The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #17220   Message #169540
Posted By: Sandy Paton
27-Jan-00 - 11:48 PM
Thread Name: New Hedy West CDs
Subject: RE: New Hedy West CDs
Hedy is the daughter of the late Don West, labor organizer and radical poet of the Appalachians. Her family came from the north Georgia mountains and passed many ballads and songs down through the generations. In the 60s, she became quite a well-known performer, singing traditional songs and ballads and accompanying herself on banjo. She recorded then for such labels as Vanguard. Folk-Legacy arranged with Topic Records (English label) to release Old Times and Hard Times in the U.S. When the LP was sold out and a repressing on vinyl unwise, we continued making the music available to the public as one of our "custom" cassettes. We are delighted to learn that Hedy has now made it available as a limited edition CD. It is a wonderful collection of traditional songs superbly presented. I urge you to give it a listen.

Among the folkies of the 60s and 70s, Hedy is probably best known as composer/arranger of "Five Hundred Miles," a song that became a major hit for PP&M (I think they were the ones who first popularized it).

Sandy