NORMAN & NANCY BLAKE
Mountain Stage
Charleston, WV
29 January 1989

Norman Blake - guitar, cornstalk fiddle, vocal
Nancy Blake - guitar, cello, vocal

--First Segment--
1. Ballad Of Jesse James
2. Otto Wood The Bandit
3. Blind Dog
4. Fiddler's Dram/Whiskey Before Breakfast
--Second Segment--
5. Fifty Miles Of Elbow Room
6. President Garfield's Hornpipe/Mountain Ranger Hornpipe
7. Way Downtown


-- Source/Lineage Info --
Original recording (29Jan1989):
FM broadcast (WMUB Oxford, OH) > MCS Receiver > Nakamichi CR1A >
Maxell XLII 90 Cassette

Digital Transfer (ca. 2001):
XLII 90 Cassette Master > Nakamichi CR1A (same deck that was used for recording) >
Marantz DR700 > Audio CDR

FLAC Encoding (3Nov2006):
Audio CDR > EAC (secure mode, no errors) > HD > WAV > FLAC Frontend v1.7.1 (verified and aligned on sector boundaries) > FLAC
(There were no SBE found with Trader's Little Helper or FLAC Frontend)


Notes:
Pulled this one down from WMUB-FM in Oxford, OH back in 1989 when I was
living blocks away from their transmitter tower, which might have something to do
with why this recording sounds so hot. It isn't over saturated, but it is pretty loud.
I transferred the original master cassette to disc on a standalone sometime in 2001.
Track markers had to be inserted on the fly. I must have mapped it out in advance
because they seemed to be well-placed when I listened to it the other day. I then
decided to make a 'proper' lossless archival copy to share here.

The Mountain Stage show back then usually had three or four guests (or groups) per
show, and they each performed twice during the program. This recording represents
both of the Norman & Nancy Blake segments in their entirety. Nearly all of the banter
by the show's host immediately before and after the segments has been edited out,
most by way of the 'pause' button during the original recording. I recall that I did
this in order to fit as many performances as I could on a 90 minute cassette tape.
I never recorded a complete show, but instead would pick and choose the artists
that interested me at the time.

The date above is the broadcast date. I believe the Mountain Stage shows were
recorded in advance and not broadcast live, but I could be mistaken. The other
artists that appeared on this particular date were Peppino D'Agostino and New
Grass Revival. (The New Grass Revival material will be uploaded as a separate
seed soon.)

If you are familiar with the music of Norman Blake, I think you'll find this to be
an enjoyable listen. If you are not, well - you should be! And this is as good a
place as any to start getting familiar. Then go out and buy a few of his albums
(or whatever they call 'em these days), and if you're lucky enough to be near
someplace he is performing, for goodness sakes, go see him in person!

There have been quite a few 'Live From Mountain Stage' compilation CDs released
commercially through the years, but dilligent searching of these titles revealed that
none of the material in this torrent has ever been available commercially. If you know
this to not be the case, please let me know, and I will make whatever adjustments to
this seed are necessary.

Recorded, transferred, remastered, and converted to FLAC by quimiqua.
Uploaded to Dime on 5 November 2006.