Artists:Acie Cargill

Acie Cargill has been called one of America's finest songwriters. His material crosses the defined genres; folk, rock, blues, country, rockabilly, old-timey, western swing, and bluegrass. He has done them all and there are albums available in each category that demonstrate Acie's songwriting skills. He is a member of American Mensa.

Two times the quality of his production work has been recognized by being put up for grammy nominations. His traditional banjo style is called the Tyler drop thumb and he has been recorded for the Library of Congress by Mike Seeger. Acie is considered the master of this style.

His available music begins with the Family Gathering cd recorded with an Ampex 602 at a churchyard gathering when he was about 10 years old and playing with the pros. The music is very much in the old-time Kentucky tradition with southern saw fiddling and Acie on the drop thumb. The tunes include The Battle of Shiloh, Old Molly Hare, The Cherry Tree, Eddyville Prison, Courting Betsy Brown, Ginny Git Around, and Black-eyed Susie.

His bandmates on this recording included remants of the Cargill Brothers string band of two generations back and some of the Tyler family musicians. The Cargill's had gone north to Chicago as backstage musicians with the WSM barndance and Acie's grandfather Acie was the fiddler.

In 2001, Folk Legacy released a superb album of the music of Acie's grandmother, Hattie Mae Tyler Cargill who was the last of the Kentucky Tyler family ballad singers and she taught Acie many of the old traditional tunes and melodies on the lap dulcimer when he was a boy. The album features Debra Cowan, Susan Ruth Brown, and Kristina Olsen. Some of the songs include Barbara Allen, The Dear Companion, Omie Wise, Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender, Wagoners Lad, Bachelor's Lament, Keep Your Garden Clean, and a wonderful touching poem from Hattie Mae, My Kentucky Home, with John Wright playing Acie's tune Road to my Home on the banjo.

To date Acie has recorded only one other album of his old family music. That would be In The Willow Garden, and this has been reviewed as his finest work, Some of the featured performers include Susan Ruth Brown, Elma Tuomisalo, Sally Anne Merrill, John Wright, Margaret Tyler, Cora Thiele, and Patrick Guinee. Song of the songs include Black is the Color, Geordie, The House Carpenter, Rose Connally, Cukoo Bird, Pretty Peggy-O, Darby Ram, and what Acie calls "the most authentic version of Shady Grove because my family lived there".

Read more..