Clarence Ashley

Trackimage Playbut Trackname Playbut Trackname
The House Carpenter 03:15 Tools
Little Sadie 00:00 Tools
The Coo Coo Bird 00:00 Tools
Cuckoo Bird 00:00 Tools
Naomi Wise 02:52 Tools
Dark Holler Blues 00:00 Tools
Coo Coo Bird 00:00 Tools
The Coo-Coo Bird 00:00 Tools
Dark Holler 00:00 Tools
House Carpenter 00:00 Tools
The Coo Coo Bird (The Cuckoo) 00:00 Tools
Haunted Road Blues 00:00 Tools
House Of The Risin' Sun - Rising Sun Blues 00:00 Tools
The Cuckoo 00:00 Tools
Corrina, Corrina 00:00 Tools
Whoa Mule 00:00 Tools
Pretty Fair Damsel 00:00 Tools
Walking Boss 00:00 Tools
Shady Grove 00:00 Tools
Old John Hardy 00:00 Tools
My Sweet Farm Girl 00:00 Tools
Frankie Silvers 00:00 Tools
Greenback Dollar 00:00 Tools
Drunk Man Blues 00:00 Tools
Baby All Night Long 00:00 Tools
Times Ain't Like They Used To Be 00:00 Tools
Wayfaring Pilgrim [#] 00:00 Tools
Cluck Old Hen 00:00 Tools
Short Life Of Trouble 00:00 Tools
Little Hillside 00:00 Tools
Shout Little Lulu 00:00 Tools
Wild Bill Jones 00:00 Tools
Rude & Rambling Man 00:00 Tools
You Are A Little Too Small 00:00 Tools
Sadie Ray 00:00 Tools
Dark Hollow Blues 00:00 Tools
Train Done Left Me 00:00 Tools
3 Men Went A Huntin' 00:00 Tools
Coo-Coo Bird 00:00 Tools
Rude And Rambling Man 00:00 Tools
Rising Sun Blues 00:00 Tools
Amazing Grace 00:00 Tools
Wayfaring Pilgrim 00:00 Tools
Tough Luck 00:00 Tools
Peg And Awl 00:00 Tools
Free Little Bird 00:00 Tools
Sally Ann 00:00 Tools
My Home's Across The Blue Ridge Mountains 00:00 Tools
Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight, Mister? 00:00 Tools
Honey Babe Blues 00:00 Tools
God's Gonna Ease My Troublin' Mind 00:00 Tools
I'm The Man That Rode The Mule Around The World 00:00 Tools
the House of the Rising Sun 00:00 Tools
Faded Roses 00:00 Tools
Bake That Chicken Pie - Original Mix 00:00 Tools
Hard Luck Blues 00:00 Tools
Henry Lee 00:00 Tools
Cuckoo Bird - Clarence Ashley 00:00 Tools
House of the Rising Sun 00:00 Tools
Dark Holler Blues - Clarence Ashley 00:00 Tools
Shout Lulu [#] 00:00 Tools
The Prisoner's Song 00:00 Tools
Banks of the Ohio [#] 00:00 Tools
The Coo Coo Bird (78rpm Version) 00:00 Tools
The House Carpenter - Original Mix 00:00 Tools
The Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane 00:00 Tools
Bay Rum Blues 00:00 Tools
Maggie Walker 00:00 Tools
Pretty Little Pink 00:00 Tools
Shout Lulu 00:00 Tools
Maggie Walker Blues 00:00 Tools
Corrina , Corrina 00:00 Tools
House Of The Risin' Sun (Rising Sun Blues) 00:00 Tools
East Virginia Blues 00:00 Tools
Cluck Old Hen [#] 00:00 Tools
Omie Wise 00:00 Tools
Cumberland Gap 00:00 Tools
Old Ruben 00:00 Tools
The Cuckoo Bird 00:00 Tools
Banks Of The Ohio 00:00 Tools
Richmond Blues 00:00 Tools
The Old Man At The Mill 00:00 Tools
John Henry 00:00 Tools
Omy Wise 00:00 Tools
Crawdad Song 00:00 Tools
Corrine, Corrina 00:00 Tools
House Of The Risin' Sun 00:00 Tools
Old Man At The Mill 00:00 Tools
I was born in East Virginia 00:00 Tools
Brown's Dream 00:00 Tools
Rambling Hobo 00:00 Tools
The Coo Coo 00:00 Tools
May I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight Mister? 00:00 Tools
Footprints in the Snow 00:00 Tools
Handsome Molly 00:00 Tools
Carroll County Blues 00:00 Tools
Chilly Winds 00:00 Tools
Willie Moore 00:00 Tools
Coocoo Bird 00:00 Tools
Lee Highway Blues 00:00 Tools
Way Down Town 00:00 Tools
Chilly Winds (Lonesome Road Blues) 00:00 Tools
Ain't No Use to High Hat Me 00:00 Tools
Run, Jimmie Run 00:00 Tools
Dark Holler (1929) 00:00 Tools
The House Carpenter (1928 recording) 00:00 Tools
Daniel Prayed 00:00 Tools
Fire on the Mountain 00:00 Tools
Will the Circle Be Unbroken 00:00 Tools
The House Carpenter (America) 00:00 Tools
Sitting on Top of the World 00:00 Tools
Humpbacked Mule 00:00 Tools
Clarence Ashley - Cuckoo Bird 00:00 Tools
A Short Life of Trouble 00:00 Tools
I Saw A Man At The Close Of Day 00:00 Tools
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"Tom" Clarence Ashley (Clarence Earl McCurry, Bristol, Tennessee, September 29, 1895 - Winston-Salem, North Carolina, June 2, 1967) was an American clawhammer banjo player, guitarist and singer. He began performing at medicine shows in the Southern Appalachian region as early as 1911, and gained initial fame in the late 1920s as both a solo recording artist and as a member of various string bands. After his "rediscovery" during the folk revival of the 1960s, Ashley spent the last years of his life playing at folk music concerts, including appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York and at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. Clarence Ashley was born Clarence Earl McCurry in Bristol, Tennessee in 1895, the only child of George McCurry and Rose-Belle Ashley. Those who knew George McMurry described him variously as a "one-eyed fiddler, hell-raiser, and big talker." Shortly before Clarence was born, Rose-Belle's father, Enoch Ashley, discovered that George was an adulterer, and George was forced to leave town. Rose-Belle moved back in with her father, and around 1900, the family relocated to Shouns, Tennessee, a crossroads just south of Mountain City, where Enoch ran a boarding house. When Clarence was very young, he was nicknamed "Tommy Tiddy Waddy" (after a nursery rhyme) by his grandfather Enoch, and thus became known to friends and acquaintances as 'Tom'. As he was raised by the parents of his mother, the name "McCurry" was dropped in favour of "Ashley". From his birth, Tom was surrounded by musicians. His grandfather bought him a banjo when he was eight years old, and his mother and aunts taught him to play folk songs and ballads. He also learned a number of songs and techniques from itinerant lumberjacks and railroad workers lodging at his grandfather's boarding house. In 1911, Tom joined a medicine show that happened to be passing through Mountain City. He played banjo and guitar, and also performed blackface comedy. Tom would play with medicine shows every summer until the early 1940s. During winters, he organized local concerts at rural schools. He would also play for money at coal camps and rayon mills, often accompanied by influential Johnson County fiddler G. B. Grayson. Tom made his first recordings for Gennett Records in February 1928 with the Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers, which then consisted of Ashley on banjo or guitar, Garley Foster on harmonica, and Clarence Green on fiddle.[3] Later that year, with the help of Victor producer Ralph Peer, Ashley made several recordings with the Carolina Tar Heels, which consisted of Tom on guitar and vocals, his friend Dock Walsh on banjo, and Gwen or Garley Foster on harmonica. In 1929, Columbia Records recruited Ashley to make his first solo recordings, as will as to record with a trio called "Byrd Moore and His Hot Shots." In the early 1930s, Ashley again recorded with the Blue Ridge Entertainers, this time for the American Record Corporation. The final recordings from his early era were a series of duets with harmonica player Gwen Foster in 1933. The effects of the Great Depression made money scarce throughout the early 1930s. Not only was Ashley no longer recruited to make records, it was virtually impossible to earn money playing at coal camps or on street corners. The Depression (along with government regulations) also greatly reduced the crowds that showed up at medicine shows. Ashley briefly worked as a coal miner in West Virginia, and did odd jobs back in Shouns to support his wife, Hettie, and their two children. In 1937, he established a trucking business in Mountain City that hauled furniture and crops to various cities around the region. Throughout the following decade, Ashley performed as a comedian with the Stanley Brothers. He also formed a local string band, the Tennessee Merrymakers. During the folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, urban ethnomusicologists rediscovered Ashley's music. By this time, Ashley was well-known in folk music circles due in large part to Harry Smith's 1951 Anthology of American Folk Music, which included some of Ashley's early recordings. In 1960 Ralph Rinzler met Ashley at the Old Time Fiddler's Convention in Union Grove, North Carolina. He eventually persuaded him to start playing banjo again and to record his repertoire of songs. Over the next few years Ashley and his friends Doc Watson, Clint Howard, and Fred Price played at numerous urban folk festivals, including the Chicago Folk Festival in 1962 and the Newport Folk Festival in 1963. They also made two records for Folkways Records. A compilation of the two records plus other recordings are available on Original Folkways Recordings: 1960-1962. Ashley continued touring the folk circuit throughout the mid-1960s. He appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York and played at dozens of venues in California. In 1966, Ashley and Reidsville, North Carolina guitarist Tex Isley toured England. A second tour of England was planned for 1967, but Ashley grew ill and discovered he had cancer before he departed. He died in 1967, at the Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Ashley learned much of his repertoire from his grandfather and aunts and itinerant musicians lodging at his grandfather's boarding house in the early 1900s. His unique G-modal banjo tuning style, which he called "sawmill" (gDGCD from fifth string to the first), was likely taught to him by family members. He recorded several songs derived from English or Irish ballads that were passed down through generations in Appalachia, the most well-known of which included "Coo Coo Bird" (which he learned from his mother), "House Carpenter", and "Rude and Rambling Man". Other recordings included the murder ballads "Naomi Wise", "Little Sadie", and "John Hardy", and the folk songs "Frankie Silvers" and "Greenback Dollar". A strong African-American influence can be heard on Ashley's renderings of "Dark Holler", "Haunted Road Blues", and "Corrina, Corrina". In 1933, Ashley made the first known recording of "House of the Rising Sun", which he claimed he learned from his grandfather, Enoch. During the folk revival years in the 1960s, Ashley and his band helped to popularize the Southern hymn, "Amazing Grace." Several notable musicians cite Ashley as an important influence. Country music singer Roy Acuff once toured the medicine show circuit with Ashley, and Ashley probably taught him "House of the Rising Sun" (which Acuff recorded in 1938) and "Greenback Dollar." Folk musician Doc Watson began his recording career with Ashley in 1960 and played in Ashley's band throughout much of the decade. Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia once said in an interview that he learned clawhammer picking from "listening to Clarence Ashley." Other folk musicians influenced by Ashley include Townes Van Zandt, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Jean Ritchie. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.