Bluegrass! with The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers

The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers were an early band known mostly for their contributions to the world of bluegrass music. Formed way back in 1938 by cousins Ray, Ezra, and Ned Cline, they went through a number of personnel changes (including one that was needed after Ned Cline died in World War II), and eventually disbanded around 1966.

Although founding member Ezra Cline passed away in 1984, the band reunited for a reunion album in 1988, with Ray Cline's son taking Ezra's place. In October of 2009, the group was inducted into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

I haven't been able to get much info on this specific album, but it appears to be a compilation, and it's positively SIZZLING. These guys can really play, and since this is truly first-generation, "old school" stuff, it's about the purest bluegrass music I've ever heard. One stand-out track is their recording of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" (track 3). Written by "The Father of Bluegrass", Bill Monroe, originally as a slow waltz in 3/4 time, the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers crank up the tempo and play it in 4/4 time instead. This song was later recorded by a number of other artists, including Elvis Presley and Paul McCartney, among others.

... ok, seriously now.

Readers, Fans, Music Lovers ... lend me your ears.

As you may have guessed, that last post ("What Is Money, Anyway?") was an April Fool's joke, since, of course, very few people actually like income tax season, and while a presentation about the history of money may by interesting in some regards, it ain't exactly "good time listening". More "serious" posts are coming soon, but I wanted to take a minute to clarify a few things about this blog, and its possible future.

After I started this blog, I often wondered about the legal issues around it, specifically with regards to copyright issues. After all, one of the great things people love about The Vinyl LP Resurrection Collection is that you can come and check out all this free "resurrected" music. However, having this available requires taking a certain amount of liberties with greyish-area legal matters. On one hand, most music is copyrighted in some way, but since in most cases, this is music from old records, the copyright holders are less likely to take issue with it being freely available. I almost like to think that some people might come to this blog, learn about an artist and their music, and maybe even buy an album of theirs based on what they discover here.

This issue hit home recently when a post on this blog was removed after a copyright violation was reported. Regular readers might remember a post featuring 1970s funk/disco group Shalamar and their album Uptown Festival on this blog for a short while, but since removed. So, to help avoid having this happen again (and for the greater good, since further infractions might result in the whole blog being removed), I have removed the links from each post that allow you to download the whole album, and want to stress that the music on this blog is for previewing purposes only.

If you are copyright holder of any of this music, and would like to have it removed, kindly let me know first, before reporting it to the good folks at Blogger, or the equally good folks at Box.net, our media storage provider. I will be happy to remove it as soon as possible.

Hopefully these measures will help everyone to be able to continue discovering all this great music that might be forgotten otherwise. Thanks for your continued support!

Cheers, Ryan

What Is Money, Anyway?

Ah, it's that time of year again - everyone's favourite season. INCOME TAX SEASON. My oh my, just the sound of those three words is enough to make any working person sigh contentedly and think of those joyful months of February through April, where we communally experience that magical thing we call "doing our income taxes". With all those long hours of confusing-but-exhilarating number crunching (and who doesn't love a challenge?) and barely understandable little rules and exceptions (but figuring them out is fun!), combined with the excitement and suspense of waiting to find out whether you'll have to pay MORE taxes rather than getting money back, I think it's safe to say that EVERYONE loves this season way more than any other annual holiday or event, including Christmas. VIVA INCOME TAX SEASON!

So, since we just can't seem to get enough "money talk" this time of year, and never get tired of thinking about it, let's delve a bit deeper into the history of money itself with a fun little audio presentation called "What Is Money, Anyway?", brought to us by the good folks at Standard Life. A great way to make the already super-fun INCOME TAX SEASON even more super-fun!

As a Canadian production, this program is also offered en francais with the title "L'Argent, C'est Quoi En Realité?".