Sometimes forget to tune in for the thrilling music and comedy show hosted by Anna & Elizabeth on the second Saturday of every month in downtown Floyd 7:30? Well now you can stream ‘em online at your leisure. Visit http://www.floydcountrystore.com/radio-show
and look to the left-hand column to stream all the past radio shows.

Elizabeth has sung for audiences across the country, and has taught Appalachian ballads and unaccompanied singing at music camps and workshops.  She has sought out information about songs and singers past, and enjoys passing it on to students of any age.

Quotes about Elizabeth’s Singing:

“Anyone can learn the old ballads. There are numerous collections in libraries and books that are available on-line. But, Elizabeth is interested in the feel, the sound, the ornamentation of these songs. She is, in my opinion, one of maybe a handful of young singers able to capture the rhythm, the intensity, the breaks and sighs, that make this style of singing authentic. The only problem I have while listening to Elizabeth is that I’m always listening through tears. She reminds me so much of my older relatives – the same profound feeling for the ballad, yet with such a clear voice.” -Sheila Kay Adams

“Elizabeth attends to these time-honored ballads with a level of comfort and conviction rarely found these days, let alone by someone of such a young age. There is a real kind of chilling effect of her singing…Elizabeth…is more than simply an ‘interpreter’ of this genre. One gets the feeling…that she is accessing those aspects of these songs that transcend place and historical time, and speak directly to the heart.” -John Lohman, Virginia State Folklorist

Past Performances & Teaching:
Crooked Road Tour 2007 & 2010
Augusta Heritage Center Vocal Week 2009 & 2011
Ballad Summit with Colleen Cleveland, part of the Mid-Atlantic Folk-Arts Outreach Project
and many more…

(top photo of Elizabeth Singing by Mike Melnyk)

Anna and Elizabeth use all the creative tools they can think of: storytelling, research, fiddle, banjo, guitar, ballads, puppets, poetry, and moving scrolls called “crankies”. Check them out at www.annaandelizabeth.com.

They are trying to engage themselves and their audience with traditional art in all the forms it can take—from canning to woodcuts, quilting to singing, to better express the rich stories this region has to share.

Lella Todd Crankie:

Lost Gander Crankie:

Lord Bateman Crankie:

The visual aspect of their performances somewhat limits the size of venue they can use; intimacy is a plus for this act!

Anna and Elizabeth have created two “crankie shows”, received with great enthusiasm from Seattle to Baltimore to Lexington, Kentucky:

Snow is on the Ground (January 2010/ February 2011)
“Snow Is On The Ground” is a new kind of traditional music performance. It weaves traditional ballads and songs, fiddle & banjo tunes with storytelling and with handcrafted images & pieces of theater— marionettes, shadow-puppets, woodcuts, collage, and sewn scrolls called “crankies.”
The performance centers on the theme of winter in Appalachia—stories of the cold weather today & in times gone by, and those songs, stories and good cheer that help us survive the chill.”

Snow On The Ground, an article by Gabe Popkin

Music Around the Home (November 2011-January 2012)
“Anna and Elizabeth draw each song, tune, story, and poem from one of three women: Addie Graham, a Kentucky singer of ballads, blues, and hymns; Texas Gladden of Virginia, singer of old “love songs”; and Lella Todd, fiddler from Clay City, Kentucky.  They bring new life to the resonant music of artists who made music primarily off-stage, in their homes, for their families and communities.”

Anna and Elizabeth’s facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/annaandelizabeth

Anna Roberts-Gevalt’s website:
http://www.annarobertsgevalt.com/

Anna and Elizabeth’s Elementary School info sheet

Quotes about Anna and Elizabeth and the crankies:
“That looks…uh…interesting” -Security Guard at the Smithsonian Museum
“In all my eighty-four years, I’ve never seen such talent!” -resident at Warm Hearth retirement home
“Anna and Elizabeth are blazing a trail of exciting, community-building Folk Music. They’ve found a way to make these songs come to life for young folks, old folks, and medium folks. I doubt there’s a more creative, vibrant, passionate duo sharing their joy with the world right now.”
Caleb Stine, Baltimore Songwriter & Actor

Anna and Elizabeth also do the Floyd Radio Show together once a month.

(top photo of Elizabeth and Anna by Mike Melnyk)

Oh hush, hush, hush, don’t you wake my mother.
No songs of love will she let me hear.
If you sing songs, go, pray court some other,
Or whisper lowly in my ear.

My father lies in the next room, simple
Taking of his natural rest.
And in his right hand he holds a weapon
He says he’ll kill the one I love best.

Come Polly Bawn, come, you’ll stop my pining.
Sit you down by the side of me.
And put your loving arms around me,
And say you’ll love no one but me.

I’ll go with you in some lonesome valley,
And there I’ll spend my days with you..
Though all my meals will be of the freshest berries,
And the water I drink of the morning dew

Pretty flowers was made to bloom, love.
Pretty stars was made to shine.
Pretty girls was made for boys to love,
And maybe you was made for mine.

(Chorus)
Rada tada tim, tada tim, tada tim, tada
Rada tada tim, die-aisy
Rada tada tim, sing liddle diddle din
Sing liddle diddle gypsen Davy.

Go saddle me my milk white steed
The black one ain’t so speedy
I’ll ride all night til the broad daylight
And I’ll overtake my lady.

(Chorus)

He rode til he came unto the town
He rode til he come to Barley.
The tears came rolling down his cheeks
And there he spied his lady.

(Chorus)

Oh come, go back my own true love,
Oh come, go back my honey.
I swear by the sword that hangs by my side
You shall never lack for money.

(Chorus)

I won’t come back your own true love.
I won’t go back your honey.
For I’d rather have a kiss from a gypsen’s lips
Than all your lands and money.

(Chorus)

Then hand me back those high-heeled shoes
Made of Spanish leather.
And give to me your lily white hand
And we’ll bid goodbye forever.

(Chorus)

She handed him those high-heeled shoes
Made of Spanish leather
And she gave to him her lily-white hand
And they bade goodbye forever.

(Chorus)

Last night I lay in a feather bed
Between my husband and baby
Tonight I’ll lay on the cold, cold, ground.
In the arms of the Gypsen Davy

The fruit dodgers play mountain old-time music, which includes about everything that can be done with a fiddle and banjo: dance tunes, gospel songs, folk songs, ballads, yesterday’s popular and country hits.

The Fruit Dodgers are highly accomplished, well-known old-time musicians in their own right:

Amy Davis (banjo, guitar, vocals)
Sandy LaPrelle (vocals)
Jim Lloyd (guitar, banjo)
Jon Newlin (fiddle, guitar, vocals)

Bios for individual members:

Amy Davis grew up in Millerton, New York. She spent considerable time in the Northeast playing and recording with the Little City String Band and it’s Cajun incarnation the Swampcats and also the Cajun band Dirty Rice. In 1992 she moved to North Carolina to study Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a Folklorist, Amy has done fieldwork in both western & eastern Kentucky, Harkers Island, in North Carolina, and worked on the Blue Ridge Heritage Initiative for the North Carolina Arts Council. While in Kentucky she recorded a cassette with Kentucky old time fiddler Herstel Flynn. Amy worked for several years at the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill before receiving her teachers certificate and presently teaches music in Durham, NC. [The Hushpuppies website: http://www.old97wrecords.com/hushpuppies/index.html]

Sandy LaPrelle grew up singing the traditional songs her mother and father sang to her at home. Her formal music training included 2 years of piano in elementary school and 6 years of viola during junior and senior high school, as well as high school chorus. As a counselor at summer camp she sang and taught others to sing folk songs around the campfire, and of course sang to her own kids at home. In the late 1980’s Sandy performed early music with the Solstice Assembly out of Chapel Hill, NC. Now that her daughter Elizabeth is performing regularly, Sandy provides harmony vocals for the family duets.

Jim Lloyd’s musical roots extend back to at least four generations of fiddlers, guitar players, dancers, and singers from the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. Jim is an excellent instrumentalist whose work has been documented by the Smithsonian Institute as representative of Southwest Virginia mountain music and story-telling. While accomplished on many instruments, he is known especially for his skills on guitar (finger picking style) and banjo (clawhammer and two-finger), having won prizes in both at notable fiddler’s conventions such as Galax and Union Grove for many years. Jim shares his heritage not only by performing, but as a teacher to many local students ranging from ages 6 to 70 on basically anything with strings, particularly guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle. He has taken his knowledge and talents to music camps, such as Augusta Heritage Center, Swannanoa Old-Time Music Camp, and Camp Holiday Lake, as well as holding workshops throughout Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Tennessee, Minnesota, and yes, England. Jim has performed at many regional shows as well as West Virginia’s Mountain Stage, Seedtime on the Cumberland (Appalshop), Birthplace of Country Music Alliance, Minnesota Old-Time and Bluegrass Festival, just to name a few. Jim has two solo recording projects but can be found on numerous recordings by other fellow musicians. Jim currently is a member of the string band, The Skyliners but also plays regularly with Mountain Fling, which plays parlor music often associated with the Carter Family and other early mid-20th century artists.  [Jim’s website: http://mountainroadsrecordings.com/index.php/artists1/jim-lloyd-and-the-skyliners/]

Jon Newlin was also influenced by the traditional music he heard in his parent’s home. His formal musical training included two years piano in elementary school, two years bagpipes in junior high, three years trumpet, and six years French horn in high school.  Informal musical training included: guitar since age twelve in acoustic finger-style folk, folk-rock, blues, and American and British Isles folk dance tunes; Mandolin and Irish tin whistle since the mid ‘70’s; Old Time fiddle since the mid ‘80s.  Other musical abilities are melody and harmony singing, double note whistling, and overtone singing.  Since 1986 his main focus has been American Old Time fiddle tunes and songs from the early 20th and late 19th centuries.  Current CDs include two with The Hushpuppies and three with Elizabeth LaPrelle, all recorded on the Old 97 Wrecords label. [The Hushpuppies website: http://www.old97wrecords.com/hushpuppies/index.html]

The Fruit Dodgers are featured on all three of Elizabeth’s CD’s

Her hair it was of a dark brown curly,
And her lips, a rosy red.
On her breast she wore a ribbon.
Oh, the tears that I have shed.

Her papa said that we might marry.
Her mama said it would not do.
Some dark night if you’ll take a ramble
I will run away with you.

For I’d rather be in some dark holler
Where the sun refuse to shine.
As for you to be another man’s woman,
Never on earth to call you mine.

I love my love and well he knows
I love the ground whereon he goes
If you no more on earth I see
I can’t serve you as you have me

The winter’s passed and the leaves are green
The time has passed that we have seen
Still I hope the day will come
when you and I shall be as one

I go to the Clyde for to mourn and weep
but satisfied I never could sleep
I’ll write for you a few short lines
And I’d suffer death 10,000 times

So fair-the-well my own true love
Our time has passed but I wish you well
Still I hope the day will come
When you and I shall be as one

I love my love, and well he knows
I love the ground whereon he goes
If you no more on earth I see
I can’t serve you as you have me

• Close harmonies
• Ballads
• Southern Old-time songs, humorous and serious
• Lullabies
• Sing-alongs
• A little Traditional Gospel
• Flat-foot dance tunes (with Elizabeth on 5-string claw-hammer banjo–and either one of them showing off fancy feet!)
• Lots more!

Sandy and Elizabeth perform together at venues of all sizes and types, from schools
to living rooms to international folk festivals.

Elizabeth and Sandy singing, photo by Michael Melnyk

Past performances Include:

• Virginia Beach Friends School, Virginia Beach, VA, February 2012
• Speedwell Elementary School, Speedwell, VA, February 2012
• Great Lakes Folk Festival, East Lansing, MI, August 2008 and 2011
• New York Pinewoods Folk Music Club House Concert, July 2011
• Montague Book Mill, Amherst, MA, May 2011
• Folklore Society of Greater Washington, House Concert Series, several shows over several years
• Takoma Park Folk Festival, Takoma Park, MD, September 2011, 2010, 2008, 2006
• 333 Coffee House, Annapolis, MD, February 2010
• Berkeley Old Time Music Convention, Berkeley, CA, September 2009
• American Folk Festival, Bangor, ME, August 2007
• A Prairie Home Companion, April 30, 2005

Sandy LaPrelle grew up singing the traditional songs her mother and father sang to her at home. Her formal music training included 2 years of piano in elementary school and 6 years of viola during junior and senior high school, as well as high school chorus. As a counselor at summer camp she sang and taught others to sing folk songs around the campfire, and of course sang to her own kids at home. In the late 1980’s Sandy performed early music with the Solstice Assembly out of Chapel Hill, NC. Now that her daughter Elizabeth is performing regularly, Sandy provides harmony vocals for the family duets.

(top photo of Elizabeth and Sandy Singing by Mike Melnyk)