The Pine Breeze Recordings 
 Jubilee Community Arts announces the release of double CD
The Pine Breeze Recordings

Purchase from County Sales

    Between 1975 and 1981, the students of Pine Breeze Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, released eight LPs of field recordings of local traditional musicians.  This was a time when oral history projects and student projects documenting local traditions were a popular educational activity.   Pine Breeze was not a regular high school:  Pine Breeze Center was a State residential facility serving 23 East Tennessee counties' most severe emotionally disturbed adolescents.

Evening teacher and counselor Ron Williams had attended a workshop presented by a young English professor, Charles Wolfe, from Middle Tennessee State University, now a widely known expert on country music history.  The topic was using traditional music as a starting point in creative writing lessons for high school students.  Williams obtained permission from his boss to drive his students around the county looking for old folks to document their musical traditions, naively assuming that they would easily find local traditional musicians, who had been waiting anxiously over the years for a group of emotionally disturbed adolescents and their longhaired teacher to pull up in a State van in their front yard to record their performances of fiddle tunes and ballads passed down through the centuries.

Amazingly, it turned out that this was what happened.

The first Pine Breeze LP of traditional music was funded by a $600.00 grant from The Tennessee Arts Commission.  The seven LPs that followed were all paid from the sales of the previous releases making the project essentially self-supporting.

All the tracks were recorded by 13 to 18 year old students diagnosed as emotionally disturbed and being treated in a residential facility.  All the recording equipment was consumer quality and much of it was used and old and not at all ideal for field recording.  These students set up and ran all the equipment, did the mixing and the editing.  They helped write some of the liner notes, took many of the photos, helped design album covers, and kept track of orders.

There was no reason to think that the Traditional Music Project at Pine Breeze Center would have ever documented any traditional musicians, much less releasing a series of eight nationally recognized and acclaimed field recordings of significant historical value.  These recordings presented here are proof that there is magic in the music. 

Musicians documented on these recordings include Eldia and Oscar Barbee, Homer and Calvin Chastain, Bob Douglas and Ray Brown, Russ Vandergriff, Ella Hughes, Blaine Smith and Florrie Stewart, J.R. "Peanut" Cantrell, Lee Trentham and J.D. Perkinson, Clay Turner, and the Bice Family.  The repertoires represented encompass distinctive variants of familiar and rare fiddle tunes on fiddle, banjo, and guitar as well as less common string instruments from mando-cello to hammered dulcimer; unaccompanied ballads, family gospel singing, and other songs.  Charles Wolfe supplies notes on the tunes and songs and Ron Williams provides biography notes on the musicians.

Track Listing

CD ONE

Eldia and Oscar Barbee

1.     Citico, 1976 - 1,29,30.
2.     Cacklin’ Hen, 1976 - 1,29,30.
3.     Sugar in the Gourd, 1976 - 1,3,31.
4.     Black Oak Ridge, 5/22/1977 - 1,30.
5.     George Gann, 6/21/1978 - 1,3,31.
6.     Katy Hill, 6/21/1978 - 1.
7.     Liza Jane, 6/21/1978 - 1,3,31.
8.     Pop Goes The Weasel, 1977 - 1.
9.     Cumberland Gap, 1978 - 1,30.
10.   Sourwood Mountain, 1978 - 1,3,31.
11.   Ida Red, 6/21/1978 - 1,3,31.
12.   Sail Away Ladies, 4/16/1980 - 1,30,28.
13.   Bill Cheatham, 4/16/1980 - 1,30,28.
14.   Frank Barbee Hornpipe, 1978 - 1,31.

Homer and Calvin Chastain, and Don Holder

15.   Sally Goodin, 4/15/1980 - 4,5,6,32.
16.   Greenback Dollar, 6/27/1978 - 4,5,6.
17.   Chicken on a Limb, 1977 - 6.
18.   Muddy Road To Ducktown, 1977 - 4,5,6.
19.   John Hardy, 4/15/1980 - 4,5.
20.   Dance All Night, 1977 - 4,5,6.
21.   New River Train, 1977 - 4,5,6.
22.   Smoke Behind The Clouds, 1978 - 4,5,6.

Bob Douglas and Ray Brown, April/May 1980

23.   Shoot The Turkey Buzzard - 7,8,30,27.
24.   Sequatchie Valley - 7,8,30,27.
25.   Durang’s Hornpipe - 7,8,30,27.
26.   Climb The Golden Stairs - 7,8,30,27.
27.   Durham’s Reel - 7,8,30,27.
28.   Douglas Waltz - 7,8,32.

 

CD TWO

Russ Vandergriff, 1976

1.       Hickman’s Boys

Ella Hughes, 2/27/1978

2.     The Poor Scotchee
3.     Princess Boy
4.     All Around the Cedar
5.     Weevily Wheat
6.     Green Coffee
7.     Johnny Was A Miller
8.     Chase The Squirrel
9.     Shoot The Buffalo
10.   She Is Dumb

Blaine Smith and Florrie Stewart, 1977

11.   A Bottle of Wine and Gingercake, 6/23/1977 - 11,13.
12.   Jeff Davis, 9/22/1977 - 11,12,31.
13.   Old Chattanooga, 9/6/1977 - 11,12,13.
14.   Chocktaw Bill, 9/22/1977 - 11,12,31.
15.   Cincinnati, 9/6/1977 - 11,12,13.
16.   Corn in the Crib, 9/23/1977 - 11,12,13.
17.   Run, Nigger, Run, 9/24/1977 - 12.

J.R. “Peanut” Cantrell, 2/22/1977

18.   Sail Away Ladies
19.   Sugar Gal

Lee Trentham and J.D. Perkinson

20.   Goin’ Back To Harlan,1976 - 15,16,17.
21.   Rubber Dolly,  6/7/1978 - 15,16,17.
22.   East Tennessee Blues, 6/7/1978 - 15,16,17.

Clay Turner, 5/10/1977

23.   Pick and a Shovel.
24.   The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago.

Eldia Barbee, 1978

25.   Baby, You’re Time Ain’t Long.
26.   Goin’ To Chattanoogie.

Ruth Myers, Jimmy Bice, Bruce Gant, Maudie Ford and Lela Davis

27.   Glory Land Road, 1978 - 22,19,26,33.
28.   He’ll Roll Me Over The Tide, 1978 - 20,23.
29.   He’ll Hold to My Hand, 1978 - 20,21,25.
30.   Poor Wayfaring Stranger, 1979 - 20,24.

Personnel:  1) Eldia Barbee, fiddle; 2) vocal and banjo; 3) Oscar Barbee, banjo; 4) Homer Chastain, fiddle; 5) Calvin Chastain, banjo; 6) Don Holder, guitar; 7) Bob Douglas, fiddle; 8) Ray “Georgia Boy” Brown, guitar; 9) Russ Vandergriff, vocal and guitar; 10) Ella Hughes, vocal; 11) Blaine Smith, viola; 12) Florrie Stewart, banjo; 13) Willie Brandon, guitar; 14) J. R. “Peanut” Cantrell, hammered dulcimer; 15) Lee Trentham, fiddle; 16) J. D. Perkinson, banjo; 17) Jim Speir, guitar; 18) Clay Turner, vocal and banjo; 19) Ruth Myers, vocal and guitar; 20) vocal; 21) Jimmy Bice, vocal and guitar; 22) vocal; 23) Lela Davis, vocal; 24) Maudie Ford, vocal; 25) Bruce Grant, mandolin and vocal; 26) mandolin; 27) “Box Car” Pinion (prob), bass; 28) Claude Redden, guitar; 29) Milton Farriss, guitar; 30) Ron Williams, banjo; 31) guitar; 32) mando-cello; 33) Jean Brownfield, vocal

 



The Pine Breeze Recordings
Jubilee Records JCA-1003, were co-produced by Brent Cantrell and Ron Williams with funding by the Tennessee Arts Commission.  Complete notes (2.3 MB pdf)

Copies are available for $17 each plus $2.50 shipping and handling
payable to Jubilee Community Arts, 1538 Laurel Ave., Knoxville, TN, 37916 or from County Sales

For more information contact Brent Cantrell at (865) 522-5851 or info@jubileearts.org and see http://www.jubileearts.org/