#ed snodderly

[americanahighways]

REVIEW: Ed Snodderly “ES Pearl Baggage Flies Free” @edsnodderly @americanahighways #baggagefliesfree #johnapice #newmusic2026 #americanaroots #americanamusic #folkmusic #albumreviews #musicreviews #americanahighways

REVIEW: Ed Snodderly “ES Pearl Baggage Flies Free”

[americanahighways]

Interview: Ed Snodderly on the American Roots Tradition and His New EP @edsnodderly @americanahighways #newmusic2026 #fliesfree #musicianinterviews #americanroots #americanamusic #folkmusic

Interview: Ed Snodderly on the American Roots Tradition and His New EP

[musiconspotify]

Ed Snodderly & The Shoestring Seven

Chimney Smoke (2023) … one of the year’s best …

#EdSnodderly

[jcsymphony]

May 6, 2017 “Banding Together”

Johnson City Symphony presents “Banding Together”, a half day event on May 6, 2017 from 2-6 pm featuring many local bands and artists.  Lightning Charlie, Ed Snodderly and Bill and the Belles will take the stage and make the afternoon family friendly and full of music.  Tickets are $15/person and can be purchased on the web page under “Events” jcsymphony.com or our Facebook page Facebook.com/JCSymphony.  The event will be held at the concrete amphitheatre behind the Memorial Park Community Center, 510 Bert Street, Johnson City.

[musiccityroots]

De-amplified - MCR 9.10.14

There’s no single date or inventor one can point to, but right around 100 years ago a scientific breakthrough changed music more profoundly than the piano or Beethoven or Johnny Cash. The triode vacuum tube was the key that unlocked high fidelity recording, radio transmission and amplification. Amplifiers took on more shapes and sizes than one could ever catalog, and they’re a factor in any musical performance beyond the virgin state of instruments and audience in close proximity. Even most classical concerts these days use microphones and sound “reinforcement.”

I first became aware of the songwriting prowess of Ed Snodderly through the recordings of his long time friend and former band mate Missy Raines, who is fond of his works for very good reason. So it was a delight that Ed invited Missy out to accompany him on bass and voice. They rendered the ragtime feeling “Diamond Stream” and the quirky, minor-key “Black Crow” with its delicious lyrics. “Farther Than Your Eye Can See” floated like milkweed in the air. And they wrapped with the rollicking “Pearlie Mae.” I hope Ed gets more of his due as one of our great folk writers and artists.

Then we got a double dose of certified old-time from guys who are far from old. Twenty-year-old Corbin Hayslett came out with his frailing hand flying on the banjo as he sang and played a speedy “John Henry.” This winner of the Orthophonic Joy contest is coming into his own as a musician and entertainer; his stage banter (“jokes are cheap in Virginia, he said) was sharp beyond his years. I also adored his flatpicking and singing, so reminiscent of the great Norman Blake, on “Wreck of the C&O.” He offered a soft and lyrical banjo instrumental he’d learned from Mike Seeger and a turbo-charged “Darling Cora” to close. That fed like a diamond stream into the Blue Ridge Entertainers, the new duo of Coleman Akin and Kris Truelson, who threw it back so far I could easily imagine the rasp of 78 RPM shellac behind them as they sang. “Birmingham Jail” was a magnificent waltz with classic brother harmonies that swooped and danced around in perfect union. The song “I’m Saved” was a charming slice of early novelty country gospel in which all the key words were spelled. It was S-W-E-E-T. 

Marty Raybon came less in bluegrass posture than I anticipated, but that was just as well because his old Shenandoah hits sounded great in unplugged, three-man format. Marty’s brother Tim played lead guitar and Mike Rogers played bass (the only electric instrument of the night) and when all three voices joined together on the rollicking “Church On Cumberland Road” the contemporary harmonies sounded all the more uplifting for all the older-school moods set to that point. Bluegrass and country music fans know about Marty’s voice. It’s sticky like a tobacco leaf and strong like whiskey, but it’s good for ya! He led the way on “Ghost In This House” and “Sunday In The South” and wrapped the set up with the bluegrass kicker “Down The Road,” taken nice and fast with great swing. What was it they used to say on WSM? “Too country and proud of it”? That’s how the set made us feel.

When the artists gathered for the Nashville Jam, the entire group was smaller than some bands we’ve had recently. But that made it easy for Jim Lauderdale to orchestrate a tight, bluesy “Sitting On Top of the World” which is always a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was all acoustic, but it was electrifying.

  Craig H.  

[musiccityroots]

Orthophonic Joy - MCR 9.10.14

Bristol, the border-straddling town that’s half in Tennessee and half in Virginia, will forever be famous as the cradle of the country music business, thanks to some very famous and influential recording sessions in 1927. That event, which introduced the world to The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, The Stonemans and others is being celebrated these days in several ways. A new $11 million Birthplace of Country Music Museum just opened in Bristol. And a new album produced by bluegrass/country superman Carl Jackson features stars like Dolly Parton and Marty Stuart recording new versions of songs captured back then by RCA talent scout Ralph Peer. It’s called Orthophonic Joy, after the so-called Orthophonic Victrola, which was the first high-fidelity record player available to consumers. These appeared in 1925, just in time to help make those Bristol Session recordings sound great to a widening consumer base.

Show closer Marty Raybon, hailed as one of the finest voices in country music, enjoyed big success with the band Shenandoah in the 1990s and in bluegrass ever since. You may have heard him recently in Miranda Lambert’s new song “Another Sunday In The South” where she not only sings of her love for Raybon’s former band but includes his vocal in the track. But don’t let that obscure the half dozen superb records he’s released on his own since 2001, including The Back Forty last year to mark four decades in country music.  

I caught up with Marty over a sputtering cell phone connection from somewhere in Kentucky, where he was gearing up for one of his steady stream of shows. He told me in his rapid-fire, Florida-reared drawl about growing up with a fiddle-playing, bluegrass-loving dad and an early band that included his brothers. Their favorite influences were the great brother bands (NOT to be confused with bro-country, people), chiefly the bridge-building Osborne Brothers. Raybon went to Nashville to seek his dream but wound up realizing it in nearby Muscle Shoals. Some pals had a bar band down there and when they lost their lead singer they asked Marty if he’d like the job for unspectacular but steady money. Raybon recalls that was his “too much week at the end of the money” phase, so he said yes. When the band got cooking, Marty says the legendary Rick Hall (FAME studio) chartered a bus and personally invited everybody at CBS Records in Nashville to come see this band sing. They took the name Shenandoah and took their contemporary sound to the world, where it hit big.

A couple years after Shenandoah broke up in the late 90s, Raybon’s brother Tim coaxed him back to bluegrass, leading to the aptly named Full Circle album, which is where I first tapped into Marty Raybon’s rich, slightly sandy and deeply emotional voice. He’s in that rarified group with singers like Russell Moore, Gene Watson or Vern Gosdin. If you love country singing, you ought to be on the edge of your seat come Wednesday night.

Also on the bill is veteran folk singer and songwriter Ed Snodderly, who absolutely knocked us out during his first appearance on Roots. I’d heard of him widely because of his famous lyrics etched at the top of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s rotunda fountain and because of his relationship with my bass and folk-jazz crossover heroine Missy Raines. They were in a great band together and she records his songs, and they always startle me with their beautiful quirks. Then when Ed played the show, I noted that his fingerstyle guitar had shades of Doc Watson and that “before the set was over he played on dobro and banjo too. And what a gift with words he has, both spoken and sung. Snodderly told lovely, engaging stories and sang lines that layered the poetic over the plainspoken.” All this and he fiddled on camera in O Brother, Where Art Thou? So you want credentials? I’ll show you credentials. 

Young man banjo fan Corbin Hayslett experienced some literal Orthophonic Joy after winning a hotly contested prize set up by the R&RR team. Folks were invited to submit a performance video, and by winning Hayslett lands himself a song on that album in some pretty heady company for college-age guy. But it’s not the first contest this “modern minstrel” has won. For some years now he’s been recognized as a premiere performer and educator who is deeply devoted to the traditional music of his region. This could also be said for The Blue Ridge Entertainers, the old-time string duo from Johnson City, TN that rounds out this nicely old-school Roots. Coleman Akin (guitar, fiddle, vocal) and Kris Truelsen (mandolin, guitar, vocal) hooked up in 2013 and fast gained recognition for their energetic and rooted sound. They say to expect specifically East Tennessee fiddle and banjo songs but also blues, jug band and ragtime from across the South.

So I forecast plenty of joy, Orthophonic, stereophonic and generally phonic. Join us in person or through your cutting edge web-o-phonic player.

Craig H. 

[wandaaltcountryblog]

Malcolm Holcombe - Pitiful Blues.

Okay - well this song from the album of the same name is still blowing me away.

Finally there is something to believe in, and his name is Malcolm Holcombe.

Something so beautiful and ugly - absolutley no bullshit- a sum of its parts into something classic … I cannot stop listening to this album.

The songs are perfect.

Malcolm’s menace is perfectly stated.

The production and playing on the album is tasteful and sounds fantastic.Perfect.

Standout tracks are Pitiful Blues, Savannah Blues and Words Not Spoken.

The Sunday School kids wont like it.

AND THAT MAKES ME LOVE IT EVEN MORE.

One of my favourite albums in 10 years.

You can buy it from HERE Malcolm’s website for TEN FUCKING BUCKS.

Or buy a happy meal for your unhappy kid.

Here is recent live concert with his partner in crime Ed Snodderly, the 5th April 2014 @ Paco Plumtrek, Almelo, The Netherlands.

[mhisadj]

Ed Snodderly - The Diamond Stream

Got to meet & greet & listen to this gentlemen today @ WNCW. 'Twas a simply fantastic time.

Also! Malcolm Holcombe was there too! - mama told me so

Both of them were as sweet as pie.