The New Lost City Ramblers
During the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s, the New Lost City Ramblers introduced audiences to the authentic string band sound of the 1920s and '30s, in the process educating a generation that had never heard this uniquely American sound of old-time music. While maintaining music with a social conscience, they added guts and reality to the folk movement, performing with humor and obvious reverence for the music.
In 1958, Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley modeled their band after groups like the Skillet Lickers, the Fruit Jar Drinkers, and the Aristocratic Pigs, choosing a name in keeping with the past. When Tracy Schwarz replaced Paley in 1962, the NLCR added solo songs from the Appalachian folk repertoire, religious and secular, educating a large segment of the American population about traditional music. Folkways recorded the NLCR on five albums in the early '60s, making the Ramblers famous and leading to TV appearances, successful tours, and appearances at the Newport Folk Festival. A songbook with 125 of their songs came out in 1964 and sold well.
The NLCR served at least three important purposes: they brought real folk music to a huge audience, they were highly entertaining, and they led their audience to rediscover the original music on which they had based their band. After the NLCR's heydays, Tracy Schwarz went on the road with his wife and then his son, gradually leaning toward Cajun squeezebox music; Mike Seeger toured with his wife, Alice Gerrard, and did many solo spots; and John Cohen continued playing in another string band, while making award-winning documentaries about the old music. In the '90s -- over 20 years after they had last entered a studio -- Schwarz, Seeger, and Cohen reunited as the New Lost City Ramblers to record There Ain't No Way Out, released in 1997. In 2009 the band celebrated its 50th anniversary; sadly however, Mike Seeger died of cancer on August 7 of that year at his home in Lexington, Virginia; he was 75 years old. Tom Paley died at age 89 on September 30, 2017 in Brighton, England, and John Cohen died in 2019.
© David Vinopal /TiVo
Similar artists
-
New Lost City Ramblers with Cousin Emmy
Cousin Emmy, The New Lost City Ramblers
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1968
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
On the Great Divide
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1975
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
50 Years: Where Do You Come From? Where Do You Go?
Folk - Released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on 25 aug. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Songs from the Depression
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
20th Anniversary Concert (Live / 1978)
Folk - Released by Flying Fish on 1 jan. 1986
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
New Lost City Ramblers - Volume 5
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1963
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
There Ain't No Way Out
Country - Released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on 20 mei 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
New Lost City Ramblers
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1958
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Old Timey Songs for Children
Kinderen - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The New New Lost City Ramblers with Tracy Schwarz: Gone to the Country
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1963
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Early Years, 1958-1962
Country - Released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on 3 apr. 1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
String Band Instrumentals
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1964
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
American Moonshine and Prohibition Songs
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1962
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Talking Hard Luck
Folk - Released by Folk-Up Records on 15 jun. 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Out Standing in Their Field: The New Lost City Ramblers, Vol . 2, 1963-1973
Country - Released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on 3 aug. 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
40 Years Of Concert Performances (Live)
Country - Released by Rounder Records on 1 jan. 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Remembrance of Things to Come
Folk - Released by Folkways Records - Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on 1 jan. 1967
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
New Lost City Ramblers - Vol. 4
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1962
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tom Paley, John Cohen, and Mike Seeger Sing Songs of the New Lost City Ramblers
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1978
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
New Lost City Ramblers - Vol. 2
Country - Released by Folkways Records on 1 jan. 1960
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo