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Special Project: Seedtime Live Recordings, 1987-2000

This collection showcases fourteen years of live recordings from Appalshop's Seedtime on the Cumberland festival, an annual celebration of traditional mountain arts, music and culture. The recordings encompass a wide range of artistic lineages including old time fiddle and banjo music, piedmont blues, gospel singing, bluegrass, celtic music, storytelling, and Cherokee hunting music. The recordings were preserved in 2016 with generous support from the GRAMMY Foundation.

While many of the artists featured in this collection made popular studio recordings, these live recordings show another way into their music. Live performance creates breathing space for certain qualities of a performer's personality and musicality, sometimes more so than a professional studio recording would. These qualities come alive in the context of a community festival like Seedtime, where performers know their listeners and listeners know the music. Sounds, and the people who make them, behave according to their environments; listening to these live recordings, one hears not only the performer, but also the roomful of listeners.

Notable performers include Morgan and Lee Sexton, who represent two different generations of old time banjo music in Letcher County, Kentucky; North Carolina piedmont blues guitarist Etta Baker; West Virginia's "First Lady Of Gospel Music" Ethel Caffie-Austin; Cherokee singer and banjoist Walker Calhoun; legendary bluegrass singer Hazel Dickens; and countless others. Also included in this collection is a recording from Seedtime 1998 of a panel on civil rights and social justice, featuring activists and musicians with ties to the Highlander Research and Education Center in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Most of the performances, which are presented here in digital format, were originally recorded onto 8-track, 1/2 inch open reel audio tape (from 1987 to 1994) and onto Digital Audio Tape (from 1995 to 2000). They were recorded by the staff of Appalshop’s non-commercial community radio station WMMT-FM, using the station’s equipment. Both the station and Seedtime on the Cumberland Festival are divisions of Appalshop, Inc., and the physical materials generated by the activities of these divisions are part of the Appalshop Archive.

Dirk Powell with Christine Balfa at Seedtime ...
Lee Sexton, Grey Larsen at Seedtime 2000
Grey Larsen, Men of Worth, Isla at Seedtime 2000
Mason Brown and Chipper Thompson, Dirk Powell...
John and Jane Harrod, Lee Sexton, Northern Ke...
Sherman Family, John Edmonds, Master's Harmon...
Nat Reese, Gandy Dancer at Seedtime 1998
Carol Elizabeth Jones & James Leva, Konnarock...
Roger Cooper and Paul Smith, Omope Carter Dab...
Charles Neblett, Guy and Candie Carawan, Ethe...
Highlander panel at Seedtime 1998
Catfish John and Jean, Master's Harmony, Nort...
John Jackson, Bing Brothers at Seedtime 1997
Ed Cabbell, J.P. Fraley, Konnarock Critters a...
Singing Revelations, Golden Voices at Seedtim...
Catfish John (Bently family), Sherman Family,...
Etta Baker, Ralph Blizard at Seedtime 1996
Walker Calhoun, Clint Howard at Seedtime 1996
Guy and Candie Carawan, The Kessingers at See...
Common Ground, Ethel Caffie-Austin (with John...
The Singing Revelations, John Edmonds at Seed...
Archie Edwards, Bing Brothers at Seedtime, 1995
Roan Mountain Hilltoppers, Marilou Awiakta at...
Orville Hicks, Sparky Rucker at Seedtime 1995
62 more
Carl Rutherford, the Lee Sexton Band at Seedt...
Phyllis Marks and Crystal Miller; Joe Thompso...
Ray Hicks, Lee Sexton at Seedtime 1994
Eversole Brothers, Nat Reese, Etta Baker at S...
Singing Revelations at Seedtime, 1994
Ethel Caffie-Austin and the Macedonia Youth C...
The Hallelujah Singers at Seedtime, 1994
Odus Maggard, the O'Quinns featuring Lee Sext...
Joe Thompson, Jean and Edna Ritchie at Seedti...
Lee Sexton, Joe Thompson at Seedtime, 1994
Clyde Davenport at Seedtime, 1993
The Taylor Brothers at Seedtime, 1993
Elaine Purkey with Scott Holstein at Seedtime...
Ethel Caffie-Austin at Seedtime 1993 (2)
Ethel Caffie-Austin at Seedtime 1993 (1)
Nat Reese at Seedtime, 1993
Lee Sexton with Phillip Sexton and Marion Sum...
The Whitetop Mountain Band at Seedtime, 1992
The Whitetop Mountain Band at Seedtime, 1992
The Wilson Brothers at Seedtime, 1992
The Lee Sexton Band at Seedtime, 1992
Sheila Adams Barnhill, Lee Sexton Band at See...
Sheila Adams Barnhill at Seedtime, 1992
Melvin Wine and Gerry Milnes at Seedtime, 1992
Whitetop Mountain Band, 1991 -- part 2
Thornton and Emily Spencer and the Whitetop M...
Walker Calhoun at Seedtime, 1991
Morgan Sexton at Seedtime, 1991
Jean Ritchie at Seedtime, 1991
Wade and Julia Mainer at Seedtime, 1991 (2)
Wade and Julia Mainer at Seedtime, 1991
Sheila Adams Barnhill at Seedtime, 1991
Ethel Caffie-Austin, Michael Kline, Sheila Ad...
Ethel Caffie-Austin at Seedtime, 1991
Uncle Charlie Osborne at Seedtime, 1991
Etta Baker, Rich Kirby & Juan Tejeda, Ray Hic...
Owen Snake Chapman with Paul David Smith and ...
Ginny Hawker and Kay Justice at Seedtime, 1990
Charlie Blevins, Jean Ritchie, and Morgan Sex...
Roan Mountain Hilltoppers at Seedtime, 1990
Lee Smith Singers at Seedtime, 1989
Tri-Unity Chorus, Thornton Old Regular Baptis...
Levi Gross, Tri-County Choir, and Nimrod and ...
Whit Sizemore and the Shady Mountain Ramblers...
Morgan Sexton, Lee Sexton, Whit Sizemore and ...
Ethel Caffie-Austin, Morgan Sexton and Lee Se...
Orville Hicks, Jean Ritchie, and Ethel Caffie...
Etta Baker at Seedtime, 1989
Phyllis Marks at Seedtime, 1989
Janette and Joe Carter at Seedtime, 1989
Ada Powers Salyer, Wade and Julia Mainer at S...
Whitetop Mountain Band (Emily and Thornton Sp...
Hazel Dickens at Seedtime, 1989
Reel World String Band at Seedtime 1989
The Lee Sexton Band at Seedtime 1988
Ray Hicks, Clint Howard's Old Time String Ban...
The Home Folks, Morgan Sexton at Seedtime 1988
Nimrod and Molly Workman, Sonny and Susan Hou...
Jack Wright, Bob Fox, Ray Hicks at Seedtime, ...
Mossbacks with Doug Dorschug at Seedtime 1987
The Home Folks at Seedtime 1987
Lee Sexton with Marion Sumner, Phillip Sexton...
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