American Patchwork Series: Songs and Stories About America

Performers featured include: Tommy Jarrell, Stanley and Ray Hicks, Bob and Laurence Eller, The Thomas Brothers, Frank Profitt Jr. and Raymond Fairchild.

In APPALACHIAN JOURNEY you will travel to the Smoky Mountains to discover how a mix of British and Afro-American cultures, urban influences, and contact with the Cherokee Indians, resulted in the region's unique blend of ballads, legends, handmade toys, and square dancing.

Visit the birthplace of country music and its creators ­ everyone from moonshiners to Kentucky miners, not to mention a whole array of expert banjo-pickers, fiddle-players and guitar-strummers. Listen to Davy Crockett's favorite yarn and hear the original ballad of Tom Dooley. Trace the growth of Southern mountain music from the primitive mouthbow to red-hot bluegrass bands.

Alan Lomax has created the American Patchwork series to celebrate the backwoods and back-alley traditions that lie behind jazz, rock, bluegrass, blues, gospel and Cajun music. Lomax has been committed to opening the media to authentic American music since the 1930's, when he first recorded Jelly Roll Morton, Blind Willie McTell, Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and many others who made American folk music known throughout the world.

The American Patchwork Series was developed by the Association for Cultural Equity at Columbia University and Hunter College. It is written, directed and produced by Alan Lomax.

vestapol 13079   $12.50