American Fiddle Tunes
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
For most people, this 28-track anthology will be more edifying than entertaining... and that's not a criticism. First released in 1971, the collection was assembled by Alan Jabbour under the auspices of the American Folklife Center and the Library of Congress. Spanning the 1930s and '40s, the handsomely illustrated and thoroughly documented collection captures fiddlers from New England to California sawing their way through their favorite showcase tunes, in the process illustrating the rich variety of roughhewn sounds that salt-of-the-earth Americans produced with the violin. --Steven Stolder
American Fiddle Tunes,Various Artists,Rounder Select,30's,40's,Bluegrass Collections,Fiddle,Field Recordings,Folk & Traditional,Old-Timey,Pop,Traditional Bluegrass,Traditional Country,Traditional Folk
Average customer rating: 
|
Golden Greats: Greatest Broadway Hits
Manufacturer: Golden Greats ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD  All Works by Bernstein
| Bernstein, Leonard
| ( B )
| Featured Composers, A-Z
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
Duke, Vernon
| ( D )
| Featured Composers, A-Z
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
All Works by Gershwin
| Gershwin, George
| ( G )
| Featured Composers, A-Z
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
All Works by Porter
| Porter, Cole
| ( P )
| Featured Composers, A-Z
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
All Works by Weill
| Weill, Kurt
| ( W )
| Featured Composers, A-Z
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
General
| Opera & Vocal
| Styles
| Music
Modern & 20th Century
| Historical Periods
| Opera & Vocal
| Styles
| Music
English
| Languages
| Opera & Vocal
| Styles
| Music
Nostalgia
| Miscellaneous
| Styles
| Music
Movie Scores
| Soundtracks
| Styles
| Music
Movie Soundtracks
| Soundtracks
| Styles
| Music
General
| Soundtracks
| Styles
| Music
General
| Musicals
| Broadway & Vocalists
| Styles
| Music
Traditional Vocal Pop
| Broadway & Vocalists
| Styles
| Music
General
| Oldies
| Pop
| Styles
| Music
Traditional Pop
| Oldies
| Pop
| Styles
| Music
Easy Listening
| Compilations
| Pop
| Styles
| Music
General
| Easy Listening
| Pop
| Styles
| Music
General
| Vocal Pop
| Pop
| Styles
| Music
ASIN: B00005USEJ Release Date: 2002-02-26 |
Tracks:
Tracks:
Tracks:
Album Description
Import exclusive, budget price compilation featuring Broadway classics like 'You'll Never Walk Alone', 'Summertime', & There's No Business Like Show Business', performed by Ethel Merman, Gertrude Lawrence, Celeste Holm, & many more. 75 tracks in all. Standard double jewel case. Disky. 2001.Album Details
3 CD setCustomer Reviews:
A bargain collection of showtunes.......2005-08-19
Average customer rating: 
|
Music by Ross Lee Finney
Manufacturer: Centaur ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Chamber Music
| Forms & Genres
| Classical (c.1770-1830)
| Historical Periods
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
General
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
General
| Chamber Music
| Classical
| Styles
| Music
ASIN: B000BLI50K Release Date: 2005-10-25 |
Average customer rating:
|
Whims and Fancies
ProductGroup: Classical Binding: Audio CD ASIN: B0007W4XY0 |
|
Average customer rating:
|
At Home and Abroad
The Peninsula Scottish Fiddlers and Friends Manufacturer: The Peninsula Scottish Fiddlers ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General
| International
| Styles
| Music
General
| Celtic
| International
| Styles
| Music
ASIN: B000CAEC2U Release Date: 2003-04-29 |
Tracks:
Average customer rating: 
|
Magical Tales
Jessie Modic Manufacturer: Jessie Modic ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General
| Children's Music
| Styles
| Music
General
| Children's Music
| Indie Music
| Stores
| Music
ASIN: B000068IFK Release Date: 2002-06-01 |
Tracks:
Album Description
Children's CD,"Magical Tales" is a delightful mix of two musical stories, accompanied by beautiful classical and traditional tunes. Stories, children's songs, and dances feature fiddles, guitar, harp, flute, and drums.Customer Reviews:
A Classic Children's CD.......2004-05-04
ABSOLUTELY HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT : WASTED MONEY.......2004-04-28
One major reason this is disaster is due to the NARRATOR'S HORRIBLE VOICE. If I'm going to listen to a reading, it should sound pleasant to the ears, not screechy and irritating. I assume she is also the singer, and luckily that is an improvement.
The first story, like many "fairy tales", includes the usual flawed or irresponsible parent, but this one is the main character and she chooses to neglect her self-labeled "bratty" children from the beginning. I'm sure this must be the author's idea of humor (?), but it makes it hard to have sympathy/empathy for her as the main character. She leaves her children by themselves overnight and gets distracted (only for 100 years) by the fairies in the forest. She finally learns her lesson and manages to go back 100 years to raise her "bratty" children. OH BUT THAT'S NOT THE END! She has her great grandaughter help her cheat death and play with the fairies for eternity? AFTER THE STORY FINALLY ENDS...there is a musical version of the entire tale. WHY BOTH? -- the musical version was at least mildly tolerable (even though I still feel the story itself is poor)--
I enjoy reading fairy tales and stories about fairies to my daughters; usually I use flawed characters as a teaching point, but there is nothing to learn from this story that you couldn't get in much nicer literature or music.
I DEEPLY regret buying an inappropriate bunch of stories for my girls.
My girls love it!.......2003-02-14
|
Average customer rating:
|
Deep Roots
Mark Campbell Manufacturer: Campbell Industries ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General
| Country
| Styles
| Music
General
| Traditional Country
| Country
| Styles
| Music
ASIN: B000CAFZMG Release Date: 2003-05-13 |
Tracks:
|
Average customer rating:
|
The View from Here
Julia McCrory Weatherford Manufacturer: self ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General
| Folk
| Styles
| Music
General
| Folk
| Indie Music
| Stores
| Music
ASIN: B0007W82T2 Release Date: 2005-01-01 |
Tracks:
|
Average customer rating:
|
Ways of the World
Manufacturer: Foxglove ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General
| Folk
| Styles
| Music
ASIN: B000CAEX9C Release Date: 2004-12-07 |
Average customer rating:
|
American Fiddle Tunes
Various Artists Manufacturer: Rounder Select ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Old-Time Country
| Traditional Country
| Country
| Styles
| Music
General
| Traditional Country
| Country
| Styles
| Music
Bluegrass
| Compilations
| Country
| Styles
| Music
General
| Bluegrass
| Country
| Styles
| Music
Traditional
| Bluegrass
| Country
| Styles
| Music
General
| Folk
| Styles
| Music
Traditional Folk
| Folk
| Styles
| Music
1940-1949
| Decades
| Compilations
| Miscellaneous
| Styles
| Music
1930-1939
| Decades
| Compilations
| Miscellaneous
| Styles
| Music
Rounder Records
| Specialty Stores
| Music
General
| Blues
| Indie Music
| Stores
| Music
Bluegrass
| Country
| Indie Music
| Stores
| Music
General
| Folk
| Indie Music
| Stores
| Music
Similar Items:
ASIN: B00004TDOL Release Date: 2000-06-20 |
Tracks:
Amazon.com
For most people, this 28-track anthology will be more edifying than entertaining... and that's not a criticism. First released in 1971, the collection was assembled by Alan Jabbour under the auspices of the American Folklife Center and the Library of Congress. Spanning the 1930s and '40s, the handsomely illustrated and thoroughly documented collection captures fiddlers from New England to California sawing their way through their favorite showcase tunes, in the process illustrating the rich variety of roughhewn sounds that salt-of-the-earth Americans produced with the violin. --Steven StolderCustomer Reviews:
I have found my Grandfather!.......2005-08-10
Indispensable for American musical history..........2004-03-01
Given that these recordings were made in the 1930s and 1940s, the sound quality is only really noticeable on a few tracks. The fiddles shine out in the mix, and are next to never obscured by tape hiss or noise, in spite of the fact that all of these are field recordings.
Some of the songs have serious undertones, some are humorous ("The Drunken Hiccups" which is obviously about inebriation). At least one, track sixteen, has a sinister history that the CD booklet only hints at. Some of them have a very long lineage: track one "Soldier's Joy" is said to be traceable back to 1779. With the change in undertone comes a change of mood, and the great variety on this disc reflects this.
Some of the musical forms will be instantly recognizable; there are a few "horpipes" (a popular dance/rhythm) on this disc. The most well-known hornpipe is "The Sailor's Hornpipe" which was later used as the theme for Popeye the Sailor cartoons (there is not a version of this song on this disc, but it contains some close cousins).
The CD booklet is actually a standalone booklet over 70 pages long. It includes histories of all of the songs, general information about fiddling, and amazing historical photographs. This is almost worth the price alone.
Now and then on the disc the fiddlers speak. One spoken highlight follows "Fisher's Hornpipe" where the fiddler tells the interviewer about the Stradivarius violin he obtained at a lumber camp. Another highlight is the spoken introduction to "Natchez under the Hill".
For anyone with any interest whatsoever in the historical evolution of music in America, this disc is a great source of information and melodies. It contains some incredible musicianship and loads of historical significance. Plus, and this is the best part, it's fun to listen to.
A MUST-HAVE FOR FIDDLE FANS.......2001-02-22
The field recordings were made in the 1930s and '40s and document older tradition bearers from all across continental United States-- from Mrs. Ben Scott of Turlock, California (the only female fiddler on the album) to Elmer Barton of Quechee, Vermont. Reflecting their roots in the British Isles, the various divergent regional styles of North American fiddle music originally shared the marked tendency towards solo performance. Accordingly, the majority of the album's fiddlers play without any accompaniment... save their tapping feet.
The first 13 cuts offer us a nice sampling of what we nowadays refer to as "Northern" style: clean precise melody lines, with very little of the ornamentation, "double stopping" or droning--let alone the syncopated "back-beat" derived from African influences -- found in the Southern and South Western styles. This harkens back to English country dance music, the pop dance music of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The rest of the album is devoted to representatives of various Southern traditions. Here we find 80 year old Stephen B. Tucker of Meridian, Mississippi doing a beautiful rendention of the double jig, HASTE TO THE WEDDING, that could easily be mistaken for an example of the aforementioned Northern style. It reminds us that in the 19th century, when Mr. Tucker was born, North American fiddlers did share a common repertoire of dance tunes that transcended stylistic differences, even while distinctive regional "dialects" were evolving into the many different forms of old-time fiddle music we know today. More typical of the Southern approach is Kentuckian W.H. Stepp's classic WAYS OF THE WORLD, for which Bill Stepp retunes his fiddle into "A" cross-tuning (AEAE, one of the several "standard" tunings common in Southern and South Western fiddling) for a full open sound facilitated by the use of bass drones as rhythmic accents.
While this album does offers a good cross section of the diversity to be found in America's fiddle heritage, there are some significant omissions. There are no representatives of the African-American fiddle tradition, which stretches back to the 17th century, despite the fact that there are also field recordings of black fiddlers in the Archive. Likewise, we find no examples of Native American fiddle music, such as that of the Tohono O'odham people of Southern Arizona (formerly known as the Papago Indians), the Hispanic traditions of New Mexico and Texas, nor the Cajun and Black Creole traditions of Louisiana (Wayne Perry, the only Cajun fiddler represented here plays a version of the typical Anglo breakdown, OLD JOE CLARK). And what about the French and Anglo-Celtic Canadian, Norwegian-American and other immigrant traditions, all of which have contributed greatly to the evolution of American fiddle music? Rounder and the Library of Congress should really consider putting out at least another volume or two to address these glaring oversights.
All things considered, I highly recommend this album to anyone interested in fiddle music, regardless of style preference. Fiddlers of every skill and persuasion will find this to be an invaluable reference, while violinists can learn a thing or two from these masters about traditional folk style and dance rhythms. A note to the classical music aficionados: here you'll find the original recording of W.H. Stepp's version of BONAPARTE'S RETREAT, which Aaron Copeland used, note for note, as the main musical theme for the "hoedown" in his ballet RODEO (my fellow "couch potatoes" will recognize it as the background music for the Beef commercials).
Average customer rating:
|
Shines Like Silver
Manufacturer: Cady Finlayson ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General
| Folk
| Styles
| Music
International Folk
| International
| Indie Music
| Stores
| Music
ASIN: B000065AHP Release Date: 2002-04-15 |
Tracks:
Music Review:
Recommended Music:
Bach: Violin Sonatas, BWV 1014-1023
Beethoven: Complete Music for piano 4-hands
Some of My Best Friends Are...The Trumpet Players