Debby McClatchy stopped by this morning and gave me a copy of her new CD, Chestnut Ridge. It's typical Debby - good old-time music that makes me feel like I'm living back in the Gold Rush days. If you'd like a copy, you can write to Debby at P.O. Box 302, Dutch Flat, CA 95714. Debby charges $15 per CD, plus $2 for shipping if you buy just one CD. Shipping is free if you buy more than one CD.

Debby's other CD's are:

• Debby McClatchy with the Red Clay Ramblers (Silver Jubilee Reissue, 2001)
• 'Til the Good Times Come (undated)
• Light Years Away (1992)

Here are the CD jacket notes for Chestnut Ridge. They should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Cotton-eyed Joe Traditional. A fiddle tune with words, from the singing of Clay Buckler of the Red Clay Ramblers. Various references to cotton-eyed Joe include an African American with either blue eyes, cataracts, or an albino. Most lyrics are highly racist; these are definitely more modern and cleaned-up

Row Your Boat Parlour ballad from the John Lair collection additional verse by Debby McClatchy. From the singing of Lily May Ledford of the Coon Creek Girls, an all-woman string band, put together by the Renfro Valley Barndance in 1937. The group was hugely popular until 1957, when Lily May retired to raise a family. She was rediscovered at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966

Reuben's Train Traditional, additional verse from Riley Puckett. Reuben was an African American railroad engineer in the years following the Civil War. After peace-keeping troops from the North left the southern states, people like Reuben were hunted down and often murdered, so Reuben took his train and made a bid for freedom and the North.

Green Green Rocky Road Traditional. This is one of the Underground Railroad songs, which included clues in the lyrics for the escaping slaves as to safe houses and routes. I learned this version from Chris Smither during a snowed-in week-end in Vermont.
Cold Rain and Snow Traditional. This is a bluesy mountain song with definite Celtic-Anglo antecedents, learned from the Red Clay Ramblers.

Blow Your Whistle Freight Train Delmore Brothers 1935 additional verse by Debby McClatchy. Rabon and Alton Delmore, tenant farmers from Alabama, wrote hundreds of songs and were mainstays of the early Grand Ole Opry. Drink finally broke them up, but it took thirty years!

Ring Those Golden Bells Alfred Karnes. Mr. Karnes was a Baptist minister and barber from Kentucky who wrote some of the most glorious country gospel songs in the 1920s. He also had perfect diction, and played the fiddle, banjo, and the double-necked harp guitar.

Needlecase/ Quince Dillon's High D Tune Traditional. Fiddle tunes from the Ozarks and North Carolina

Song of the Argonauts S.C. Upham 1874. There was a silver jubilee celebration of the California Gold Rush in 1874. This lovely song was written for the festivities.

San Antonio (Charlie Poole) by Williams and Van Alstyne 1907. If you heard Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers in person in the 1920s they would usually have a piano player named Lucy Terry. But the men in suits from NYC felt the piano was not old-time enough, so it was left out on recordings. In 1929 Charlie took Lucy, Roy Harvey on guitar, and Lonnie Austin and Odell Smith on fiddles to New York and recorded six sides as the "Highlanders".

Gerds and Whirls, McClatchy, 1988. As a plump, academic fifteen year old in the 6Os, life was pure misery. This song is an anthem for those girl nerds (gerds) and the with-it girls (whirls).

Amazing Grace Words - John Newton first published in 1779 in "Olney Hymns", but the final verse is from another hymn, "Jerusalem, My Happy Home" tune by Debby MeClatchy. This is one of five "old chestnuts" appearing on this recording. The story is that Newton, the captain of a slave ship, grew despondent over his occupation, returned his human cargo to Africa, and became a preacher, ordained in the Church of England in 1764.

Back Burner Man Wanda Jean Wangford, 1956. Blues musicians have their back-door man, so cooks should have a back burner man, simmering slowly in the pan and spiced up occasionally to keep him near at hand. Wanda Jean was a bubble-gum rock star from the 1950s who loved to wear a poodle skirt with two poodles (use your imagination). Tragically she was caught in a crossfire between jealous lovers and killed in 1957.

Goodbye Booze Charlie Poole. Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers were the premier string band of the 1920s. They were mill workers who sold thousands of recordings, quit their day jobs, and took to the road, where their professionalism and infectious good-time music made them incredibly popular. The Depression of the 1930s ended the string band era, but Charlie's prevalent influence remains to this day.

Valley of the Shenandoah AP Carter 1941. The Carter Family, AR, Sara, and Maybelle, was discovered at the famous Bristol sessions in Tennessee in 1927, and rapidly became the most beloved and popular recording group from the southern mountains. Most of their material was parlour and variety music from the turn of the century, as this one, recorded at their swan song session for Victor.

You can see Debby perform as Lotta Crabtree and as Debby McClatchy at the San Francisco Free Folk Festival June 21-22.