S/D: Old-Timey Music (e.g., Prewar Gospel Blues, Bluegrass, Mountain Music)

x-post OMG I sometimes forget that ILX is full of famous people, I just wanted to say that I love your Centuries of Sound radio podcasts and mixes I listen to them all the time! But I’m only up to the year 1917 because I end up doing monster deep dives for each year and it takes me about a month to get to the next year.

Anyway, that 50 Records That Matter blog is _probably_ the one I’m thinking of (I can’t really remember), but it looks amazing. Now I need to do a deep dive on those songs from 1900 to 1917 to catch up. So much great music!

in old-time 78rpm collector news, a 15,000 piece collection of old-time music & early country is being liquidated a few hundred every month by venerable music (a 78-specific auction website) -- really incredible stuff tbh. and i can't win even a fraction of what I meant.

xp if you're saying I'm famous then I'm very flattered and happy to hear it but I really don't think I am! & sure Jonathan would say the same if you meant him (though I think he's at least a professional critic)

You will catch up with me before too long if you're doing a year per month as I'm not working at nearly that rate myself.

joe ayers - old dan tucker (1989) (? that's what it says; not sure if that's a typo or not)

Not a typo. In the actual Stomp and Swerve book (which I’m currently halfway through and enjoying immensely), the author David Wondrich says:

In 1989, banjoist Joe Ayers recorded a cassette titled Old Dan Tucker: Melodies of Dan Emmett & the Virginia Minstrels, 1843–1860 (it's still not available on CD, as far as I know — which indicates the amount of call there is for this kind of thing). It's a sincere, skilled, historically informed attempt to reproduce the music of a century and a half ago.

Sadly, this cassette appears to have completely vanished off the face of the internet. Can’t find any information about it anywhere. If anybody has a copy please get it uploaded to youtube pronto!

Haven't heard that one, but you're reminding me that the late mega-collector and muso Joe Bussard sometimes recorded with his friends on 78, kind of folkie fantasy camp--as on this 2015 collection of originals and covers, that I blogged about in an annual round-up of worthies:

Although several of the promo files won't play, I'm getting some pretty strong early impressions of (most of) Joe Bussard Presents: The Year of Jublio---78 RPM Recordings of Songs From The Civil War. "Joe's got shit that God don't have," begins one blurb, and while that's always been true, his evident desire to depict via a range of material, starts with historically significant in-your-face sickly sentimentality x formalism, as written and performed (rich liner notes incl. discussion of attempts to redeem image of Confederacy via music, also redeeming image of fiddlers, but this is more like icky parlor music). It may be more about the renditions, like what are described as "maidenly" vocals; I do love the version of "Lorena" sung by Del McCoury on the mostly good-to-excellent collection Divided and United (which topped my 2013 Scene ballot's Top 10). And here we do get a rendition of "The Poor Old Slave, " in which straight-forward, non-tremulous sincerity finds its way unerringly among faded emblems, truth-based imagery (sung by ladies who may be maidens, for all I know, but don't make a big deal of it). Ditto the crisp, brisk "In The Cruel Days of Slavery." "Dixie" is all-instrumental, except for the occasional, too-cued-sounding cheers, and one brief, urgently spoken mention of those magnificent men massing outside----more old Rebs, mebbe, but this "Dixie" is all sinewy lide guitars and/or dobros, not the sound I usually associate with misty visions of the Confederate Lost Cause.
Bussard and friends play *Rebels Hornpipe" (recorded on 78, like he's been doing since the 60s, the 1960s, that is, so it's only a ringer chronologically).Starts strong, proceeds in a merry-to-dizzy, compulsive circle, in a way I def do associate with Confeds. "Pass The Bottle Round" starts as Rebel (maybe sometimes Union too) parody of the line, "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground, but his truth is marching on." "Johnson Boy" is a fiddle-stomper about a local rake ("Jump girls, don't be afraid," girls unexcitedly join in on chorus), who gets drafted even though he can't see good, and keeps romping 'round the hotly contested countryside, though maybe fog of war will slow him down, as myopia alone didn't do, back under the presumably clearer skies of home---so,"Jump up girls, don't be afraid." "Sweet Bunch of Violets" starts as a tearjerker, but that's a set-up for revenge beyond the grave, hurrah boys!

Over his lifetime, Bussard amassed a collection of between 15,000 and 25,000 records, primarily of American folk, gospel, jazz and blues from the 1920s and 1930s.[1] From 1956 until 1970, Bussard ran the last 78 rpm record label, Fonotone, which was dedicated to the release of new recordings of old-time music. Among these were recordings by hundreds of performers, including the first recordings by the guitarist John Fahey. A five-CD anthology of Fonotone releases was issued in 2005 by Dust-to-Digital.[4] It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package in 2006.[2][5]

I spent a few days transcribing the discography from Tony Russell's great book Country Music Classics to RYM. They didn't have everything in their database but this was as close as I could get. I think There were 4 parts
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/stevolende/country-music-originals-the-legends-and-the-lost-pt1-old-timey/