Tuesday 13 November 2012

Chance McCoy and The Appalachian String Band - Debut



Take a Chance

This one’s for ol’ time Country lovers, but it is free so if you don’t find yourself kickin’ and hollerin’ you haven’t lost any moonshine money.

Chance McCoy and The Appalachian String Band come from West Virginia and play 19 traditional ‘tunes and songs’ from West Virginia and Kentucky, featuring fiddle and banjo. Chance McCoy recently linked up with Old Crow Medicine Show and it you like their infectious take on authentic Country you’ll understand why McCoy was asked to audition for and subsequently join them.

There isn’t much to delineate on this collection other than reiterate its traditional bluegrass sound and the fact it was recorded live, in a circle, as true and real as it could be. In addition, it always was a free album – presumably to promote such bone fide Appalachian music – and it is now available on noisetrade, a forum for providing free music that I am increasingly promoting here, I trust for obvious reasons.

There are vocals as well as brilliant instrumentals. Two beautiful songs in their perfect simplicity of banjo and voice are Little Birdie and Little Pink, respectively tracks 7 and 15. The first is followed by a solo fiddle Yew Piney Mountain that is absolutely gorgeous. One more memorable vocal track is Gospel Plow and when you download this album there is a PDF liner notes describing the history of all 19 songs.



3 comments:

  1. Have listened and am about to download.Great music! Have also shared on FB.

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  2. 'Old Time' will do it for me. Wasn't trying to establish a thesis, just get as near as I could. Not jazz. Thank you.

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    1. Sorry - made an error in my first comment and when deleted, the 'anonymous' response disappeared too. For the sake of transparency, this is the comment to which I was replying: 'Please! It's not "traditional Bluegrass." "Traditional Bluegrass" whatever that might be, is probably Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, and, or, the Stanley Brothers. Maybe Reno and Smiley, I don't know, but this is Old Time Appalachian Mountain music, or Old Time, for short. It came before "Bluegrass" which Bill Monroe invented in 1945. And it's still here. And will be when Bluegrass modernizes itself into pointlessness.'

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