Etta Baker

Born in 1913, Etta Baker picked up her rag-time influenced style of fingerpicking at the age of 3 from her father.  She would go onto be a master of Piedmont blues.  Etta practiced her two-finger picking style an hour every day, in addition to raising nine children with her musician husband, Lee Baker.

In 1956, while vacationing at the Moses Cone Mansion in Blowing Rock, in the mountains of North Carolina, Lee, and Etta met Paul Clayton, a musician and recording agent from New York.  At the urging of her husband, Etta played a few pieces on Clayton's guitar.  Clayton was so impressed with Etta's playing that he came to the Baker home the following week to record her.  Those recordings became part of a highly influential album, titled: 'Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians', which appeared that same year.  It made Etta legendary, especially among young urban musicians who began emulating her style.

After raising nine children and working 26 years at a Morganton textile mill, she quit at age 60 to become a professional musician.  At the age of 78, she cut her first album, '
One-Dime Blues'.  In 1991, she received the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship.

On September 23, 2006, Etta Baker died of a stroke in Fairfax, Virginia, leaving behind an underappreciated legacy of wonderful Piedmont style finger-picking guitar.  She was 93.

Etta's legacy lives on Etta's legacy lives on with an over life-size bronze statue at the Morganton Municipal Auditorium, in Morganton, North Carolina.  The statue is by artist Thomas Jay Warren, and is called "Pickin' on the Porch".  The dedication ceremony took place on May 25, 2017.

At the age of 78 in 1991, Etta cut her first album, '
One-Dime Blues'.  Etta Baker hadn't made any recordings or even been in a studio since 1956 before making the 20 numbers comprising this CD.

Etta goes from sassy and combative blues tunes like "Never Let Your Deal Go Down" and "But on the Other Hand Baby" to chilling numbers like "Police Dog Blues," novelty tunes, double entendre tunes, folk pieces, and even country-flavored material.  Singing and playing in vintage Piedmont style with a two- and three-finger technique, Etta Baker gives a timeless and memorable performance. 

'
One-Dime Blues' One-Dime Blues was nominated for a W. C. Handy Award for best country blues album.

Etta released '
Railroad Bill' in 1999. At the time, Etta was one of the last Piedmont pickers who was around when the music was first being recorded.  Etta's 83 years of practice is evident in these wonderful recordings of traditional folk ballads.  'Railroad Bill' is "front-porch" perfect.  You'll be delighted at Etta's intricate guitar technique.



'Etta Baker with Taj Mahal'
There really isn't much Taj Mahal on this album, but that's OK, since Etta Baker is a national treasure all on her own.

This is sort of a patchwork album, with six new recordings featuring Taj Mahal as an accompanist.  Six songs of Etta recorded solo by her friend, Wayne Martin, and rounded off with the original seven tracks she made for folksinger Paul Clayton back in 1956, the tracks which introduced her to the world.

The sequence still moves fairly seamlessly, though, and shows off Etta's versatility, as she tackles slide on "John Henry," electric guitar on "Madison Street Blues," and banjo on a vigorous version of "Cripple Creek." Any Etta Baker album makes a fine introduction to her enduring art, since she has never taken a day off playing guitar in her life.  However, having the original Clayton tracks gathered together with more recent recordings makes this one feel a bit like a retrospective.  It shows that this amazing lady has been amazingly good for an amazingly long time.

As a bonus, here's a copy of the aforementioned 'Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians'

This is a re-issue of the landmark folk album. 

Original recordings were gathered in a 1956 folk song collecting trip done by Dianne Hamilton, Liam Clancy and Paul Clayton in rural Virginia and North Carolina. 

Along with Etta Baker's outstanding guitar work, are performances by local musicians Hobart Smith on Fiddle and fretless Banjo, Lacey Phillips and Boone Reid on 5-string Banjo, Mrs. Edd Presnell on Dulcimer, Richard Chase on Harmonica.  The track listing is the veritable foundation of American Roots music with wonderful versions of Cripple Creek/ Sourwood Mountain/ Railroad Bill/ Pretty Polly/ Amazing Grace/ John Henry and many more in deftly played instrumental form.  The sound on this reissue is crisp, bringing this essential music into the 21st century.

For the freeload, what music do you want played at your funeral?