Compact Discs – Field Recorders' Collective

In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s I made many trips South during the summer and recorded many wonderful old-time musicians. A few other collectors had done the same thing. Few of these musicians are alive today. Young musicians coming into this type music will never get the chance to hear their styles or visit with them.

As I got older I began to wonder what to do with my collection, give it to a university archive or the Library of Congress? It seemed to me that in my lifetime I never had the opportunity to travel to hear the holdings of any archive, nor had any credentials if they required them for entry. Just as I wished to hear the recordings of other collectors, so too I wished that the musicial community could hear my recordings.

In 2003, I realized that none of the small independent CD labels specializing in "folk" music could afford to put out obscure or even well-known old-time rural musicians. So began my idea to assemble a collective of those people who recorded "in the field" in order to issue our collections. At the same time, we arranged, whenever possible, for the immediate families of these musicians to receive financial benefits from sales. Many families, proud of these CDs, have used these funds toward family reunions or to keep up family graveyard memorials.

In 2004 we issued the following 10 CDs:

1. FRC101 Fred Cockerham
2. FRC102 Band in Transition – Camp Creek Boys to the Smokey Valley Boys
3. FRC201 Roan Mountain Hilltoppers
4. FRC202 West Virginia Musicians of Clay County
5. FRC301 Norman Edmonds and the old timers volume 1
6. FRC302 Norman Edmonds and the old timers volume 2
7. FRC401 Jimmy Wheeler
8. FRC402 Ward Jarvis
9. FRC501 Wade Ward, Uncle Charlie Higgins and Dale Poe
10. FRC502 Marcus Martin

In 2005 we issued the following 10 CDs:

1. FRC103 Clyde Davenport Vol. 1
2. FRC104 Clyde Davenport Vol. 2
3. 2FRC203 Ola Belle Reed
4. FRC204 Ernie Carpenter
5. FRC303 Buddy Thomas
6. FRC304 Banjo Bill Cornett
7. FRC403 Lonnie Seymour
8. FRC404 Cecil Plum
9. FRC503 Santford Kelly
10. FRC504 Sidna and Fulton Myers
    

To order any one CD, send a check for $15 plus $4 postage ($4 for any amount of CDs up to 20) made out to the Field Recorder's Collective. However, If you wish all 10 CDs of either set, we will discount the price for the entire set to $125 (plus $4 postage). We can only discount the entire 2004 and 2005 sets, not mixes of the two. This gives virtually two free CDs so you can hear some great musicians you might not be familiar with. Please send the check to:

Ray Alden, 124 Quaker Bridge Road, Croton, NY 10520

If you live in a foreign country that accepts PayPal, we could arrange payment through the internet. Contact me: rgamusic at bestweb.net for more information and visit www.paypal.com

For more information, to learn more about both musicians and the collectors, visit our website: www.traditional-music.com