Folk Time

Last updated
Folk Time
Folk-Time-Hart-Valley-Drifters.jpg
Studio album by the Hart Valley Drifters
Released November 11, 2016
Recorded Fall 1962
Genre Folk, bluegrass
Length42:35
Label ATO
Producer Ted Claire, Marc Allan
Jerry Garcia chronology
Garcia Live Volume Seven
(2016)		Folk Time
(2016)		 Garcia Live Volume Eight
(2017)

Folk Time is an album by the Hart Valley Drifters, an American folk music band. It was recorded in 1962 at the studios of KZSU, a radio station at Stanford University. It was released by ATO Records on November 11, 2016. [1] [2] [3] [4]

The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as Great Britain, Europe, or Africa. Musician Mike Seeger once famously commented that the definition of American folk music is "...all the music that fits between the cracks."

KZSU radio station at Stanford University

KZSU is a freeform FM radio station broadcasting from the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California, United States.

Stanford University private research university located in Stanford, California, United States

Leland Stanford Junior University is a private research university in Stanford, California. Stanford is known for its academic strength, wealth, proximity to Silicon Valley, and ranking as one of the world's top universities.

Contents

The Hart Valley Drifters were part of the American folk music revival of the 1960s. The band included Jerry Garcia (who three years later would co-found the rock band the Grateful Dead), Robert Hunter (who would write the lyrics to many Grateful Dead songs), and David Nelson (who, with John Dawson and Garcia, would co-found the country rock band the New Riders of the Purple Sage). [5]

Jerry Garcia American musician and member of the Grateful Dead

Jerome John Garcia was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his work as the lead guitarist and as a vocalist with the band Grateful Dead, which came to prominence during the counterculture era in the 1960s. Although he disavowed the role, Garcia was viewed by many as the leader or "spokesman" of the group.

Grateful Dead American rock jam band

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. Ranging from quintet to septet, the band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, country, bluegrass, blues, gospel, modal jazz, reggae, experimental music, psychedelia, and space rock, for live performances of lengthy instrumental jams, and for their devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". "Their music", writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists". These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world". The band was ranked 57th by Rolling Stone magazine in its The Greatest Artists of All Time issue. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and a recording of their May 8, 1977, performance at Cornell University's Barton Hall was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2012. The Grateful Dead have sold more than 35 million albums worldwide.

Critical reception

In American Songwriter , Hal Horowitz wrote, "The songs are mostly bluegrass standards from the catalogs of Ralph Stanley, Earl Scruggs and others played with youthful enthusiasm from the quintet. Garcia’s talent on banjo is displayed on "Roving Gambler", "Think of What You've Done", a caffeinated "Cripple Creek" and "Run Mountain", among others. He also takes lead vocals on most selections and while his signature approach was a ways off, he acquits himself admirably. There’s plenty of energy on display and the audio has held up remarkably well, especially considering the primitive college studio conditions it was recorded under." [6]

<i>American Songwriter</i> American bimonthly magazine dedicated to the art of songwriting

American Songwriter is a bimonthly magazine, established in 1984 covering every aspect of the craft and art of songwriting. It features interviews, songwriting tips, news, reviews and lyric contest. The magazine is based in Nashville, Tennessee.

In Relix , Jeff Tamarkin wrote, "Historical value aside, it's an exciting collection — Garcia was already a remarkably facile player and nuanced vocalist. His lead vocal on "Pig in a Pen", a trad number that would become a staple of his short-lived bluegrass side-project Old and in the Way a decade-plus later, contained all of the warmth and command he would fine-tune with more experience. And the picking, too, is superb: "Cripple Creek", an instrumental breakdown, barely lasts a minute and a half, but both Garcia's banjo and the guitar-playing are equal to that of any major folk festival habitués of the time." [7]

<i>Relix</i>

Relix is a magazine that focuses on live and improvisational music. The magazine was launched in 1974 as a handmade newsletter devoted to connecting people who recorded Grateful Dead concerts. It rapidly expanded into a music magazine covering a wide number of artists. It is the second-longest continuously published music magazine in the United States after Rolling Stone. The magazine is published eight times a year. In 2009, the magazine had a circulation of 102,000.

Jeff Tamarkin is an American editor, author and historian specializing in music and popular culture.

On NPR , Felix Contreras said, "What you hear on Folk Time, besides pretty decent banjo playing, is the beginning of Garcia's quest to explore every aspect of what makes American music so rich.... [W]hat Garcia was really after — as a musical explorer in the Dead and other projects — was a seamless integration of this music, along with blues and jazz and folk, with just the right amount of psychedelic inspiration. With the rest of his Grateful Dead bandmates, he did exactly that — and that makes these songs the roots of a cultural phenomenon that recently celebrated 50 enlightening years of redefining improvised music." [8]

NPR non-profit membership media organization

National Public Radio is an American privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization based in Washington, D.C. NPR differs from other non-profit membership media organizations, such as AP, in that it was established by an act of Congress and most of its member stations are owned by government entities. It serves as a national syndicator to a network of over 1,000 public radio stations in the United States.

On Pitchfork , Jesse Jarnow wrote, "Picking up the banjo after being discharged from the Army in 1960, Garcia immersed himself in folk music for a half-decade, practicing obsessively, working as a music teacher, and playing in a series of bands around the Palo Alto area, including the Thunder Mountain Tub Thumpers, the Black Mountain Boys, and others. Like many other central '60s musicians who would eventually plug in and freak out, Garcia came of musical age during the great folk scare, finding post-War solace in ancient (and ancient-seeming) songs. Only a few years from dashing headlong into the neon-pulsing present tense of LSD, Garcia and others first dove deep into a mythic past that seemed to come alive in the grooves of old records and zoetrope-like flicker between banjo rolls." [9]

<i>Pitchfork</i> (website) online music magazine

Pitchfork is an American online magazine launched in 1995 by Ryan Schreiber, based in Chicago, Illinois, and owned by Condé Nast. Being developed during Schreiber's tenure in a record store at the time, the magazine developed a reputation for its extensive focus on independent music, but has since expanded to a variety of coverage on both indie and popular music.

On jambands.com, Kristopher Weiss said, "Keeping in mind that this set was never intended as anything other than a one-off college radio broadcast and certainly never envisioned as a commercial release — particularly 54 years after the fact — Folk Time is remarkably solid. And given that it provides Deadheads a chance to hear Garcia as he's never been heard before and regular music lovers a glimpse of the Grateful Dead's roots, it stands as a critically important missing link to the vaunted San Francisco sound, folk, bluegrass and the catchall known as Americana." [10]

On Grateful Web, Dylan Muhlberg said, "In 1962, Garcia wasn't the prodigious artist he would blossom into just yet. He was a folkie, obsessed with getting out and picking guitar and banjo while refining his amicable tenor vocals.... The 54-year-old recording has been vividly restored, entirely blemish free.... Before Bob Dylan had blown up, before John Hartford and Sam Bush created newgrass music, before the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band bridged rock and bluegrass, there was the Hart Valley Drifters. They aspired to play like their favorite pickers of the 1940s and 1950s." [11]

Track listing

  1. Band introductions – 1:13
  2. "Roving Gambler" (traditional) – 3:46
  3. "Ground Speed" (Earl Scruggs) – 1:29
  4. "Pig in a Pen" (Fiddlin' Arthur Smith, arranged by Jerry Garcia) – 2:16
  5. "Standing in the Need of Prayer" (traditional) – 2:10
  6. "Flint Hill Special" (Earl Scruggs) – 2:00
  7. "Nine Pound Hammer" (traditional) – 2:42
  8. "Handsome Molly" (G. B. Grayson, Henry Whitter) – 2:19
  9. "Clinch Mountain Backstep" (Ralph Stanley, Ruby Rakes) – 1:18
  10. "Think of What You've Done" (Carter Stanley) – 2:42
  11. "Cripple Creek" (traditional) – 1:25
  12. "All the Good Times Have Past and Gone" (traditional) – 3:09
  13. "Billy Grimes, the Rover" (traditional) – 2:44
  14. "Paddy on the Turnpike (Boys, My Money's All Gone)" (traditional) – 1:39
  15. "Run Mountain" (J. E. Mainer) – 4:12
  16. "Sugar Baby" (Dock Boggs) – 3:54
  17. "Sitting on Top of the World" (Walter Vinson, Lonnie Carter) – 3:37

Personnel

Hart Valley Drifters
Production

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References

  1. ↑ Betts, Stephen L. (October 26, 2016). "Hear Jerry Garcia's Early Bluegrass Band Hart Valley Drifters". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  2. ↑ Bernstein, Scott (October 6, 2016). "Earliest Studio Recordings of Jerry Garcia to be Released for the First Time". JamBase. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  3. ↑ Young, Alex (October 12, 2016). "Earliest Known Jerry Garcia Recordings to be Released for the First Time". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Jerry Garcia's First Known Studio Recording: The Hart Valley Drifters "Roving Gambler"". Relix. October 6, 2016. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  5. ↑ Monger, Timothy. "Hart Valley Drifters". AllMusic. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  6. ↑ Horowitz, Hal (November 9, 2016). "Hart Valley Drifters: Folk Time". American Songwriter. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  7. ↑ Tamarkin, Jeff (November 29, 2016). "Hart Valley Drifters: Folk Time". Relix. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  8. ↑ Contreras, Felix (November 3, 2016). "First Listen: Hart Valley Drifters, Folk Time". NPR. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  9. ↑ Jarnow, Jesse (November 15, 2016). "Hart Valley Drifters: Folk Time". Pitchfork. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  10. ↑ Weiss, Kristopher (November 11, 2016). "Hart Valley Drifters: Folk Time". jambands.com. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  11. ↑ Muhlberg, Dylan (November 7, 2016). "Hart Valley Drifters – Folk Time – Review". Grateful Web. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
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