Buell Kazee The Butcher's Boy
And here's Brother Kazee, "part-time banjo picker, full
time servant of Christ", singing his traditionnal
mountain songs, with his "trained" voice and
accompanying himself on his rippling banjo. The music
on his instrument goes twice as fast as his voice,
which is not the usual rough and untraid one of his
fellow mountaineers, but an "educated" one. His style
of banjo picking is a very tight clawhammer sound,
matching perfectly his precise diction of the words. At
the end of the 1920's, in the studio recording, he was
told to "countrify" his voice when he sang his mountain
songs... Buell H.Kazee, born in 1900 in Kentucky, was a
baptist minister who loved to sing the old songs and
play the banjo. He recorded 52 sides between 1926 and
1929, some, like "Little Mohee", were pretty succesful
but the depression put a stop to his recording career
and he went back to preach and to teach the Bible in
Kentucky. Thanks to the Anthology, he was rediscovered
by the folk revival in the 60's and cut an lp for
Folkways and another one for June Apple (re-issued last
year by Appalshop) before his death in 1976.
-For a more complete biography, go here.
-On "Root hog or die" an excellent radio program as
well as a blog, you can read this article, which gives
good insights also on the Harry Smith Anthology.
-I've compiled 15 sides which focus on his clawhammer
banjo style. Some of his recordings features also
guitar or banjo played in a different style and apart
from mountain ballads he sang a lot of sentimental
songs. Some are very good but i tend to prefer the ones
i picked for you (The three sides that appears on the
Anthology will be featured elsewhere).
The Bucher's boy (or "The Railroad Boy" as it's often
called in America) is a british folk song that derived
from an amalgam of a couple of Broadside ballads. This
ballads were printed on paper and sold and distibuted
in the cities from the 16th up to the early 20th
century. They were recasting the news of the day in
song form and were very popular in the cities as well
as in the country where many became folk songs. A lot
of them were telling sad tales of murder and betrayed
love, much like the traditionnal folk ballads, and this
one ,"the butcher's boy" is a particulary sad one. It
tells of a poor girl that hang herself because of her
lover who betrayed her with a whealthier girl. The
girl's father finds a note next to her dead body where
she asks to be buried in a grave with a dove placed on
it to "tell the world that i died for lo
