Sweet Bama

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About Sweet Bama

Product Description Sweet Bama by Red Mountain White Trash Review The third album from this fine and unusually configured Birmingham, AL-based string band is very much of a piece with its predecessors: a collection of rollicking and mostly obscure old-time tunes and songs, all of them delivered with warmth, humor, and a winning blend of gentle virtuosity and casual ease. Fiddle tune adepts will recognize numbers like "Ora Lee" and "Garfield March," while lovers of vintage country music will be familiar with the Carter Family classic "You've Got to Righten That Wrong." But the stuff you've probably never heard before is the best: the jazzy "Girls Don't Worry My Mind" (featuring the charmingly plain-spoken vocals and chiming autoharp of Bill Martin), the equally charming "Keno, the Rent Man," and the otherwise untitled "Everis Campbell's Tune" (named after the fiddler who taught it to them but who didn't know what it was called). There's not much here that will drive you against your will to the dancefloor, but there's also hardly a tune that won't bring a smile to your face. Highly recommended. --AllMusic Guide About the Artist The seven members of the Red Mountain White Trash started playing traditional southern old-time music together around 1985. They all lived in Birmingham on Red Mountain in a historic neighborhood that was being gentrified by young professionals. Slow to renovate, the band members wondered if they were considered the "white trash" of the neighborhood and savored the concept of BMW’s upon blocks and obsolete expresso machines on the front porch. Thus came the band name that has been loved by some, deplored by others. Though their name is facetious, they take their music seriously. Many of their tunes were collected from older fiddlers in Alabama and Tennessee, and they play in a style that reflects the region in which they live. Folks often describe Red Mountain White Trash as a wall of sound. Components of this sound are twin fiddles played by Ed Baggott and Jim Cauthen, guitar by Joyce Cauthen, mandolin by Phil Foster, harmonica and banjo uke by Jamie Finley, autoharp by Bill Martin and bass by Nancy Jackson. On recordings and some club gigs they are joined by the talented vocalist and guitarist, Carole Griffin, who has two delightful cuts on “Sweet Bama.” On this recording they are also joined on one cut by Robert Stripling, oldest son of the great Alabama fiddler Charlie Stripling, who plays rhythm guitar on his dad’s tune, “Lost Child.” "Sweet Bama" is the bands 3rd CD. Previous releases include "Chickens Don't Roost Too High" [County Records #1 Old-Time release of 1999] and "Fire in the Dumpster".