I had these two cd's that one got broken, the other lost. Was at a
humungus Borders yesterday, in Toledo Ohio of all places, and
found both again! One is John McCutcheon, "Water from another time"
one of the all time great folk recordings. I was moved to tears
listening to it again, I read the liner notes and found to my great
suprise, one of the fiddlers on a lot of the cuts was Freyda Epstein,
a national treasure whom I have mentioned here before, died two
years ago in a freak auto accident that was no accident. Anyway she
was John's fiddle TEACHER and is a master vocalist also. Now I know
why this CD is such a classic. There are several cuts, one called
"Wild rose of the mountain", a song written by Sy Khan, a great
songwriter, followed without a break by a fiddle duo by John and
Freyda, a fantastic tune. I had tears in my eyes to realize just why
that was such a good CD. Now that she is dead.
The other CD is one called "Big times in a small town"
a compilation of singer-songwriters at the annual Martha's Vineyard
singer/songwriters retreat, all live at the Wintertide Coffeehouse.
There is a sequel, a 2 CD set. But this is the original, great songs,
great writers. One that I liked a lot is called 'A folksinger earns
every dime" a really funny song. Just one of 17 others of equal
quality.
I also got the source cd, actually a compilation of their first three
CD's, a duo by Eliza Carthy and Nancy Kerr, one of the few
duo fiddle cd's. Its funny I was just listening to John and Freyda and
this is another one. The last cut on this CD is over 7 minutes long,
its a traditional british song 'Bonnie Light Horseman' about 200 years
old, done unacompanied by Eliza and Nancy, but following the song
like the McCutcheon version of 'Wild Rose of the Mountain'
they do a british tune on dual fiddles. Its breathtakingly beautiful
version. Quite a find for one day at Borders. If anyone likes folk
music, you would search long and hard for better music than these
three CD's. The name of the Eliza cd is called On Reflection.