JA0085 (Uncle Charlie Osborne - Uncle Charlie Osborne - The June Appal Recordings)
- Description
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Charles Nelson Osborne, (December 26, 1890 – May 27, 1992), affectionately known as "Uncle Charlie," was a musician in the Appalachian Mountains of southwest Virginia. He was born in what is now known as Cowan Osborne Hollow, named for his father, in Copper Creek, Virginia. He was regionally famous from the time he was about 15 until his death at age 101 in 1992. Charlie had a unique style of playing the fiddle with his left hand, on a right-handed fiddle. He and his brother, Emmett Osborne, played on WOPI radio station in Bristol, Tennessee, from the early 1920s until the early 1930s. They were contemporaries of country music founders Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, and occasionally gave advice to Tennessee Ernie Ford on his music. Uncle Charlie played numerous shows at the Carter Family Fold in Scott County, Virginia, a theatre showcasing traditional music ran by Janette Carter, one of the daughters of the original Carter Family. On one occasion, Johnny Cash was Uncle Charlie's "opening act". He was a regular performer at Mountain Empire Community College's annual Home Craft Days festivals from 1985 until his death. Other performances included the Brandywine Festival, Appalshop's Seedtime on the Cumberland festival and a campaign rally for Jesse Jackson in Hazard, KY. In 1985, in conjunction with East Tennessee State University, Appalshop's June Appal Recordings recorded Uncle Charlie's first album, Relics And Treasure. The album contained over a dozen traditional mountain songs, including "Ida Red", "Brown's Dream", and "Old Joe Clark". Uncle Charlie recorded two more albums with the label; his final was 1991's One Hundred Years Farther On, which included the powerful and mournful mountain gospel song "Farther On," which Uncle Charlie called "As We Travel Through The Desert". Also featured on the recordings were his son, Johnny C. Osborne, on clawhammer banjo, and Tommy Bledsoe, on guitar and banjo. These recordings were reissued by June Appal Recordings as Uncle Charlie Osborne: The June Appal Recordings.
Uncle Charlie Osborne's two out-of-print June Appal Recordings "Relics and Treasure" and "100 Years On" were remastered by Allan Maggard of Maggard's Sound in Big Stone Gap, Virginia and re-released on CD in 2008.
See JA049 and JA064.
- Links
- Full Release on Bandcamp