Author Description

John Cohen had turned 85 years of age about the time we first made contact and talked by phone in 2017 about a book I was writing on Tommy Thompson of Red Clay Rambler fame. Over several months we had what struck me as very intriguing discussions on how the New Lost City Ramblers learned old tunes that they incorporated into their repertoire, their approach to playing on stage and recording work, and what the New Lost City Ramblers brought to the mix that was unique and represented their earliest contribution to the old time music revival. That set the stage for talks about the Hollow Rock String Band, and the Red Clay Ramblers. John held forth on those bands and the musical context in which they thrived in ways that showed depth of thought and great historical reach into the stories of the string bands and local musical communities that constituted the revival and contributed to the surge of folk music in the decades from the 1950s to the early 2000s. This remembrance is an account of those discussions with John Cohen.