"Run Mountain"

CD on The Living Tradition LTCD3004

Tradition Bearers series in 2002
  
Reviews
Kieron Means

The Musicians
Sara Grey
Kate Lissauer
Foreword
From the series editor

Track List
Run Mountain
John Lover
Deep Ellum Blues
Hard Killing Floor
Shady Grove
Red Rocking Chair
Mountain Fields
The Shark Song
Boll Weevil
Rain and Snow
Edward
I Never Cried
Lonesome Robin
Heart Aching Blues


Kieron Means

I grew up in Scotland and Lancashire, surrounded by the music my family played. In Britain, my mother and traditional singer Sara Grey and my step father Dave MacLurg, who sang shanties with Liverpool based Stormalong John. In America, my father and Englishman Andrew Means, music journalist and one of my first guitar teachers. After finishing school in Lancashire, I moved back to Scotland to play in a band with two of my closest friends, Dave Hirst and Ben Basson.
Of all the music I heard, it was the old time rhythms, melodies and close harmonies, the tales within the ballads, and the blues I liked best. This music is more to me than just a collection of songs I like to play. lt is a link to all that I love -to my family and friends with whom I've shared so many good times, and to all the wild and beautiful places that have inspired me.
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The Musicians

I am delighted to have my mother, Sara Grey and Kate Lissauer, join me on this CD. I am deeply grateful for their wonderful musicianship and support.
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Sara Grey

Sara Grey is an American singer, banjo player and song collector, who is immersed in the song traditions of both sides of the Atlantic. She lived in Scotland for 28 years, She also travelled extensively through the U.S. and Canada, performing and participating in workshops and summer-schools. She became very aware of how easy it is for people to become insular in their appreciation of music and how important it is for people to see that as songs travelled they became part of U.S. culture too. Her passionate interest is to maintain and strengthen the links between Celtic and American culture.
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Kate Lissauer

Kate was raised in the States amongst friends and family who played old-time music. She has lived in the UK for several years, but continues to play and sing old-time music.
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Foreword

Kieron Means is a young singer, born in America and brought up in Britain, with a strikingly individual sound. His voice is high and lonesome, yet rounded, and his skilful guitar accompaniments are sparse and understated, doing just enough to support the song. His material draws from the deepest wellsprings of North American culture, from the old-time music of the Southern mountains to the blues – which he sings with startling conviction – and the work of latter-day songwriters steeped in the old traditions. Where so many young folk musicians of today dazzle us with their instrumental virtuosity or flatter our ears with their vocal purity, Means delivers a much rarer virtue: a true passion for the music he plays. He sings the songs because he loves them and, whilst his stage presence carries undoubted charisma, his work betrays no hint of artifice or pretension. Kieron Means has soul, and I can think of no greater compliment to pay to a singer of folk songs. Brian Peters
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From the series editor

Trust is a two way process. When I first envisaged a series of 'tradition bearer' recordings my natural assumption was that the musicians would be mature in years. They would also fit into neat boxes - Scots, Irish, English, and American etc. I expected to struggle with distinctions between 'the tradition' and 'the revival'; what I hadn't thought of, was in which box to place the son of a noted musician who at the relatively tender age of 26 years already had 26 years of traditional music under his belt. In Kieron's case, this was further complicated by being brought up largely in the UK in a home surrounded by music from America. If you listen to Kieron's music and to that of his mother Sara Grey, you are a witness to the passing on of a tradition. As a bonus you can also appreciate the special understanding that seems to come through music making within a family. Kieron has thanked me for having the confidence to give him the opportunity to make this recording. Kieron and Sara made all the musical choices. This recording is very special and my trust in both Kieron and Sara has been well placed. Pete Heywood
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Run Mountain

Kieron - vocal & guitar
Sara - vocal & banjo
Kate - fiddle
A quirky old-time song with a quirky and rare title. It has been recorded by such great old-time musicians as Wade Mainer and his mountaineers and the New Lost City Ramblers. It has not been recorded by the Grateful Dead but it has been recorded by Jerry Garcia when with their predecessors, The Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers. Some of the verses are floating ones that occur in several traditional songs such as 'Crow Black Chicken' and 'Old Joe Clark'.
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John Lover

Kieron - vocal & guitar
Sara - vocal
Formerly a fiddle tune called 'Johnny's Gone To war' from the playing of old-time banjo player, Wade Ward. Johnny Whelan, from Somerset, added wonderful words in a American Civil War setting
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Deep Ellum Blues

Kieron - vocal & guitar
Sara - vocal & banjo
In the 20's, 30's and 40's the name Deep Ellum was a black convolution for the eastern most end of Elm Street in Dallas. Deep Ellum was Dallas' equivalent to Harlem and Burbon St. It was primarily a black district of Dallas where people could gamble, drink and listen to musicians.
Blind Lemon Jefferson grew up 60 miles south of Deep Ellum and in 1912 a train ride rolled him into the Central Tracks of Deep Ellum. Blind Lemon Jefferson composed the Deep Ellum Blues, which gave his mind's eye view of Deep Ellum.
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Hard Killing Floor

Kieron - vocal & guitar
Also known as 'Hard Time Killing Floor', this was written by Skip James shortly after 1931 when he joined Paramount on a two year contract. Skip was born in 1902 on Woodbine Plantation, Bentonia, Mississippi..
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Shady Grove

Kieron - vocal & guitar
Sara - vocal & banjo
Kate - Fiddle
There are various versions of this song and this one from Jean Ritchie's family is the most common. Some versions point to a place (a shady grove) while others refer to unrequited love for a prostitute named Shady Grove.
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Red Rocking Chair

Kieron - vocal & guitar
Sara - banjo
This is also known as Sugar Babe and Red Apple Juice. It has been attributed to Lily Mae Ledford of the Coon Creek Girls.
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Mountain Fields

Kieron - vocal & guitar
I learned this song from my mom who learned it from a great singer and guitar player, Tony Norris, originally from Oklahoma but he has lived for several years in Flagstaff, Arizona. The song was written by Pete Sutherland of Burlington, Vermont. Pete is an extraordinary fiddler, songwriter, guitar & mandolin player and singer. Who has a vast repertoire of old songs and tunes as well as his own.
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The Shark Song

Kieron - vocal & guitar
When I was in my early teens we went on a family holiday to the Algarve in Portugal. On one of the days I went on a deep-sea fishing trip. I have always had a keen interest in the sea and the marine life that dwells within, so I was eager to see what I might catch. I caught a shark and this is a song about what happened that day.
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Boll Weevil

Kieron - vocal
Sara - banjo
The Boll Weevil is a major threat to successful cotton harvests in Central America, Mexico and Southern and South-western States in the US. It lays its eggs in the unripe cotton boll and the young weevils eat their way out. This version of The Boll Weevil song comes from Heath Curtis of North Carolina. The first two verses can be found in other versions while the second two seem to come from versions of 'Let Me Be Your Side Track' by Jimmy Rogers.
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Rain and Snow

Kieron - vocal & guitar
Sara - banjo
This is a wonderful, haunting song and although other singers have recorded it, the song is widely attributed to Obray Ramsey a great singer and banjo player who had one foot in the old bluegrass songs and one in the traditional songs. The song had been collected by Cecil Sharp in the early 20th century and versions have been recorded by Pentangle and Jerry Garcia with The Grateful Dead
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Edward

Kieron - unaccompanied
From the singing of Donal McGuire, a great singer from Ireland who has lived for several years in East Lancashire, England. It is the biblical parable of Cain and Able. It has never been regarded as one of the best examples of popular ballads, its more like a detached part of a ballad rather than a complete one. It is known to have Finnish and Swedish counterparts. These Scandinavian versions are closer to the American ones but the 'Edward' story was too strong for Americans. The mother had no part in the crime, as she did in Scottish versions. There's no more powerful ending in a ballad than the final realisation that the mother helped in or committed the murder of her son. Being 'put to sea' was a medieval punishment for fratricide.
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I Never Cried

Kieron - vocal & guitar
I learned this blues from Howie Bursen, a great singer, guitarist and banjo player from New England. He learned it from John Miller, a very talented musician who extracted it from Blind Teddy Darby's "Built Down Low To The Ground" blues collection called "The St Louis Blues, 1929-33"
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Lonesome Robin

Kieron - vocal & guitar
Sara - Vocal
Bob Coltman wrote this in 1972 and said about it "Robin Hood has meant something special to me all my life, with his Lincoln green and his merry men and his idylls with pretty Marian in the greenwood. The treachery of his murder has stuck with me as much as any childhood tale, shining with a richly colored stained glass quality that's only grown with time. I see the whole fateful scene unroll in the woods I played in when I was little, the sun slanting down through the mossy trees, like the end of everything. I guess Robin is partly me."
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Heart Aching Blues

Kieron - vocal & guitar
This song was recorded by Uncle Dave Macon in 1927 and by Edith North Johnson in 1929. Uncle Dave Macon from Tennessee didn't have much of a singing voice and was hardly a virtuoso banjo player but he barnstormed his way through old-fashioned tunes. He was the Grand Ole Opry's first 'star' performer. He played there from his retirement from farming until he died at 80 in 1952.
Edith North Johnson was not a professional singer but a record producer's wife who had the opportunity to record and waxed some of the finest blues recordings of the 1920's and early 1930's. based in St. Louis she operated a fleet of taxis and ran one of that city's most popular diners
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