Recent Media Additions

Brent Williams - A selection of performances

Atlanta street singer Peg Leg Howell wasn't really much of a guitarist, but his songs, many of which were made up of fragments of street vendor calls and other pre-blues material, have a sort of greasy and rough-hewed grace to them, and when combined with Eddie Anthony's careening fiddle runs, achieved a distinct sound (part string band, part hokum jug band) all too rare in early blues.

James Cole was one of a small number of black fiddlers from the historic '20s and '30s stringband days whose playing managed to be documented on recording, but he certainly isn't one of any small number of people named James Cole. Factor in a few named Jimmy Cole and there is the making of some kind of not all-star, but cool all-Cole combo.

The music of the Dallas String Band has been called pre-blues as well as proto-blues. The group has been referred to as the only black string band in history and an early Texas country band, sometimes in the same paragraph, often after being credited with erasing all color lines in American musical history. Enough lies are told about the group to resemble another great cover-up in Dallas history, the one with the grassy knoll and the book depository. Left behind as key evidence are the dozen recordings the group made for Columbia beginning in the late '20s, as well as the solo activities of three key members.

Andrew Baxter, African-American fiddle player, and Jim Baxter, African-American-Cherokee singer/guitar player, were a father and son fiddle/guitar duet from Gordon County, Georgia who recorded in the 1920s. The Georgia Yellow Hammers and the Baxters traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina to record for Victor in the summer of 1927. Because of the Jim Crow laws, the Baxters had to ride several cars behind the Yellow Hammers on the train ride to Charlotte.

DeFord Bailey (December 14, 1899 – July 2, 1982) was an Americancountry music and blues star from the 1920s until 1941. Bailey was both the first performer to be introduced as playing on the Grand Ole Opry and also the first African-American performer on the show. He played several instruments but is best known for his harmonica tunes.

One of the first interracial recording sessions for this genre. In the photo of this band Taylor, who was their manager and not a musician, is holding the fiddle. Jim Booker (who is African American) doesn't appear in it, though he fiddled on all the band's recordings.

Elizabeth Cotton - North Carolina Folk Songs And Tunes. Music from 1958.

As a young man, singer/songwriter Jimmy Collier helped dismantle segregation in the South through the power of music. He shares his experiences traveling with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and transforming African-American spirituals into civil rights anthems.

Back in the early 80's Yolanda Diamond was ahead of her time being coined the First Black Country Western Singer. She has performed country hits for audiences around the country.