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From ?Old Time Herald?
June ? July 2007 Review
Flowery Girls
Flowery Girls/Katy Hill/Union Grove/Love Somebody/Morgan Marsh/Schottische/Spanish Fandango/Goin? Uptown/Lexington/Rattlesnake Bit the Baby/Sally Gooden/Jimmy Rodgers Blues/Greenback Dollar/Rocky Mountain Breakdown/Blue Creek/McEwen Drag/Grey Eagle
Flowery Girls is another important reissue from Spring Fed Records from the Davis Unlimited catalogue. As with the other offerings in this series, it was created and then re-created in CD form on a shoe-string budget. The original 1977 recording took place in a single day at the Tennessee country home of the musicians, and appears to have been done in single takes. The cover of the CD reissue looks homemade. That said, this is a significant recording spotlighting some if the most subtle and brilliant banjo playing you will ever hear, and Charles Wolfe?s original notes add much to our understanding of the music.
Though Omer Forster seems to have gotten out and about some beyond his home in rural Tennessee (he won first place at Fiddlers Grove in the banjo contest in 1976), he was at heart a regional musician who had adapted local musical traditions to his own taste. According to Wolfe?s notes and those who met Mr. Forster, he was a shy, humble man who never pushed himself into the limelight, but could be found at fiddlers conventions hunched over his old resonator Kay banjo, quietly producing transcendently beautiful music. We are extremely fortunate to have this music preserved.
Omer Forster was born in 1901 in Humphreys County, Tennessee-right next door to Fiddlin? Arthur Smith?s Dickson county, and just on county north of the home of the Perry County Music Makers. Forster learned to play the banjo at a young age and appears to have mostly played at local family and community events and square dances. Also noteworthy is Forster?s band-mate Houston Daniel?s bluesy, long-bow fiddling. My favorites are ?Lexington? and ?Goin? Uptown.? Though Daneil?s sound is reminisent of the great Tennessee fiddler Arthur Smith, his playing is taken at a more leisurely pace and feels a bit more homespun.
Though Forster was marvelous with a band-supportive and yet creative in an Oscar Jenkins sort of way-his solo banjo playing is what really made him special. His shimmering solo ?parlor style? banjo pieces simply have to be heard to be believed. I hesitate to even mention that he played exclusively in a two-finger style, since two- and three-finger picking of the banjo were pretty much the default styles among those of his generation in that part of Tennessee, but from today?s standpoint, that would be unusual. Forster had his own indescribable sound, and for the sake of conveying it to those who haven?t heard: he?s probably most often compared to Will Keys, another Tennessee two-finger style banjo player who had a similar chiming sound and who also gained wider recognition later in life. And like Keys and Jenkins, Omer Forster picked with just two fingers, thumb and forefinger. By using a mix of rolls, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs, he got a liquid, rippling sound on solo pieces such as his trademark ?Flowery Girls,? his own ethereal composition ?Union Grove,? ?McEwen drag,? and ?Spanish Fandango.? This is astonishingly beautiful stuff- recommended listening for anyone interested in the fascinating variety of old-time banjo styles.
Gail Gillespie
Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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