Last Possum Up the Tree

Work, JA0079D
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Identifier
JA0079D
Date of Production
1999
Duration
Run time:
Creators
Gibson, George R. (is artist)
Bledsoe, Tommy (is producer)
Gibson, George R. (is producer)
Summary
I was born in 1938 at Bath, in Knott County, Kentucky. Bath was a rural post office, now discontinued, on Little Carr Creek. I learned to play and sing the old songs, in the old tunings, from my family and neighbors. I left Knott County in the 1960s, taking with me Kay banjo and a Vega Whyte Laydie guitar banjo. I have been mostly a couch banjo player since leaving. I believe that continuing to play banjo was my way of holding on to a past that I glimpsed only briefly. THat past is part of a world and time in Knott County that has vanished forever. As far as I know, I am the last person left playing the old Burgeys Creek banjo music. I am the last possum up the tree. 
Description
Track listing: 1. Last Gold Dollar (02:11); 2. Moonshiner (02:30); 3. A LIttle About Myself (00:51); 4. Little Birdie (02:37); 5. East Virginia (01:45); 6. Colonel Jones Explains Moonshine (01:07); 7. Wild Bill Jones (02:56); 8. Playing Over the Telephone (01:19); 9. Cracklin' Hen (01:25); 10. One Morning in May (02:37); 11. Wife and Mule Swap (02:18); 12. Old Smoky (02:19); 13. Hightop Shoes (01:53); 14. Morphine (02:03); 15. Gen. Morgan Plays a Stolen Fiddle (01:12); 16. Morgan's March (01:31); 17. Big John Henry (03:10); 18. Chigger Bill's Still (00:47); 19. Bell Conie Knob (02:24); 20. Pretty Polly (04:53); 21. Old German War intro (00:31); 22. Old German War (03:48); 23. Old Reubin (02:50); 24. Cluck Old Hen (02:24). 
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