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Tom and Jim Gilhooley were born in Cold Mountain, Arkansas, in 1922, the twin sons of an itinerant Polish railroad labourer and an alchoholic seamstress of Scottish extraction. They were raised by both parents on their run-down farmstead until the depression began to bite, and their father left in 1931, never again seeing his boys.

Their mother struggled through, scraping a meagre existance from the dusty soil, supplimented by occasional sewing jobs. Tom and Jim learned to amuse themselves with bible reading and by singing traditional songs, accompanying themselves on guitar and banjo. They were soon a popular turn at the Waverley Saloon, and began to attract attention from the city.

By 1938, the boys were a successful act, playing to audiences throughout Arkansas, and begining to make a name for themselves. Then, the USA went to war, and so did Tom & Jim Gilhooley. They returned to performing upon their return, but they were different men, older and wiser, with a new found urgency to spread their message. Their repertoire had changed too, to incorporate original compositions.

These two tracks were recorded live in Nashville in 1954, and are two of only a very few recordings by the Cold Mountain Singers known to have survived. Jim Gilhooley was known to have once said about "Fix Y'all": "Darned if ah don't know where it came from. I was huddlin in some darn trench with my brother, German shells a-flying over our heads. Then all of a sudden, there comes this strange silence, an all the guns quit shellin, and the sunshine began to break through the clouds and smoke. The tune, the words, everything, began to play in ma head, and I had to rush to git everything writ down in time. It was like it was being channelled through me, comin down from the Most High. I looked up to the sun, and instead ah saw a bright glowing face, with short and curly mousey hair and big blue eyes. He had no beard, and when he spoke it sounded a darn site more english an middle-class than ah reckoned for. He said that it would all make sense one day. Before he disappeared he said "Make Trade Fair." Ah guess ah didn't know what to make of that."

The distinct similarity to these songs and the work of the contemporary group Coldplay is currently the subject of a major legal proceeding, and I am unable to comment further at this time.