Search - Various Artists :: Back Roads to Cold Mountain

Dark magic

Jerome Clark | Canby, Minnesota | 12/20/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First, this is not the soundtrack to the Cold Mountain movie. That recording, released a year or so ago, featured talented modern musicians who recreated the 19th-Century music from the film and the Charles Frazier novel on which it was based. Back Roads to Cold Mountain covers much (and more) of the same material, except as it was done by authentic mountain musicians.



With one or two exceptions, these songs and tunes were alive during the Civil War. They survived into the early and mid-20th Century, to be rediscovered by folksong collectors. Most selections come from Folkways' deep archives, ably picked by John Cohen, whose recordings with the New Lost City Ramblers introduced many of us to the Appalachian tradition during the 1960s folk revival and after. Frazier himself, who provides the introduction to the enclosed booklet, explains how this music inspired his novel, set in Civil War-era North Carolina. Cohen's extensive liner notes and annotations are informative and engrossing.



Few of the musicians are likely to be familiar, though names like the Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, Roscoe Holcomb, and Tommy Jarrell will resonate with those who have at least passing knowledge of the tradition. The performances are always inspired, sometimes rawly emotional in a way that has vanished from today's music; sometimes a performance may be even a little frightening, for one dramatic example Oscar Parks's angry rant at the conclusion of the ballad "The Battle of Stone River." French Carpenter's fiddle tune "Camp Chase," on the other hand, aches with mournful beauty.



The sound quality, thanks to modern technology, is so perfectly executed that it serves to erase distance between listener and performer. Time and geography roll away, and you're right there on a back porch or a church bench, hearing the ballads, fiddle pieces, and hymns in person. There is a dark magic in this old music, and Back Roads evokes it brilliantly."