Bob Douglas

Bob Douglas
	Artist Title: Publisher: Format: Price:	Bob Douglas Sequatchie Valley: Seven Decades of Country Fiddling Tennessee Folklore Society LP $8
"Bob Douglas' musical experience is monumental, and, for most fiddle enthusiasts, a thrilling surprise. Born in 1900, he had been a childhood companion to Curly Fox; he recorded for the Victor Company with the Allen Brothers in 1928; he toured with Clayton McMitchen and Carl Cotner through the Midwest; he fiddled against Natchee the Indian, A. A. Gray, and Lowe Stokes and beat them all; he gave the Louvin Brothers their first paying job in country music; Jess Young was his father's close friend; Arthur Smith, Jimmy McCarroll, and Earl Johnson all crossed his path. Three times he has been a guest of the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folklife, and, in 1975, won first place in their national fiddling contest. In 1989 he just won two fiddling contests - the only two he entered that year. "Sequatchie Valley includes archaic solo fiddle pieces, smooth blues, rip-roaring breakdowns, a '50s radio broadcast, and the first recordings of the Louvin Brothers. Bob Douglas' guitar playing is here - the finger-picking style he learned from a young black man in 1917, and backup for his 82 year-old father, Tom Douglas. The raw material for this project was taken from home discs and tape recordings, 78 rpm Victor recordings, 45 and 33 rpm custom-press records, radio station transcription discs, and field recordings from the Tennessee State Parks Folklife Project. In all, seven decades of fiddling are presented by an under-appreciated master musician." - TFS. Includes a glossy 12-page booklet of notes with some great photos.