hypersongs

Norman Blake

The American flatpicking guitarist and multi-instrumentalist from north Georgia (not the Teenage Fanclub singer), whose debut Home in Sulphur Springs (1972) holds "Ginseng Sullivan".

Nashville sideman

This is the American musician Norman Lee Blake, born on March 10, 1938 in Chattanooga, Tennessee and raised around Sulphur Springs and Rising Fawn in Dade County, Georgia (Wikipedia and the IBMA say Sulphur Springs, Alabama). He should not be confused with Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub. He learned his first song, "Spanish Fandango", from his grandmother at eleven, and his influences included Roy Acuff and the Carter Family. He left school at sixteen and played mandolin with the Dixie Drifters, then with Bob Johnson's Lonesome Travelers and Hylo Brown's Timberliners in 1960, and served in the Army in the Panama Canal Zone from 1961 to 1963. His instruments include guitar, mandolin, Dobro, fiddle and banjo.

From fall 1963 he played sessions on many Johnny Cash albums on Columbia and was on Cash's television show from 1969 to 1971. He played on Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline in 1969, toured and recorded with Kris Kristofferson and Joan Baez, and joined John Hartford's Aereo-Plain in late 1971. He added Dobro to seven tracks on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972).

Records and honors

He recorded Home in Sulphur Springs on December 30, 1971, a debut solo album on Rounder in 1972 with Tut Taylor on Dobro, 38:52, produced by Blake and Taylor. AllMusic's Jim Smith gave it 4.5 stars, saying this record is among Blake's best. Red, White and Blue(grass) recorded his songs in 1973, and he and Nancy Blake made The Fields of November (Flying Fish, 1974); a Rounder contract came in 1979, the same year as the Rising Fawn String Ensemble with the fiddler James Bryan. Blake and Rice (1987) and Norman Blake and Tony Rice 2 (1990), both on Rounder, followed.

In 2000 he was on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, which won the Grammy for album of the year, and he played Carnegie Hall that year. He later appeared on Cold Mountain, Walk the Line and Inside Llewyn Davis, and on Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Wood, Wire, and Words (2016) won a Grammy for best folk album. The Georgia Encyclopedia says he retired from touring in 2007. The International Bluegrass Music Association named him to its Hall of Fame in 2022, with the ceremony on September 29 in Raleigh; Bob Minner accepted on his behalf. Minner's tribute album From Sulphur Springs to Rising Fawn appeared on Blake's birthday in 2022.

Albums

Songs

  • Ginseng Sullivan Home in Sulphur Springs · 1972

    Blake's song about a man hoping to make his break in the ginseng trade, one of the first of his songs other bands recorded.

Sources

  1. Norman Lee Blake, International Bluegrass Music Museum
  2. Norman Blake, Georgia Encyclopedia
  3. Norman Blake (American musician), Wikipedia
  4. Norman and Nancy Blake: the old-fashioned way, No Depression