Recordings & Books
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Defiantly Joyous:
American String Band Music
The True & Trembling String Band
24 great tunes! 1970s reel-to-reel and cassette recordings have been beautifully digitized, mixed and mastered. For more about the band go here. CD RWA 18802
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Red-Devil Speedway
Continuing with recordings made at Night Sail Studios in Windsor, Maine, Red-Devil Speedway is a compilation of more of the best of these tracks, played on 5-string banjo, Appalachian fretless banjo, and a variety of guitars. The selections range from clawhammer banjo breakdowns like Dinah and John Henry to high lonesome vocals on Cold Rain & Snow. There’s a bluesy turn in Bob’s composition Horseflies, and his soulful reworking of the old folk standard Down in the Pines. Bob even includes his interpretation of his favorite childhood 78 rpm recording, Riders in the Sky. These and other tracks pay homage to older musicians who have influenced Bob’s performance and repertoire, including Frankie Laine, Frank Proffitt, Huddie Ledbetter, and the fabulous midwestern fiddler Earl Collins. Singing, with five-string banjo and guitar. A Rake and a Ramblin’ Boy, Beaver Dam Road, The Brave Engineer, Reuben’s Train and ten more. CD RWA 11707
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Sounds Like Old Times
Long-time friends Dave Peloquin and Bob Webb explore the roots of country music in this CD, featuring the music of Jimmie Rodgers, Woody Guthrie, the Delmore Brothers, the Mississippi Sheiks and others. Many of the selections take a faithful look at songs that were composed and arranged during the quarter-century after Ralph Peer’s legendary recording sessions in Bristol, Tennessee in 1927. The performers who recorded on those dates, and those who came along during the 1930s and ’40s set the stage for what is now the Country-Western music industry. Harmony singing, with guitars, five-string banjo and occasional mandolin: popular hits of the day, as well as some uncommon songs. Deep River Blues, The Fugitive’s Lament, Somewhere Down Below the Mason-Dixon Line, Dead or Alive, Red-winged Blackbird, plus 10 more. CD RWA 10603
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Waiting for Nancy:
Old-Time Country Duets
Curt Bouterse & Bob Webb
This long-awaited album celebrates the music of two friends who have played traditional American folk songs together for four decades. Curt Bouterse is a pioneer of the hammered dulcimer, the first musician in the American west to adapt fiddle tunes to the instrument. He is also known for making and playing fretless “banjers.” Vocal and instrumental music accompanied on hammered dulcimer, MacCann-duet concertina, fretless and gourd banjos, khaen, autoharp, guitar, and Jew’s harp: Sweet Sunny South, Otto Wood, Mississippi Sawyers, I Only Want a Buddy, A Long Time Ago, Gypsum Davey, plus Curt’s own Waiting for Nancy and nine more. Eagle’s Whistle Music CD EWM-1003
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From Salthouse Dock
22 tracks, including 19 traditional songs from the days of square-riggers and three contemporary songs of the sea. Vocal and instrumental backing by the legendary Liverpool shanty group Stormalong John, plus “Shanty Jack” of Hull, England. Unaccompanied singing like the days of sail, plus accompaniments on concertinas, accordion, bones, and gut-string five-string banjo. South Australia, Hello Somebody!, The Hogeye Man, The Florida‘s Cruise, Haul Away for Rosie-O, Dear Old Liverpool Town, The Rope with the Golden Strands, The Plains of Mexico and 14 more. CD RWA 4512
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Full Circle: The Solo Banjo Sessions
21 songs and tunes on banjo, the best from eight sessions recorded by David Peloquin at Night Sail Studios in Windsor, Maine during 2006-7. Many of Bob’s best-known pieces are included: The Cuckoo Bird, Last Chance, Sally in the Garden, Fall on My Knees, Wild Bill Jones, When Johnny Comes Down to Hilo, Charleston, and more—plus three new tunes by Bob himself. Six different banjos are represented: two conventional instruments, an Appalachian fretless “banjer,” a minstrel-era replica with gut strings, a wooden-headed Ozark-Mountains fretless, and a “mandoline-banjo”—a five-string banjo neck mated with a mandola body. CD RWA 7405
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Bank Trollers: Songs of the Sea
Sea music from the U.S. and Canada, including two rare shanties and 15 more songs old and new, concerning rumrunners, fishermen, towboats and deepwater sailing. CD RWA 0206
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Cluck Old Hen: Celebrating 150 Years of the Rhode Island Red
Southern Appalachian and Country Blues music with Bob Webb (banjo, fretless banjo, guitar, vocals), Craig Edwards (fiddle, bottleneck guitar, vocals) and Helen Richmond Webb (guitar, vocals). 15 songs and old-time tunes. CD RWA 4303
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Sailor-Painter: The Uncommon Life of Charles Robert Patterson
(Mystic, CT: Flat Hammock Press) The sea-paintings of Charles Robert Patterson (1878-1958) revived nautical art by combining of years of seafaring experience in square-rigged vessels with academic art training. He burst on the scene in 1921-2, at the start of the “ship lovers” movement that hoped to preserve the last of the age of sail. His paintings brought a realistic glory to the ship on deep water, and his talent was rewarded with many prestigious commissions. Richly illustrated, with 10 plates in color.
Ring the Banjar!:
The Banjo in America from Folklore to Factory
Second edition (Anaheim Hills, California: Centerstream Press) The first comprehensive history of the banjo from days of slavery to modern, technological instruments, well-illustrated with historical photographs and full-page color images of great banjos.
On the Northwest: Commercial Whaling in the Pacific Northwest 1790-1967
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press): Bob’s award-winning history of whaling on the Northwest Coast of America, from native whaling in cedar canoes to modern steam-whaling from shoreside processing factories. Bob details the difficult and all-consuming development of the whaling industry from Washington State to the Bering Strait.
Order from UBC Press.