monroe Presnell
40 Conversation with Lee Monroe Presnell
41 Johnny, You are My Darling - Lee Monroe Presnell
42 Muskrat - Roby Monroe Hicks
43 Young Johnny - Roby Monroe Hicks
44 Sourwood Mountain - Frank Proffitt
45 Trifling Woman - Frank Proffitt
46 Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss - Frank Proffitt
47 Wild Stormy Deep - Homer Cornett

notes

In June of 1938, amateur musicologists Anne and Frank Warner left New York City and traveled through the Appalachian Mountains, the first in a series of trips down the Eastern Seaboard in which they collected more than a thousand of the most important and authentic traditional American songs ever recorded. There are spirituals, work songs, chants, ballads, and children's songs. Few of the singers were professionals - most had learned these songs from parents, friends and neighbors.

This second volume of field recordings made by the Warners from 1940 to 1966 is a companion to "Her Bright Smile Haunts
Me Still," released simultaneously by Appleseed in 2000. Amazingly, the Warner collection had never before been issued commercially and, with the exception of the Warners and a few friends and music scholars, had previously gone unheard. Musician Tim Eriksen, whose repertoire emphasizes traditional songs, heard the recordings on a bootleg in 1989 and urged the Warners to let Appleseed release these discs.

Many of the Warner-collected songs were introduced to the
outside world in lectures, books, performances and albums by Frank Warner himself. Warner toured the country with the songs he and Anne had collected, which was how now-familiar
songs like "Whiskey in the Jar," "Days of '49," and "Tom Dooley" reached the public. Warner sang "Tom Dooley" to Alan
Lomax, who included it in his "Folk Song U.S.A." book, which is where The Kingston Trio learned it; their version sold 3 million copies in 1958 and helped ignite the modern folk revival.

While "Her Bright Smile" presents an overview of the Warner collection's breadth, "Nothing Seems Better to Me" focuses on
Frank Proffitt, a part-time musician, and the songs of his beloved Beech Mountain and North Carolina. It was from Proffitt that the Warners learned "Tom Dooley." The Warners eventually brought Proffitt to the Chicago Folk Festival, which led to subsequent tours and recordings. His son, Frank Jr., can also be heard on several songs here, as can a rollcall of obscure North Carolinians, including Lee Monroe Presnell, Buna Vista Hicks and others.

The music heard on the two Warner discs forms the backbone of America's traditional music, folk songs sung by real folks, recorded in their own homes. To quote writer Chris Nickson, "This IS America."

reviews

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  • Buy it, it's good for you.
    author: Hunter Robertson

    One of the first albums I bought of traditional music was the Beech Mountain album from Folk Legacy, and I loved it. So it was a real pleasure to find more recordings by many of the same people. Lee Monroe Presnell should be out on the Voyager with Blind Willie Johnson.

  • author: Francesca Forrest

    Second in the collection from the Warners--contains some real gems, like "Johnny You Are My Darling" and "Old Virginny," plus classics like "When Sorrows Encompass Me Round" and "Hangman."

  • For a true searcher
    author: Eclipse Girl

    Lots of varied music. Some of the recordings are not the greatest. Very rural, rustic. Similar to the Lomax collections for Folkways. Perhaps for those who are searching for the authentic.

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