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Dark As A Dungeon
"Dark as a Dungeon" is a song written by singer-songwriter Merle Travis. It is a lament about the danger and drudgery of being a coal miner in a shaft mine. It has become a rallying song among miners seeking improved working conditions. The song achieved much of its fame when it was performed by Johnny Cash in his Folsom Prison concert (''At Folsom Prison''). During this live performance, one of the prisoners in the background was laughing, and Cash started to chuckle. He gently admonished the man, "No laughing during the song, please!" The man yelled something about "Hell!" and Cash answered, "I know, 'hell'!" When he finished the song, Cash made a comment that was largely repeated, somewhat out of context, by Joaquin Phoenix in the 2005 Cash biographical film ''Walk the Line'': "I just wanted to tell you that this show is being recorded for an album released on Columbia Records, so you can't say 'hell' or 'shit' or anything like that." Recorded versions * Merle Travis on ' ...
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Merle Travis
Merle Robert Travis (November 29, 1917 – October 20, 1983) was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Born in Rosewood, Kentucky, his songs' lyrics were often about the lives and the economic exploitation of American coal miners. Among his many well-known songs and recordings are " Sixteen Tons", "Re-Enlistment Blues", " I Am a Pilgrim", and " Dark as a Dungeon". He is best known today, though, for his unique guitar style, still called Travis picking by guitarists, as well as his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Travis picking is a syncopated style of guitar fingerpicking rooted in ragtime music in which alternating chords and bass notes are plucked by the thumb, while melodies are plucked by the index finger. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977. He is considered by some to be one of the most influent ...
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Grandpa Jones
Louis Marshall Jones (October 20, 1913 – February 19, 1998), known professionally as Grandpa Jones, was an American banjo player and Old-time music, old time/country music, country music singer. He was inducted as a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Country Music Hall of Fame in 1978.McCall, Michael; Rumble, John; Kingsbury, Paul, eds. (1 February 2012). The Encyclopedia of Country Music (Second ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 269–270. . Biography Jones was born in the small farming community of Niagara, Kentucky, Niagara in Henderson County, Kentucky, the youngest of 10 children in a sharecropper's family. His father was an Old time fiddle, old-time fiddle player, and his mother was a ballad singer and herself adept on the concertina. His first instrument was guitar. Ramona Riggins, one of several women who began to gain some recognition in a musical form long dominated by men was Grandpa's wife and musical partner of over thirty years.Jones, Grandpa ( ...
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Patrick Sky
Patrick Sky (born Patrick Linch; October 2, 1940May 26, 2021) was an American musician, folk singer, songwriter, and record producer. He was of Irish and Native American ancestry, and played Irish traditional music and uilleann pipes in the later part of his career. Early life Sky was born in College Park, Georgia, on October 2, 1940. He was of Muscogee and Irish descent. He grew up near the Lafourche Swamps of Louisiana, where he learned guitar, banjo, and harmonica. He moved to New York City after military service in the early 1960s, and began playing traditional folk songs in clubs before starting to write his own material. Career A close contemporary of Dave Van Ronk, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and others in the Greenwich Village folk boom, Sky released four well received albums from 1965 to 1969. He played with many of the leading performers of the period, particularly Buffy Sainte-Marie, Eric Andersen and the blues singer Mississippi John Hurt (whose Vanguard albu ...
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The Spinners (UK Band)
The Spinners were a folk group from Liverpool, England, who formed in September 1958. They variously had four albums in the UK Albums Chart between September 1970 and April 1972. One of them, ''Spinners Live Performance'' (1971), spent three months in the listing and peaked at No. 14. Career The band began as a skiffle group with a mainly American repertoire, until they were prompted by Redd Sullivan, a seaman, to include sea shanties and English folk songs. They started out as the Gin Mill Skiffle Group, which included guitarist Tony Davis and washboard player Mick Groves. The group played the Cavern Club, Liverpool for the first time on 18 January 1957, with the Muskrat Jazz Band and the Liverpool University Jazz Band. They played there on a number of occasions during that summer. In September 1958, they became the Spinners. They founded a folk club in Liverpool, the 'Triton Club' (while they were still called 'The Liverpool Spinners'), but soon were performing in London at ...
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The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City originally consisting of Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. Founded in 1948, the group sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads. The group sold millions of records at the height of their popularity, including the first folk song to reach No. 1 on popular music charts, their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene." Despite their popularity, the Weavers were blacklisted during much of the 1950s. During the Red Scare, members of the group were followed by the FBI and denied recording and performance opportunities, with Seeger and Hays called in to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Pete Seeger left the group in 1958. His tenor and banjo part was covered in succession by Erik Darling, Frank Hamilton (musician), Frank Hamilton and fina ...
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9 To 5 And Odd Jobs
''9 to 5 and Odd Jobs'' is a solo studio album by American entertainer Dolly Parton. It was released on November 17, 1980, by RCA Records. A concept album about working, the album was centered on Parton's hit "9 to 5", which served as the theme song to the film of the same name (co-starring Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin) and its soundtrack, and topped both the U.S. country and pop charts. The album's two additional singles—a cover of Mike Settle's " But You Know I Love You" and a reading of "The House of the Rising Sun" – provided further country hits, with "But You Know I Love You" also reaching No. 1. The understated pop-country arrangement of most of the songs was seen as a welcome return to form for Parton by critics, after the overly polished pop sound of Parton's previous albums. In addition to five Parton compositions, the album contained a number of folk and country classics, including work by Woody Guthrie, Mel Tillis and Merle Travis. The Parton-penned " ...
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Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, actress, and philanthropist, known primarily as a country music, country musician. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton's debut album, ''Hello, I'm Dolly'', was released in 1967, commencing a career spanning 60 years and Dolly Parton albums discography, 49 studio albums. Her forty-ninth solo studio album, ''Rockstar (Dolly Parton album), Rockstar'' (2023), became her highest-charting Billboard 200, ''Billboard'' 200 album, peaking at number-three. Described as a "country legend", Parton has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the List of best-selling music artists, best-selling music artists of all time. Her music includes Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)-certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards. She has had 25 single (music), singles reach No.1 on the ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' country music charts, a reco ...
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Peter Grudzien
Peter Grudzien (19412013) was an American country/psychedelic singer-songwriter, photographer, commercial artist, musician and recording engineer. Grudzien's music has been well known in the outsider music community since its inclusion in Irwin Chusid's book ''Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music'' (2000). " There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere" is included on the companion CD for the book. Grudzien grew up listening to classical music and later discovered country. In the 1950s he started listening to Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Horton, and similar artists. Peter had a recording contract at the age of sixteen with the Pell Brothers, whom he called "Brooklyn hillbillies". They wrote the music; he wrote the lyrics. Grudzien and his twin sister Theresa Lewis (died ) were paranoid schizophrenics. Grudzien was a patient at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center for eight months in the 1960s, where he received electroconvulsive therapy. He was trem ...
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Will The Circle Be Unbroken
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" is a popular Christian hymn written in 1907 by Ada R. Habershon with music by Charles H. Gabriel. The song is often recorded unattributed and, because of its age, has lapsed into the public domain. Most of the chorus appears in the later songs " Can the Circle Be Unbroken" and " Daddy Sang Bass". Lyrics :There are loved ones in the gloryHabershon, Ada R., and Gabriel, Charles H. (1907) nd. Pub. 1910 "Will the Circle Be Unbroken". In Alexander, Charles M. comp. ''Alexander's Gospel Songs No. 2''. Fleming H. Revell Company, New Yorkp. 33, song 28./ref> :Whose dear forms you often miss. :When you close your earthly story, :Will you join them in their bliss? : :Will the circle be unbroken :By and by, by and by? :Is a better home awaiting :In the sky, in the sky? :In the joyous days of childhood :Oft they told of wondrous love :Pointed to the dying Saviour; :Now they dwell with Him above. :You remember songs of heaven :Which you sang with childish ...
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The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (sometimes abbreviated NGDB), also known as the Dirt Band, is an American band founded in Long Beach, California, in 1966. Since 2018, the band has consisted of Jeff Hanna and his son Jaime Hanna, both guitarists and vocalists, along with Jimmie Fadden (drums, harmonica, vocals), Bob Carpenter (keyboards, accordion, vocals), Ross Holmes (fiddle, mandolin, vocals), and Jim Photoglo (bass guitar, vocals). Jeff Hanna and Fadden founded Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1966 with a lineup initially consisting of Bruce Kunkel, Ralph Barr, Les Thompson, and Jackson Browne, who quit early on and was replaced by longtime member John McEuen (vocals, guitar, banjo). The band had its first hit single in 1967 with "Buy for Me the Rain" on Liberty Records. Their earliest work featured jug band and traditional folk elements. In 1970, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band had their biggest pop hit with a cover of Jerry Jeff Walker's " Mr. Bojangles". Their sound took on elements of soft rock ...
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The Foggy Dew (album)
''The Foggy Dew'' is the debut album by Irish folk and rebel band The Wolfe Tones. The album is named after and features the song of the same name. Track listing # "The Singing Bird" # "Down in the Mines" # " Dicey Reilly" # "Galway Races" # "Louse House In Killkenny" # "The Diamond" # "The Zoological Gardens" # " The Foggy Dew" # " The Peeler and the Goat # "The Sash" # "Limerick Rake "Limerick Rake" is a traditional Irish song whose composer is disputed. The lyrics are set to the tune of an earlier song titled "Agus fagaimid siúd mar atá sé". The lyrics likely date to the late 18th century, as attested by the use of the p ..." # "Dry Land Sailors" # " Follow Me Up to Carlow" # "The Hills of Glenswilly" # " The Boys of Wexford" # " Roisin Dubh References The Wolfe Tones albums 1965 debut albums {{1960s-folk-album-stub ...
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