Max Hunter - Ozark Folksongs and Ballads (1963) [Hi-Res]

On this early field recording from Folk-Legacy Records, Max Hunter of Springfield, Missouri, sings folk songs collected from the Ozarks. While Hunter learned his repertoire intentionally as a song collector rather than through ancestral transmission, he was dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of his region’s musical tradition. In this recording, Hunter plays from his 1,100-odd collected songs, learned in accordance with strict rules he set for himself—never playing a song he had not learned directly from a traditional singer in the mountains of Missouri and Arkansas, and never changing in any way the text or music of a song as it was presented to him. The songs selected here have a mix of American and English origins, including Child ballads in their Ozark versions, broadsides, and Western outlaw songs, expressively sung and skillfully played without any sort of patronizing mimicry. Today, Hunter’s recordings of Ozark singers are held jointly in the collection of the Springfield-Greene County Library and the Missouri State University, where they have been digitized.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Max Hunter - Open the Door (1:27)
1.02 - Max Hunter - The Dewy Dens of Yarrow (Child 214) (4:20)
1.03 - Max Hunter - The Battle of Pea Ridge (2:04)
1.04 - Max Hunter - Pretty Suzie (3:19)
1.05 - Max Hunter - Oh Miss, I Have a Very Fine Farm (3:12)
1.06 - Max Hunter - The Drunkard's Wife (2:37)
1.07 - Max Hunter - Sweet Lovely Jane (3:07)
1.08 - Max Hunter - The Blue Ridge Mountains (4:40)
1.09 - Max Hunter - Sporting Molly (1:51)
1.10 - Max Hunter - Lady Margaret (Child 74) (5:02)
1.11 - Max Hunter - How Come That Blood? (Child 13) (2:31)
1.12 - Max Hunter - Down by the Greenwood Side (Child 20) (3:05)
1.13 - Max Hunter - John Henry (Hardy) (2:15)
1.14 - Max Hunter - Down by the Sea Shore (2:51)