The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #37734   Message #529659
Posted By: Sandy Paton
16-Aug-01 - 05:57 PM
Thread Name: From deep in the archives.
Subject: RE: From deep in the archives.
I'm too lazy (read: busy, please) to dig up all the answers to Rick's questions, but I thought I'd make a small correction to the info above and add one explanation. I recorded Horton Barker in Beech Creek, NC, only because his sister, with whom he lived, wouldn't let us record at his home in Chilhowie, VA. Well, his address was Chilhowie, but he lived in a tiny community just outside of Chilhowie called St. Clair's Bottom (pronounced "Sinkler's"). I drove him down to Smith Harmon's home in Beech Creek, where the Harmons graciously put us up and let us record in their living room. That was in 1961, only a few months BEFORE I started Folk-Legacy. If I'd known Lee Haggerty was going to help me start my own record label just a couple of months later, I would have saved those tapes for us! I gave them to Moe Asch at Folkways in exchange for an "advance on royalties" of $100 for Horton ($.25 per record for 400 records!). That was the only payment he ever received. I later tried to get back the few songs that didn't make it onto the Folkways album (a superb version of "Pretty Sally," for example). but Moe said he couldn't find the original tapes. I'm going to try again, now that Smithsonian/Folkways has all of the stuff Moe left when he died. Maybe they would be able to find them now. I'd love to include the extra material on the next compilation of my field recordings. If I could get ALL of the tapes back, I'd add the missing songs and make a CD from them. Horton Barker was a wonderful singer with many fine songs and ballads.

Sandy