Boone-Tolliver Recordings

Description

In the 1950s, when audio recording was still an expensive art, limited to the near-laboratory environment of professional studios, a few avant-garde artists began experimenting with home recording. Sun Ra in Chicago and Les Paul in New York made history far from the studios. And deep in the Appalachians, folk singer John Jacob Niles recorded a series of EPs in the place where he felt most comfortable singing, his living room. Niles’s decision may have seemed strange to those around him; he was internationally known, had released records on RCA Victor, played Carnegie Hall, toured extensively throughout the United States, and had been to England. But for Niles, it must have been a natural choice, because his life was directly tied to his creations: he built his own dulcimers, cultivated his land, carved the large doors of his Boot Hill farm. Niles then went further and created his own label, Boone-Tolliver, a true family affair (his wife Rena handled mail-order sales). The label released two EPs: John Jacob Niles : American Folk Love Songs and Ballads by Niles, before larger folk labels, such as Tradition, came calling. If, in the 1950s, running an artist-owned independent label proved too difficult for Niles, by avoiding the studio and surrounding himself with family and friends, he managed to produce some of the finest recordings of his career. Until now, these recordings had not been reissued on any format. So it is with great pleasure that another family-run, artist-led label, L.M. Duplication, presents them to the world once again. Boone-Tolliver Recordings contains some of Niles’s greatest original compositions, such as “Go 'Way from my Window,” as well as traditional Appalachian ballads, unearthed during his trips to Kentucky to collect songs. “The Lass from the Low Country” is a haunting classic in which Niles’s singular falsetto lends an eerie dimension to the painful story of two lovers who cannot be together because of their social class difference. “Little Mattie Groves,” a 16th-century English song, is one of the set’s highlights. With a steadily building rhythm and tension, Niles takes on the voices of three distinct characters, as well as that of the narrator. As the story reaches its peak of violence, Niles becomes completely lost in the narration, like a ghost from 400-year-old England returned to haunt the hills and valleys of Appalachia. First reissue of 1950s home recording sessions by an Appalachian folk artist. Printed on 1940s offset presses. Includes a booklet with the original liner notes, as well as bonus material on the recordings and the history of Boone-Tolliver by Niles biographer Dr. Ron Pen. The vinyl includes a digital download coupon. Released on the LM Duplication label of A Hawk And A Hacksaw.