Spring Fed Records is Grammy Award Winning record label operated by The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University. Spring Fed Records preserves and documents the traditional music of Tennessee and the Mid-South region through the release of recordings of historical and cultural importance. As part of MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment, Spring Fed Records also serves as an experiential educational platform for students, and offers cultural outreach and education to the public.
On July 22, 1975, Walter Greer played an hour and twenty-eight minutes of old-time fiddle tunes in the living room of his home for Robert Cogswell. Although Greer is out of practice and playing on a borrowed fiddle, this recording offers a rare glimpse into the unique and distinctive repertoire of the once-active Black string band scene in Middle Tennessee. As reissue producer, Tiffany Minton, writes "Greer’s repertoire includes regional, popular, slightly obscure, and possibly unknown tunes. It’s difficult to know exactly how and why he learned all of the pieces in his repertoire, but there are clues in the selections that studied players and scholars of old time music might recognize"
Greer’s repertoire includes many common and well-documented tunes like Cumberland Gap, Ida Red, and Old Joe Clark as well as less common pieces such as Giles County and Uncle Bud.
Tiffany Minton's complete liner notes are available for download at Dropbox
These recordings are being released as-is (with minor audio editing by Martin Fisher) in the hopes that these recordings will increase our knowledge and appreciation of Black fiddling in Middle Tennessee. Compare and contrast these recordings to the Greer material recently made available through the Country Music Foundation.
Get the complete recording at YouTube
Haley release event in Nashville
1/7/2023
Join us for an evening of Haley family songs and tunes at the Violin Shop in Nashville on Saturday, January 7th at 7pm. Tickets available at the door ($20 or $15 for students or children. CASH ONLY) or call the Violin Shop at 615.662.1570 to reserve your seats. The show will be livestreamed on the Violin Shop Facebook page if you can't join us in person.
After more than six years of work, the Haley family box set has been released! The set includes 7 CDs and a 105 page liner notebook with essays and Haley family photos. Many previously unreleased cuts all expertly restored by audio engineer, Martin Fisher.
Producers, John Fabke, Steve Haley and Greg Reish along with liner note contributor and musician, Brittany Haas and musicians Bobby Taylor, Austin Derryberry, Tessa Dillon, Henry Barnes, Bruce Molsky and others recently gathered at Clifftop for a workshop with music and discussion about this amazing set of music. Now that the set has been officially released, they available for purchase through a number of different outlets. Get your copy through the Center for Popular Music Marketplace Page and from our friends at County Sales and from our distributor, Burnside at Amazon.
FOREIGN ORDERS - CONTACT US AT spring.fed@mtsu.edu BEFORE PURCHASE FOR OVERSEAS SHIPPING ESTIMATE
RECENT RELEASES FOR 2022!
Classic rock ‘n’ roll, country, and gospel influences combine seamlessly in this twenty-song collection drawn from the sixty-plus-year performing and recording career of southeast Missourian and local music legend Joe Keene. Keene spent thirty of those years performing— sometimes seven nights a week—in small clubs spread across rural southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas. Following his retirement from performing in 1987, Keene continued to write, record, and run his recording studio, Kennett Sound Studios, in Kennett, Missouri.
Stream, download or purchase HERE or from the CPM Marketplace page HERE
Read a recent review from SKOPE magazine!
new Release!
Wally Bryson-Fiddle Tune collection
recent Release!
RurAL fELICITY -Fiddle Tunes from 18th and 19th Century North America
bY jIM wOOD
The newest Davis Unlimited reissue features the fiddling of one of the finest bluegrass, contest and old time fiddlers of the mid-south, Wally Bryson. This new release contains Bryson's mid '70s, instrumental LPs, Country Fiddling and Just Jamming in one package. The CD includes the original liner notes and remastered audio by Martin Fisher. Physical copies available at the Center for Popular Music Marketplace Physical, download and streaming available through the Orchard
SFR's recent release, Rural Felicity, brings together a master fiddler, Jim Wood, with a collection of 18th and 19th American fiddle and fife tunes drawn from an extensive collection of historic manuscripts. The American Vernacular Music Manuscripts is an online collection of original, 1730-1910 music manuscripts that come from the collections of the Center for Popular Music and the American Antiquarian Society.
Jim carefully researched the site to choose over 40 tunes to arrange and record. His collection combines fiddle standards old and new, song melodies, airs, minuets, waltzes and more to offer a glimpse into the music people liked to play in their homes in America a century or more ago. Scholar, Chris Goertzen, an authority on early American fiddling, contributed a detailed essay for the liner notes that provide history and context about the tunes and the manuscript collection itself.
Stream Rural Felicity Here
Purchase CDs from Amazon Here
Purchase CDs from Center for Popular Music Here
recent Release!
Eddie & Ruben Jimenez
"Musica alegre"
Eddie and Ruben Jimenez, Música Alegre! Spring Fed Records is happy to present a historic and totally unexpected new recording from the first family of Conjunto music! Eddie Jimenez and Ruben Jimenez, sons of legendary conjunto founder Santiago Jimenez, Sr., play original conjunto polkas and redovas puro San Antonio style on the new CD “Música Alegre!” Eddie wrote the original tunes on this recording on his father’s two row Hohner accordion, and Ruben backs him up with a singular twelve string guitar style utilizing his own custom tunings and picking techniques. Eddie and Ruben might not have the global fame of Don Santiago’s other sons like Flaco Jimenez or Santiago Jimenez, Jr. (Eddie’s twin!) but they share the family’s unique old conjunto sensibility and make excellent music that but is all their own.
Listen or buy now!
Streaming, download and Amazon
