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Here she comes! The Black Diamond Express to Hell with Sin the Engineer holding the throttle wide open; Pleasure is the headlight, and the devil is the conductor. You can feel the roaring of the express and the moanin' of the drunkards, liars, gamblers and other folk who have got aboard. They are hell-bound and they don't want to go. The train makes eleven stops but nobody can get off - Vocalion advertisement for Rev. A.W. Nix's 1927 recording Black Diamond Express to Hell

Author Topic: Lena Hughes' parlor guitar  (Read 1042 times)

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Offline Pan

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Lena Hughes' parlor guitar
« on: February 07, 2013, 09:02:39 AM »
Mike Brosnan posted this on fb, and I thought some of you might be interested in it.

This is probably about as close to amateur parlor music from the turn of the century, as we'll ever get. Mrs. Hughes was born in 1904 and began playing music at the age of 9.
She made her only, apparently self produced, record in 1960's, which is now being reprinted.

The story and some sample tracks:

http://www.npr.org/2013/02/06/171294400/the-ancient-vibration-of-parlor-music-revived-by-two-generations

The album and the tracklist on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Flat-Guitar-Lena-Hughes/dp/B00AF6B16Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1360256385&sr=1-1&keywords=Queen+Of+The+Flat+Top+Guitar

Cheers

Pan

Offline eric

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Re: Lena Hughes' parlor guitar
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2013, 09:25:45 AM »
Also available in glorious vinyl!

http://www.tompkinssquare.com/archives/312
--
Eric

Offline dj

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Re: Lena Hughes' parlor guitar
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2013, 02:15:49 PM »
Ahhhhhhh...

I'm a sucker for music like this.  thanks for posting about it, Pan.

Offline Johnm

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Re: Lena Hughes' parlor guitar
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2013, 05:56:41 PM »
Hi all,
There are also some tracks by Lena Hughes (along with Lewis Thomasson, Earl Blair and Estil C. Ball on County's "Rural Parlor Guitar" CD, CO-CD-2744.  On that album, Lena plays one tune, "Pearly Dew" in the open C tuning that John Fahey liked, CGCGCE, and Earl Blair actually plays a tune in the open C tuning, GCEGCE, that Peg Leg Howell played "Low Down Rounder Blues" and "Fairy Blues" out of.  Lena had really interesting phrasing and held things different lengths than I, at least, expected her to.
All best,
Johnm

Offline Rivers

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Re: Lena Hughes' parlor guitar
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2013, 08:11:28 PM »
Yeah I heard that segment on our local npr station coming home from work last night. I was struck by the tone, time signatures and of course the repertoire.

Got to get it, totally unmissable. I thought John Renbourne was very articulate in the interview and obviously very enthusiastic about the project and by Lena's playing, as was I. Was that Spanish Fandango in the opening part? Fabulous.

« Last Edit: February 07, 2013, 08:48:12 PM by Rivers »

Offline mr mando

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Re: Lena Hughes' parlor guitar
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2013, 01:54:54 AM »
Very interesting. Think I'll get the vinyl. Seems the tracks from the County Parlor Guitar CD were recorded at a different date than the LP tracks, as there's only one title (maybe a different version) which is on both releases.

 


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