I'm enjoying a new e-mail correspondence with Jerry Zolten, and I look forward to meeting Jerry at the upcoming Folk College weekend at Clarion College, PA where he will present a lecture on the Dixie Hummingbirds (!!!!).

It turns out that Jerry produces the Fairfield Four. He writes that he has just done a special solo project with Isaac "Dickie" Freeman, the Four's bass singer, titled Beautiful Stars. Jerry said that the CD "treads a fine line between blues and gospel." Quoting from the website linked above, Zolten, a communications professor at Penn State University, was the person who spearheaded the Fairfield Four's return to recording in the '80s, after folk historian Doug Seroff reunited the original version of the pre-1950 quartet for a gospel festival.

When Beautiful Stars was originally released on the Dead Reckoning label, the indie release garnered rave reviews in the mainstream press... Such acclaim brought the album to the attention of Lost Highway, which had released the O Brother soundtrack. The label decided to re-release the album, thereby providing the commercial clout that its association with Universal Music can bring....

Hear sound samples and an interview HERE.

Wotta world!

~Susan