“We Always Tried to Be Good People”: Respectability, Crazy Water Crystals, and Hillbilly Music on the Air, 1933-1935 by Pamela Grundy

If you are easily exhausted, or too nervous, you have headaches or backaches or can’t sleep as you should, if your complexion is sallow or your tongue coated; maybe you’re just being warned by Nature that the troubles with far more serious names may be on the way. Faulty elimination, the sluggish and delayed passage of waste throughout the system, causes many serious disorders, disorders with all kinds of names…. Don’t give up to pain and illness…. Why all you need is determination, ordinary drinking water, and Crazy Water Crystals. Won’t you try it? -Crazy Water Crystals radio advertisement.

From

Read the rest

Privacy Policy

Last updated February 19, 2021

Thank you for choosing to be part of our community at Native Ground Music, Inc., doing business as Native Ground Books & Music (“Native Ground Books & Music“, “we“, “us“, “our“). We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy notice, or our practices with regards to your personal information, please contact us at info@nativeground.com.


When you visit our website https://www.nativeground.com (the “Website“), and more generally, use any of our services

Read the rest

Frank Smith, Andrew Jenkins, and Early Commercial Gospel Music

In 1923 two forces were working in the South to transform the face of American music: the radio and the phonograph record. As the various forms of traditional and grass roots music encountered these new mass media, a curious and complex chemistry developed that gradually changed the nature of the music, the musi­cians, and the role music played in people’s lives. Music once designed for the parlor, the back porch, the barn dance, or the church was now the creature of the radio studio, the Victrola, the fiddling contest, or the vaudeville theater. Musicians used to playing for a local

Read the rest

Online Audio for Instruction Books

Thank you for buying one of our music instruction books! If you’ve arrived here, it is because you need a digital copy of your instructional CD.

Please click on one of the buttons following the name of book you purchased below to download or stream the instructional MP3s. If you have any trouble, please contact us at info@nativeground.com. Note: If you email us for assistance, make sure to include the full title of your book so we are able to help you!

Important Note: To better give you listening options, we have two buttons: the first is to

Read the rest

Gospel Boogie: White Southern Gospel Music in Transition, 1945-55

It has become a truism to say that most forms of traditional music in the American South were to some extent ‘commercialized’ by the end of the 1920s; certainly this is true of fiddle and instrumental traditions, country singing, the blues and jazz. By the middle of the Depression most of these musics had gained access to the mass media, either through phonograph records or radio. Throughout the Depression amateur musicians gave way to semi-professional, and then fully professional, musicians who spent most of their time playing music. While these changes meant erosion of regional styles and dilution of tradition,

Read the rest

Okeh Record’s Historic Session in Asheville by Kent Priestly

Click on the image above to view a slideshow by Kent PriestleThe guitarist, Henry Whitter, slid his chair across the floor to bring his instrument a little closer to the recording machine’s sound-gathering horn. A harmonica dangled from his neck on a wire truss; he made a tentative puff on it and looked over to the man behind the controls.

The guitarist, Henry Whitter, slid his chair across the floor to bring his instrument a little closer to the recording machine’s sound-gathering horn. A harmonica dangled from his neck on a wire truss; he made a tentative puff on it

Read the rest

“West Virginia, My Home” A Visit With Hazel Dickens Interview by John Lilly

hazelSongwriter and performer Hazel Dickens is among the most respected and celebrated folk or country music artists to come from West Virginia. She has recorded 11 albums, contributed to the soundtracks of nine feature films or videos – including such popular releases as Matewan and Songcatcher – and seen her songs recorded by artists such as Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Hot Rize, and others. Among the many honors and awards she has received is the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship, presented to her by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2001.

Born in 1935

Read the rest

‘Gospel Boogie’: white southern gospel music in transition, 1945-55 by Charles Wolfe

It has become a truism to say that most forms of traditional music in the American South were to some extent ‘commercialized’ by the end of the 1920s; certainly this is true of fiddle and instrumental traditions, country singing, the blues and jazz. By the middle of the Depression most of these musics had gained access to the mass media, either through phonograph records or radio. Throughout the Depression amateur musicians gave way to semi-professional, and then fully professional, musicians who spent most of their time playing music. While these changes meant erosion of regional styles and dilution of tradition,

Read the rest

Terms & Conditions

Welcome to Native Ground Music, Inc.

For our privacy policy, please visit: https://nativeground.com/privacy-policy

These terms and conditions outline the rules and regulations for the use of Native Ground Music, Inc.’s Website.

Native Ground Music, Inc. is located at:

109 Bell Rd
Asheville, North Carolina  28805

By accessing this website we assume you accept these terms and conditions in full. Do not continue to use Native Ground Music, Inc’s website if you do not accept all of the terms and conditions stated on this page.

The following terminology applies to these Terms and Conditions, Privacy Statement and Disclaimer Notice and any

Read the rest

Jim Shumate, Bluegrass Fiddler Supreme

Rural Roots of Bluegrass

It’s a long drive from Raleigh, North Carolina to Nashville, Tennessee. Before Interstate 40 was cut through North Carolina, driving west from Raleigh meant winding through such towns as Siler City, Mocksville, Statesville, Hickory, and Old Fort. Bill Monroe is no stranger to that road. In the forty odd years he has been performing, he has worn out many a set of tires driving that road. Being a bluegrass musician has meant accepting show dates spread out all over the country; it never seems to matter how many miles lie between.

To pass the time, Monroe has often tuned in

Read the rest