Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford travelled throughout the South from 1914 to 1950, spreading their good music, collecting good songs, and building a reputation for musical excitement that still holds today throughout the region. People from widely different geographic areas remember the singing of "Blind Burnett," the "blind minstrel of Monticello," and fiddling Leonard Rutherford, "one of the smoothest fiddlers ever to take a bow." Burnett and Rutherford travelled nearly everywhere, by Model A, train, bus, and even on foot; they crossed paths with nearly all the greats of old-time music: the Skillet Lickers, the Carter Family, Mae and Bob, George Reneau, Charlie Oaks, Byrd Moore, Arthur Smith, Emry Arthur, and many others. They recorded some of the classic sides in old-time music, and their popularity on records kept them recording steadily throughout the 1920's. Their appeal on radio allowed them to broadcast from places like WLW in Cincinatti and from the famous Renfro Valley Barn Dance. Their influence on the development of old-time music is even today not fully assessed, but countless fiddlers, singers, and pickers learned from them, either via records or through their many personal appearances.
Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford both came from south central Kentucky, a few miles north of the Tennessee border and about 60 miles west of the coal mining belt. They spent most of their lives in Monticello, Wayne County, in an area rich in musical heritage. John Lair's Renfro Valley settlement was only 50 miles to the northeast,and many of his musicians were drawn from the southern Kentucky region. Emry Arthur and his brothers, prolific recording artists in the 1920'sand 1930's, were raised "just up the road" from Dick Burnett; other musicians from the area included banjoist Marion Underwood, singer-guitarist John Foster, the Walker string band, and fiddler Elmer Stanley. Monticello itself boasted a stately old courthouse with a big shady front lawn which was the Saturday gathering place for musicians from miles around. Even yet today the people of Wayne County have a strong appreciation of traditional music, and the songs of Burnett and Rutherford are still very much alive in the community in spite of the fact that fiddler Rutherford died in 1954 and Dick Burnett, now over 90, lives in retirement.In fact, the music of Burnett and Rutherford has no mean historical significance for anyone interested in native American art. In Dick Burnett the team had one of the great natural songsters, a man who collected, codified, and transmitted some of our best traditional songs. Dick was also a skillful composer and folk poet of considerable skill; his "Man of Constant Sorrow" remains one of the most evocative country songs. In Leonard Rutherford, Burnett found a fiddler par excellence, whose smoothness and 'bowing technique was widely admired and imitated throughout the1920's and 1930's. The pair often played in musical styles that are among the most archaic and musically distinctive preserved for us; their "unison" fiddle banjo style dates well into the 19th century, and Dick's guitar playing seems to pre-date the pioneering styles of Riley Puckett, Maybelle Carter, and Sam McGee. And finally, the Burnett-Rutherford era began in the age of the broadside "ballet" (pre-World War1) and spanned to the age of electronic media. In a sense, their career capsulizes the development of traditional folk music into commercial country music. In short, both their enduring popularity and their historical significance form the rationale for this album-the first full retrospective of one of the most colorful and rewarding groups of the 1920's."
There is a vintage photograph from the '20s that has been frequently used to evoke an old-time mood. It depicts two musicians sitting on a front porch, instruments in their hands and at their feet. There is a fiddler who is staring at the camera, and at his right a banjo player who seems to be staring off into the heavens. Despite the frequency with which this photo pops up, the musicians who are illustrated are largely forgotten. The man with the banjo was Dick Burnett and he was actually one of the most prominent old-time players from Kentucky during the '20s and '30s. He was a man who traveled far and wide almost in the manner of a railroad hobo, but with a much busier itinerary. He spent his years collecting traditional music, creating his own interpretations and writing the results down in songbooks that he would sell along the way. One of his main playing partners was fiddler Leonard Rutherford, who happens to be the other fellow in the aforementioned photograph. The pair cut a whole series of sides for the Columbia and Gennett labels in the period between 1926 and 1928, and also recorded with a variety of other old-time players on their own. The resurgence in interest in old-time music and various other forms of American folk music that began in the '60s largely passed Burnett by, although he was visited a few times by musicologists and old-time music aficionados. Archie Green, a respected folklorist, interviewed Burnett at his home in Monticello, KY, in 1962. A decade later, a similar visit was made by writer Charles Wolfe, who published the results in Old Time Music. This even brought the man a bit of local attention when one of his local papers reprinted the entire article. The old-time music revival was in full swing at this point, and in 1975, the Rounder label issued the first album devoted to the work of Burnett and several of his associates, entitled A Ramblin' Reckless Hobo. He certainly had rambled, there was no doubt about that, but how reckless the man was is questionable since he lived to a ripe age of 93 years old. At any rate, several journalists who specialized in this genre of music recounted their enjoyment at visiting Burnett upon the release of this album, and observing his delighted reactions to hearing performances of songs that he had almost forgotten about over the decades that had passed. Burnett could no longer play in his old age, but his mind remained sharp as a razor until the end and he apparently delighted interviewers with anecdotes of days gone by, as well as much information about the various pieces of music he had performed over the years. Acknowledged as a fine poet and songwriter, as well as player, the music of Burnett and Rutherford perfectly captures traditional American music at a point when it began to evolve into what would become commercial country & western music through the advent of phonograph records and radio stations.
Leonard Rutherford was the other half of the fine Monticello, KY, string band duo Burnett & Rutherford. His smooth, sliding fiddle sound, coupled with Richard Burnett's keening vocals and modal banjo playing, make their best-known song, the archaic-sounding "Willie Moore," a true national treasure. Rutherford was only a teenager when he began playing with Burnett in 1914, and the duo performed throughout the South until the 1950s, when their association ended with Rutherford's death in 1954. Burnett retired from professional music and was in his nineties when he died in 1977. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide
May there music live on!
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Dick Burnett & Leonard Rutherford's Friend Space (Top 24)
