Imagine If You Will
Berea College Bluegrass Ensemble

Recorded in 2008, “Imagine If You Will” features 13 tracks selected and performed by student members of the Berea College Bluegrass Ensemble.  Selections include familiar bluegrass and southern gospel songs as well as renditions of classic Southern and Appalachian folk songs.

Track List

1. Better Get to Livin’  (Dolly Parton/Kent Wells)
2. Seven Spanish Angels  (Eddie Setser/Troy Seals)
3. Farther Along  (public domain)
4. The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore  (Jean Ritchie)
5. Goodbye World, Goodbye  (Hovie Lister)
6. Never Leave Harlan Alive  (Darrell Scott)
7. Ratatouille Reel  (Al White)
8. Unwed Fathers  (John Prine)
9. Wayfaring Stranger  (public domain)
10. Mannington Mine  (Hazel Dickens)
11. The Holy Well/Kid on the Mountain  (Tim O’Brian/public domain)
12. Jackson  (Billy Edd Wheeler)
13. Imagine If You Will  (Diana Perry Gillette)

Ensemble members featured on this recording include Ashley Long and Josh Noah on vocals, Will Haizlett on mandolin, Darrin Hacquard on guitar and vocals, John Bradley on bass, Katie Maginel on fiddle, and Al White on banjo, mandolin, and vocals.

Steve Cooley, who recorded, edited, mixed and mastered the album, also lends his skills to the recording, playing banjo on “Better Get to Livin’” and “Mannington Mine.”  He also plays the Dobro on “Seven Spanish Angels.”

“Music is clearly a thing to be experienced, and it’s through this experience that musicians and their music enrich our lives. A particular song elicits a memory, a particular memory is connected to song. And so it is here. Josh’s and Ashley’s mothers, for example, will remember teaching their children “Imagine If You Will.” Fans of “Jackson” will remember the first time they heard it. And all of us at Berea College will remember this fine group of singers and musicians who came together under Al White’s leadership to enrich all of our lives with their gifts. But because we can only keep these students for a short time, we are delighted—blessed, really—to have this recording, which will allow us to hold onto our musical memories. And with this amazing CD, new musical memories will inevitably be forged.”
—Chad Berry, Director of the Berea College Appalachian Center

($15.00 plus $2.00 shipping)

Home Recordings 1941-1942, Volume I
John Morgan Salyer

John M. Salyer, born in 1882 in Magoffin County, Kentucky, was no ordinary fiddler; he was master of an older eastern Kentucky style that is only barely discernible in the playing of fiddlers today. In 1941-42, his sons Grover and Glen Salyer used a home disc cutting machine to record some of their father's old-time fiddle and banjo tunes. Many of these tunes have not been documented elsewhere.

After five years of production work, the Appalachian Center is proud to make John Salyer's music available to a wider audience. The old home recordings are rough by today's standards, but technical difficulties retreat before the power and beauty of this music. Volume I includes thirty fiddle tunes, many in cross-tunings and some with banjo, mandolin, and guitar accompaniment, including:

• “Jenny Get Around”
• “Indian Ate the Woodchuck”
• “Big Eared Mule”
• “Jack Wilson”
• “Lonesome John”
• “Flanders’ Dream”

With extensive liner notes from Bruce Greene.
This project was funded in part by a grant from the Kentucky Arts Council. Additional generous support from Shanachie Records Corporation, Mrs. Gertrude Allinger, and the Kentucky Folklife Program.

($15.00 plus $2.00 shipping each volume)

Home Recordings 1941-1942, Volume II
John Morgan Salyer

The Appalachian Center is also proud to offer this exclusive 2-CD set of more John Morgan Salyer recordings. Included here are alternate takes (often with different instrumentation) that were not released on Volume I as well as pieces which were omitted from Volume I because of excessive surface noise, skips, or other defects. Dubbing followed the original numbering of the home recordings and fades have been used in order to maximize the number of tunes that could be included. All selections in this set were transferred by Bob Carlin from the original discs, but many were never mastered for general release. All but a few of the remaining Salyer sides are contained here.
These 54 archival recordings include “Brushy Fork of John's Creek,” “Sourwood Mountain,” “Pleasure of a Single Life,” “Give the Fiddler a Dram,” “Forked Deer,” “Cripple Creek,” “Roll On John,” “Arkansas Traveler,” “Kentucky Winder,” and more than 40 additional tunes.

($15.00 plus $2.00 shipping each volume)

Appalachian Tapestry
Billy Edd Wheeler
Millions of people all over the world know the songs, “Jackson,”  “The Rev. Mr. Black,”  “The Coming of the Roads,”  “Coal Tattoo,” and “Coward of the County,” the last of which was made into a movie. But not nearly as many people know the name Billy Edd Wheeler, despite the fact that he wrote all of those songs and hundreds more, recorded by approximately one hundred singers around the world, including Elvis Presley, Loretta Lynn, Judy Collins, Ritchie Havens, Chet Atkins, Kenny Rogers, Hank Williams Jr., Neil Young, Johnny Cash, and Conway Twitty.
Originally appearing as a special companion to the Winter 2008 issue of Appalachian Heritage magazine, wherein Billy Edd Wheeler was the featured author and artist, this collection contains twenty of his most well-known songs, produced and performed by Billy Edd Wheeler himself.

Track List

1. She Saw an Angel  /  Vocal by Kathy Mattea
2. Coal Tattoo
3. Red Winged Black Bird  /  Vocal by Annie Lalley
4. The Hole in Uncle Vincent’s Wooden Leg
5. The Rev. Mr. Black
6. The Waltz of Miss Sarah Green
7. Duel Under the Snow
8. The Coming of the Roads
9. Coward of the County
10. High Flyin’ Bird
11. Christmas in the Country
12. Lulu Belle  /  Vocal by Dana McVicker
13. Mama’s Going Down in the Mine
14. Jack & the Doctor’s Daughter
15. Love
16. The Long Arm of the Law
17. Jackson
18. Winter Sky
19. The Coon Hunters
20. I Am the Cumberland Gap
    From Billy Edd’s folk opera, A Song of the Cumberland Gap, sung by members of the cast

“I was born in Appalachia, but never knew exactly where it was. My buddy Paul Morton said it was what we had to get out of to find America, like America was a foreign country or something. ‘But,’ he said, ‘it’s a long way from here to the rest of the USA.’ Well, I did get out of it for awhile, but it never got out of me. It’s in all the fruits of my creative labors, and with this CD I am proud to share some of it with you. I hope you enjoy it.” — Billy Edd Wheeler

($15.00 plus $2.00 shipping)