Clarence Ashley - Dark Holler (1929)

Recorded on October 23, 1929 for Columbia.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• clarence
• tom
• ashley
• banjo
• oldtime

[theoldmole]

If the collapse of the recording industry means that we go back to this kind of music, it won't be so bad.

[ZebZeppelin]

i want this cd. im buying it for myself for xmas. this music started it all. way before the big famous bands, this is music for the soul, he just plays for fun, not for fame. the way it whould be.

[rickatica]

wreckingyardrebels Three times I guess sorry bout that!!

[rickatica]

@weckingyardrebels, I really should get me some new glasses spelled your name wrong twice!!

[rickatica]

@weckingyardrebels I just re read your comment maybe that is what you meant, some great music anyway, sure glad it got recorded , true musicians such as this are hard to find nowadays!!!!

[rickatica]

@weckingyardrebels Ralph Stanley was just a kid when this was recorded, He may have got some inspiration from Clarence though!

[keithkaos]

wow s fast. gives it such a dark and desperate feeling. nice stuff

[curtistembeck]

@theoldmole

amen!

[Glaeken1961]

Love how he hurries the measure at the end of a line..gives it a strange no-time-to-waste feeling...he's off after her

[deesil13]

This song was recorded in Columbia SC , purt near from whence i hail,as near as i can tell .it is so Hypnotic and entrancing and dark and beautiful i love it

[StephenAndrew777]

I like this song because it sounds good.

[xanther97]

Clarence Ashley actually had been a professional musician and entertainer, especially in his youth. He performed in Medicine Shows (which were kind of the live pre-TV version of TV shows--live entertainment alternating with "commercials" for patent medicine, all sold out of traveling wagons). Sometimes he performed comedy skits in blackface as Georgia Tom.

You can find more info on this in his album liner notes and other sources.

[stalkerP00Q]

@Tyzz hes not dead, he lives on in his music and the people who still hold it dear, so go eat a dick

[Tyzz]

@stalkerP00Q

He's dead

[Axgoodofdunemaul]

@mythgar Me too. Papoo wasn't musical, but his friends were. I would play in the dark out on the lawn, among the fireflies, as they played and sang on the front porch of Papoo's farmhouse. It was a last glimpse, circa 1947, of the old days.

[SeagullTheFreegull]

@kjsh987 think you're lookin for sexism<3

[BeenInsane612]

@theoldmole Music would actually have meaning again. I know there is always good stuff out there but music was so pure back then.

[stalkerP00Q]

Long live clarence ashley!!!!

[mythgar]

Listening to this was unexpectantly emotional for me, it brought back strong memories of sitting at my papal's feet (that's grandfather for all you at there not in the know) watching his calloused hands working that old banjo in what he called the old fashioned style which was actually the claw hammer pick'in style and I'll tell you he could make that thing sing. But being a strict Southern Baptist, he thought all those old Bluegrass tunes were sinful to play so I didn't get to hear him often.

[kjsh987]

the word was sexualism. that was sexualism.sorry for my bad expresion

[tokyohalogen]

@kjsh987 whats wrong with sexuality? If you ask me I here plenty of sexuality and yearning pouring out from this song.

[kjsh987]

u are right. all that computer shit technology and all that sexuality makes today´s music a shit and a shadow of what was in the first decades of the 20 centrury

[herzogsbuick]

Maaaaan music that takes consideration to break apart. He plays things that are whole, it makes even the drone notes into indivisible melodies. Transportive, what else can you say?

[ZebZeppelin]

should be*

[lectrikdog]

@ZebZeppelin

Zeb, you got that right, so does the old mole

just added this to my favrits

[wreckingyardrebels]

Darlin Cory and a couple other songs had this tune... I believe this is the earliest recording I have heard it used. One of Ralph Stanley's influances? Excellent upload, thanks!