These are the first recordings Ben and Joe made as they began to develop the Rhapsody Project. These are available as pay-what-you-will downloads at the Bandcamp link below, please check out the school residency dimension of the Rhapsody Project as well:

http://communityartscreate.org/Community_Arts_Create/Rhapsody.html

http://benjoe.bandcamp.com/

Got The Blues (Can't Be Satisfied)

http://cdbaby.com/benhunterjoeseamons

These are the first recordings Ben and Joe made as they began to develop the Rhapsody Project. These are available as pay-what-you-will downloads at the Bandcamp link below, please check out the school residency dimension of the Rhapsody Project as well:

http://communityartscreate.org/Community_Arts_Create/Rhapsody.html

http://benjoe.bandcamp.com/

Broke Down Engine Blues

http://cdbaby.com/benhunterjoeseamons

This is our adaptation of Roscoe Holcomb's spirited blues about walking along the mighty Mississippi. Roscoe played it on guitar, Joe adapted it to the banjo, and Ben rattles the bones on this one.

Click here to hear the original version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzIcDJ6J2x4

Recorded, mixed and mastered at Toolshed Soundlab by George Rezendes.

Mississippi Heavy Water Blues

http://cdbaby.com/benhunterjoeseamons

Robert Johnson recorded an incredible version of "Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)" almost certainly derived from an earlier version played (and recorded) by Son House. Did House develop his from some tune he learned from Charley Patton which was never recorded, or how much of the lyrics and melody were his own invention? We'd be curious to hear your take, here are the aforementioned takes on the tune:

Son House, 1930:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpWh8vohjG4

Robert Johnson, 1937:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0CE01C8Ar8

Enjoy!

Recorded, mixed and mastered by George Rezendes at Toolshed Soundlabs in Port Townsend, WA. 2014.
http://www.toolshedsoundlab.com/home.html

Preachin' Blues

Adapted from 'Camp Morris and Group', who sung this song when  Alan Lomax came to record songs in their prison camp in Georgia. Hear that recording here:

youtu.be/oaUFJx4ThOs

Ben Hunter - guitar, vocal
Joe Seamons - harmonica, harmony vocal
Ben Fox - bass, harmony vocal

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Tim Hunnicutt in Phoenix, AZ in December of 2014.

Captain Haney Blues (w Ben Fox)

Download this song here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/benhunter22

Sean Divine - harmonica
Ben Hunter - fiddle
Joe Seamons - banjo

www.benjoemusic.com

communityartscreate.org/wordpress/rhapsody/

Recorded, mixed & mastered by George Rezendes at Toolshed Soundlab.

Molly Put The Kettle On

Download this song here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/benhunter22

Adapted from a recording made by Alan Lomax in a Georgia prison camp in 1937. 

www.benjoemusic.com

http://communityartscreate.org/wordpress/rhapsody/

Recorded, mixed & mastered by George Rezendes at Toolshed Soundlab. 

Captain Haney Blues

Download this song here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/benhunter22

The composer of this hymn, Charles A. Tindley, is now known as one of the founding fathers of American gospel music. His song “I’ll Overcome Some Day” was developed into the American civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.” Born to an enslaved father and a free mother in 1851, Tindley taught himself to read and write, moving to Philadelphia with his wife Daisy in 1875. There, he worked during the day as a janitor and in the evenings educating himself to become a minister through correspondence courses. Over the course of the next five decades Tindley developed a following of over 10,000 people in the Philadelphia area. In 1928, five years before his death, an obscure Texas preacher and farmer named George Washington Phillips made the first known recording of Tindley’s 1901 composition, “What Are They Doing in Heaven Today.” 
We can only guess how Phillips came to learn Tindley’s composition. But, it is interesting to note that—beyond their geographical separation—the two ministers occupied vastly different ends of the formal religious spectrum. While Tindley was a very popular preacher whose sermons were attended by thousands of people of multiple races and denominations, Phillips was known as a “jack-leg” preacher. This meant that he was not ordained, and would be just as likely to be found preaching in the street as in the pulpit. While we will never know if Tindley heard Phillips’ version of his hymn, we can say for certain that the Texas preacher captured the song with both an ease and power that cannot be denied.

The guitar part for our version of this song is adapted from an arrangement created in open B-flat tuning by the American guitar master John Miller. 

Hear George Washington Phillips' version of this song by going here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or1oZ35NA2U

Support these recordings here: https://www.gofundme.com/4cetkd5y?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=email&utm_content=campaign_link_t&utm_campaign=welcome

Recorded at Columbia City Theater by Wyatt Harbaugh.

Mixed and Mastered by George Rezendes at Toolshed Soundlabs.

www.benjoemusic.com

What Are They Doing In Heaven Today

Download this song here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/benhunter22

www.benjoemusic.com

http://communityartscreate.org/wordpress/rhapsody/

Recorded, mixed & mastered by George Rezendes at Toolshed Soundlab. 

Hell's Broke Loose In Georgia

Black Sheep Moan

Old Rub Alcohol Blues

River Of Jordan

Download this song here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/benhunter22

We assumed at first that his was a Nina Simone original, but of course it turns out to be yet another song to come out of the tradition of the Spirituals. 

Ben Hunter - lead vocals, bones, fiddle
Joe Seamons - banjo
Forrest Marowitz - bass
George Rezendes - guitar
Sean Divine - harmonica

www.benjoemusic.com

http://communityartscreate.org/wordpress/rhapsody/

Recorded, mixed & mastered by George Rezendes at Toolshed Soundlab. 

Sinnerman

Download this song here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/benhunter22

Adapted from a recording of Jesse & John Wadley, Will Jones, and Felix Davenport at Bellwood Prison Camp in the late 1930's. Captured by John Lomax for the Library of Congress. Hear the original here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP6GWC9N-lE

And a variant recorded in Arkansas is available here:
https://maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=1122

Support these recordings here: www.gofundme.com/4cetkd5y?utm_sou…campaign=welcome

Recorded at Columbia City Theater by Wyatt Harbaugh.

Mixed and Mastered by George Rezendes at Toolshed Soundlabs.

www.benjoemusic.com
http://communityartscreate.org/wordpress/rhapsody/

Photo Credit: Jack Delano, Library of Congress. "Georgia convicts working on a road in Oglethorpe County. May 1941."

The Longest Train I Ever Saw

Ben & Joe live at the Gig Harbor BoatShop on July 22, 2016.

Recorded by Joe Seamons with the Zoom H4n Pro Handy Recorder.

'Yellow Dog Blues'

Exclusive preview track from Ben & Joe's forthcoming album featuring Phil Wiggins on harmonica. Recorded by George Rezendes at the Black & Tan Hall in South Seattle.
This Georgia fiddle tune came to us from the playing of the brilliant Mick Kinney, whose album "In Dear Old Georgia" includes this incredible song.
www.benjoemusic.com
www.philwiggins.com

'Shanghai Rooster n the Dominicker Hen' Feat Phil Wiggins

We were lucky to hear wonderful stories from Phil about the incomparable Howard Armstrong during the course of this recording. This was one of the tunes that Phil learned from Howard during their years at the Centrum Foundation's annual Acoustic Blues Festival.

'Do You Call That A Buddy' feat. Phil Wiggins

This song is dedicated to our friend and collaborator, Andy Reese, on his birthday. We first met Andy years ago in the Rhapsody Songsters program at Wintergrass, and his passion for music and life has been inspiring to us ever since. 
You'll get to see one of his photographs on the cover of our forthcoming album, The Antidote, and no doubt many other delightful things will spring from his fertile brain in the years to come.

Happy birthday Andy!

Andy also took this photograph.

2nd Album ref mixes

Hesitation Blues - Andy's Birthday Track

After meeting at the crossroads of blues and folk music in the Pacific Northwest, Ben Hunter and Joe Seamons established themselves as a duo after their first year at the Pt. Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival in 2012. Delving deeper into their shared love of traditional and communal American musical styles, they developed their sound by adapting the arrangements of luminaries such as Blind Willie McTell to their main instruments: fiddle and banjo. 

The next year at Pt. Townsend, Dom Flemons (formerly of the Carolina Chocolate Drops) caught their act, and invited them to North Carolina to form a new trio. In the spring of 2013, they recorded an album with Flemons and began touring across the South. Joe and Ben's duo sound matured as they worked with Dom and explored the cultures that spawned the music they had come to love. Now, as they prepare to release their own album of blues, rags, folk songs and fiddle tunes, Joe and Ben have begun to fuse the gritty hollers of the south with the ethos of their home in the Pacific Northwest. Their debut album will be released November 14, 2014.

Ben Hunter & Joe Seamons

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