Paul Brown is an award-winning musician and journalist who’s been involved with traditional music since childhood. He picked up his first traditional songs and tunes from his mother, who learned them from piedmont Virginia African-American and European-American musicians in the 1920s and ‘30s. He started playing banjo at age ten, followed by fiddle and guitar.
Paul studied intensively with National Heritage Fellowship recipient Tommy Jarrell of Surry County, North Carolina, in the 1980s. Into the early 2000s, he also immersed himself in the styles of Luther Davis, Benton Flippen, Fred Cockerham, Fields Ward, and other senior players of northwest North Carolina and southwest Virginia. He produced several albums documenting senior musicians and created the Across the Blue Ridge public radio program. He received the North Carolina Folklore Society’s Brown-Hudson Award and was named a master artist at the Appalachian String Band Music Convention in West Virginia, where he won the banjo contest three times, placed third in the adult fiddle contest, and won the senior fiddle contest. His radio documentary, Breaking Up Christmas: A Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday, won a Silver Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.
Paul began his radio career at Mount Airy, NC, commercial station WPAQ in the early 1980s. He later moved to public radio, where his work through 26 years spanned management, music recording, news, and production at WFDD Public Radio in Winston-Salem, NC, and then at NPR in Washington, DC. While at NPR, Paul worked as an executive producer, reporter, and newscaster. He also reported and produced numerous feature stories on arts and culture, including old-time music, bluegrass, and blues.
Song Index:
7:55 - “Ida Red” (a.k.a. “Down the Road”)
10:42 - “Railroad Bill”
19:56 - “Arkansas Traveler”
25:44 - “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”
33:30 - “Little Maggie”
38:10 - “Lost John”
44:55 - “Cacklin’ Hen”
"Cacklin’ Hen, or Hen Cackle is what the late Uncle John Patterson of Carrollton, Georgia called it. I heard a recording of him playing it on Arhoolie 5018, which I found here at home today. So, that was one of my inspirations for that tune. Others too. Mr. Patterson plays the tune in standard G tuning, where I’m playing it in gDGDE, I believe, also in the key of G. I’m surprised how different our versions are. I’ll often change tunings for the way I think a tune would sound good." - Paul Brown, 4/21/2024
Links:
http://paulbrown.us.com/
https://twofingerbanjo.com/
https://www.patreon.com/mattbrownsdream