old time music, new and vintage, with early Red Clay Ramblers favorites
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Craver, Hicks, Watson, Newberry
30th Carter Family Memorial Festival
Carter Family Fold, Hiltons, Virginia
August 6, 2004
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Craver, Hicks, Watson, Newberry return to the Carter Family Fold for their second appearance in 2004.  The guys warm up before their afternoon set.  Jim Watson was inside getting ready for his performance as part of Robin & Linda Williams' Fine Group
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Fans and views of the Fold during the warm-up
The day was magical both for the performances and the perfect weather, cool, sunny, not a drop of rain.  unheard of for a fest!
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Clowning around
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The building in the background is the A.P. Carter store where the performances were held before the Fold was built and where Tommy Thompson crashed through the window in the Red Clay Ramblers' 1976 debut. (story)
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Mike minding the store.  The featurned item was the CD version of Meeting in the Air which arrived hot off the presses the week before.


Meeting in the Air
songs of the Carter Family sung and played by Jim Watson, Tommy Thompson & Mike Craver of the Red Clay Ramblers
[ more info | order ]

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Robin & Linda Williams and their Fine Group (Jimmy Gaudreaux and Jim Watson) in their afternoon set at the Carter Family Festival
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Set 1 (afternoon)
Rockingham Cindy
Telephone Girl
Winding Stream
Stolen Love
Sugar Hill
The Ace
Wagon Yard
The Band was Playing Dixie
Leather Britches
Merchants Lunch
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Set 2 (closing the show)
Yellow Rose of Texas
Aragon Mill
Play Rocky Top
Are You Tired of Me My Darling
Sally Ann
Daniel Prayed
I Know Whose Tears
Hobo's Last Letter
You Have Been a Friend to Me
Soldier's Joy
Beale Street Blues
Rabbit in the Pea Patch
Susananna Gal
Merchants Lunch (Reprise)
Set 2 Highlights
Beyond the extraordinary music, the evening set had several good stories.
Story #1 started in the afternoon. A three-generation family of fans from Toronto, Canada, stopped by the CD table as soon as it was set up.  "Who sings 'Are You Tired of Me My Darling'?"  Mike Craver, they were told.  During the afternoon set, they were overheard spreading the news to each other, "It's the one in the white t-shirt."  Just before the evening set, about a dozen members of the lovely group appeared back at the table to ask Mike to please sing their favorite song from Meeting in the Air.  It wasn't on the set list, but delighting the Toronto fans and all the audience, Mike took the stage all alone to sing "Are You Tired of Me My Darling."  Thanks, Mike, "the man behind THAT voice." mike235f.jpg (68440 bytes)
Look at the guitars...
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Joe Newberry
Story #2 - Our guys sang Joe Newberry's song "I Know Whose Tears" based on the poem read at Sara Carter's funeral. (Jim Watson and Mike Craver also sang at Sara Carter's funeral in 1979.)  Here's the poem.  The song can be found on Big Medicine's new CD Fever in the South.

If I were hanged on the highest hill,
I know whose love would follow me still;
If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
I know whose tears would come down to me;
If I were damned in body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole;
Mother of mine! Mother of mine! Mother of mine!

--Rudyard Kipling
Story #3 is the party that got going in the second set.  It was late, headed toward midnight, and the folks still wanted to dance.  They left their seats and stayed down on the dance floor, demanding fiddle tunes and encore after encore.  We lost track.  Make sure you're at the next one and see for yourself. oblurs_mccutcheon_80.jpg (37701 bytes)
John McCutcheon joins Craver, Hicks, Watson, Newberry in one of the many encores.

The Red Clay Ramblers - Carter Family Connections
The Smithsonian magazine article about the Red Clay Ramblers at the Fold 1976
Craver, Hicks, Watson, Newberry at the Fold June 21, 2003 | January 2004
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August 9, 2004