North Country Primitive

Subject: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 12 Mar 15 - 10:23 AM

If anyone enjoys a bit of American Primitive, fingerstyle or raga guitar, you might want to take a look over here:

North Country Primitive

Interviews, opinion and - eventually - reviews. And owt else that tickled our fancy.

Cheers!

Nigel

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 13 Mar 15 - 02:56 PM

New interview up with Minneapolis-based guitarist and honcho of Grass-Tops Recording, Kyle Fosburgh...

It's About Being The Change

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 30 Mar 15 - 09:42 AM

New interview plus soundfiles up - this time its the turn of Texan fingerstyle guitarist William Csorba.

Enjoy!

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 30 Mar 15 - 09:55 AM

Interesting stuff. Good to know Fahey and the great Robbie Basho are still being appreciated.

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 30 Mar 15 - 01:03 PM

Cheers, Gillymor. There are a lot of good American Primitive guitarists out there right now.

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 30 Mar 15 - 01:55 PM

When I was first starting to play guitar around 1970 John Fahey was the man for a lot of us fingerpickers in the D.C. area (he was from Takoma Park, MD which borders D.C.). I'm about the only person I now know who plays in the style but American Primitive seems to be thriving from what I've seen on the web. Thanks for putting this up, Spleen Cringe.

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 31 Mar 15 - 06:18 PM

Have you any audio or video of your playing on the web?

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 31 Mar 15 - 07:05 PM

Afraid not, it's just something I do on the couch nowadays.

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 01 Apr 15 - 01:53 PM

bit disappointed when I read all this- thought I'd found my Mudcat niche at last....

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,spleen cringe
Date: 21 Apr 15 - 11:43 AM

Sorry to disappoint you, Jim!

Meanwhile we have an extensive interview up with Dennis Taylor, to celebrate the reissue of his 1983 album, Dayspring. If you so desire, you can read it at...

Up Close and Personal - That's What Making Music is All About

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 24 Apr 15 - 07:54 AM

Thanks for the link, SC. I never heard of Dennis Taylor but I truly enjoyed his tunes. You can hear the Fahey influence but Taylor's melodic ideas seem to be more clearly realized than Fahey's, the ones from his later period anyway. I learned and still play some of John's early stuff like Last Steam Engine Train, Take a Look at that Baby, Give Me Cornbread When I'm Hungry, I'm Gonna Do All I Can for My Lord, Sunflower River Blues and Poor Boy. A lot of his later, longer tunes didn't really interest me and Taylor's tune "Going Nowhere Fast" reminded me of that.

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 27 Apr 15 - 03:28 PM

Hi Gillymor. I don't think many people outside of Nebraska had heard of Dennis till Grass Tops reissued his album - I certainly hadn't.

Meanwhile we have a new interview up, this time with English guitarist Nick Jonah Davis. His new album, House of Dragons is a corker. You can hear a bit of Fahey and a bit of Jansch in his playing.

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 27 Apr 15 - 10:09 PM

More good stuff, Spleen Cringe. It's great to hear what folks are doing with the Fahey style(and with their own styles). I especially liked Davis' 2nd tune Pili Pala. Funny he mentioned Paul Metzger, who I've been listening to lately, as well as the late Jack Rose as influences, both of whom you may have heard of. Rose had a cool take on the Fahey style.
NCP is a fine resource. It makes me want to put new strings on my big guitar, thanks for sharing.

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 May 15 - 10:48 AM

If it makes you want to restring that big ole guitar, Gillymor, it's serving its purpose! I love the work of Jack Rose - a talented and sorely missed player. Kensington Blues is a mighty fine album, and his collaborations with the Black Twig Pickers are enormously good fun. I need to check out more of Paul Metzger's stuff. Someone gave me a copy of Deliverance (the perfect name for a banjo album!) a while back - must dig it out and have another listen. Nathan Bowles, from the aforementioned Black Twig Pickers has done a couple of great solo banjo albums recently - well worth seeking out.

More NCP news. We now have a reviews page. Only one review on there so far - Nick Jonah Davis - but more to follow. More reviewers are always welcome - if anyone out there can string a sentence together, is a good, deep listener and likes the old American Primitive/fingerstyle sound, please PM me or get in touch via the website contact page.

Our latest interview is with Dylan Golden Aycock, a guitarist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As well as being a nifty player himself (check out the Rise & Shine album, available to stream on Bandcamp), he also runs the excellent Scissor Tail Editions record label that have put out some great releases by Sarah Louise, Nick Castell, Scott Tuma and others and are about to release a couple of potentially awesome albums by Dibson T. Hoffweiler and the wonderful Chuck Johnson.

Here's the link:

"Solo Acoustic Guitar Stands Outside of Time."

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 May 15 - 10:55 AM

By the way, in the hope that one of the Mudelves reads this, is there a chance you could - pretty please - change the title of this thread and then delete this post? It occurs to me that if it was called something like "NCP: American Primitive/Fingerstyle Blog" (I've done a character count and it fits, just!) it might make more sense than it does just with the blog name as the thread title.

No worries if this can't be done, but if it can, thank you!

Nigel

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 16 - 06:12 PM

Lots more stuff on here since I last alerted you, including Mark Fossom,Bob Hadley, Brad Wood and Long Pike Hollow. Enjoy!

North Country Primitive

Subject: RE: North Country Primitive
From: GUEST,Nigel Spencer
Date: 17 Jan 21 - 12:20 PM

So... After a five year hiatus I thought it was about time I revived my blog. I've just interviewed the Powers/Rolin Duo, who play acoustic guitar and hammered dulcimer. The music is rooted in the American Primitive tradition of John Fahey, Robbie Basho etc but with an emphasis on improvisation and with Jen Powers' dulcimer providing an otherworldly counterpoint to Matthew Rolin's guitar. There's a link to listen to their music at the end of the interview. Hope you enjoy it!

Powers Rolin Duo