Ballard's Branch Bogtrotters torrent

From Ballard Branch, Virginia came a talented group of musicians that became known as the Bogtrotters. Davey Crockett Ward and his neighbour Alec Dunford were the fiddlers, Fields Ward, Crockett's son, played the guitar and did most of the singing, and Crockett's brother Wade Ward usually was the banjo player. Wade usually played a three finger style to complement the singing in the band but he was to become one of the greatest clawhammer players, and his renditions of many classics are still cherished. The Ward's family doctor, Dr.W. P. Davis, who had suggested the band name in reference to being "bogged-down" in the mud on the rough road to the Wards, also occasionally played the autoharp but served mainly as their manager.

The amiable and eccentric Uncle Eck Dunford, as he was known, fiddled in a slow, deliberate sophisticated style that contrasted with the more vigorous mountain breakdown pace of Crockett Ward. After the many years of playing together however, they achieved a wonderful balance and complemented each other remarkably well. Both men were important influences on the younger Fields Ward, and he heeded their advice well, such as never singing faster than you can talk and enunciating each word carefully.

The Library of Congress preserved close to 200 recordings of these men. Crockett played in an earlier band known as Crockett Ward and His Boys, and Eck fiddled and sang on many of the Blue Ridge Cornshuckers' recordings. - 1001tunes.com