Old Time Herald Review
by Doug Van Gundy
March 2009

Brett Ratliff - Cold Icy Mountain

Many of us who love old-time and early country music revere those first commercial recordings made in the early 1920's in New York City by Uncle Dave Macon, Eck Robertson, Vernon Dalhart, Earnest Stoneman, and others.  And many more of us point to the recordings made in 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee, and featuring acts like the Carter Family and Jimmie Rogers, as perhaps the single most important factor in bringing "mountain" or "hillbilly" music to the listening public.  And while the importance of these early recordings is hard to overestimate, there is on think about them that often passes discussion with the appearance of these historic sides, regional music styles began to fade.  As the radio and Victrola began to appear in the parlors of homes in rural communicities, the need for locally produced music was lessened, and music from elsewhere began to influence the native species.

This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing.  The local styles of music to which I refer were themselvees hybrids of other regional styles, and a mixture of various European and West African folk traditions.  But with the coming of the radio and the record player, the changes that happened slowly within a local music happened at a much more rapid rate.  Today, on a typical old-time recording (my own meager output included), one migh hear music from all over the country on a single CD; an Edden Hammons tune from West Virginia immediately preceding a Skillet Lickers tune from Georgia, and following an Eck Robertson tune from Texas.  It seems less and less common jto come across a recording dedicated entirely to the music of a single region.  This is one of the reasons that Brett Ratliff's Cold Icy Mountain is such a pleasure to hear.

Brett Ratliff is a young banjo player who was raised in Van Lear, in the coal country of eastern Kentucky.  This musically-rich region is home to legendary banjo players and fiddlers, including Buell Kazee, Pete Steele, Buddy Thomas, Hiram and Art Stamper, George Gibson, Paul David Smith, Snake Chapman, and many, many others.  It's no wonder that while the individual tracks on this CD run the gamut of potential instrumentation from unaccompanied singing to banjo/fiddle duets to a five-piece string banjo, the unifying factor is that all of the material (including the "hidden" seventeenth track) comes from within a few hours' drive of Van Lear.

I particularly like the selection of tunes that Ratliff includes on this disk; they demonstrate the wide spectrum of music indigenous to his native hills.  There are solo banjo and vocal numbers ("Darling Don't You Know That's Wrong," "Last Payday at Coal Creek," "Trouble on my Mind," and Buell Kazee's haunting bit of Victorian melancholy, "The Blind Man"), banjo and fiddle duets ("Nine Miles out of Louisville" with Jesse Wells, and "Bumble Bee in a Jug" with Adrian Powell), and full string-band numbers ("Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow," "Getting Wild Again," and "Feed My Horse on Corn and Hay") that feature the Clack Mountain String Band, of which Ratliff is a regular member.  I'll admit to being a little alarmed upon hearing the unbridled treatment that Clack Mountain gives to "Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow," and feared that all of the string band tracks would feature that same relentless festival beat, but my fears were quickly allayed.  The band plays with real sensitivity and has a good sense of what each tune wants, whether it's the knockdown energy of "Ain't Gonna Work..." or the sweet slow drone of Rufus Crisp's "Blue Goose."  Many young bands seem to be afraid to play a tune as slowly as Clack Mountain plays this one, but the listener is rewarded for their confident risk-taking with this beautiful number.

Not only is Ratliff a passionate and thoughtful banjo player, but he is also a gifted singer with a warm, unaffected baritone voice that serves his music very well,  whether alone, as on the unaccompanied "Young People Who Delight in Sin," which he presents with the pacing and solemnity that it deserves; or intertwined with Karly Higgins' lovely clear alto on "Blue Goose" and other string band numbers.  And he coaxed a wonderfully full and resonant tone from his banjo that complements his voice and the other instruments, whether he is playing clawhammer or finger-style.

While Cold Icy Mountain is a very fine CD, and highly recommended, I must take issue with June Appal recordings over the inside of the packaging.  While the exterior of the package is attractive enough, the mixed typefaces and unfortunate color scheme throughout the interior (pale blue and yellow on a red-to-black background) render Mr. Ratliff's succinctly-written liner notes difficult to read.  A record this good deserves better presentation that this, especially in an age when the sale of physical CDs are on the decline.

Cold Icy Mountain honors both the older musicians like George Gibson and Perry Riley who carried this music forward from the past, and the younger musicians like Ratliff and his compatriots, who are carrying it forward into the future as a living tradition.  To me, this music is not the sound, as suggested in the album notes, of young possums being led across the road by their "grand old daddy"' this music is the sound of radial tires on a new red pickup truck, singing their way across a rain-damp two-lane road at 2:30 in the morning, bringing the band home from a gig.  There is a real power here, and direction.  All of you possums best get out of the road.

Maverick Magazine Review
March 2009
Brett Ratliff - Cold Icy Mountain
June Appal Recordings JA0084D

An honest and heartfelt collection of banjo ballads from Kentucky and beyond.

It feels a little inadequate to describe Kentuckian Brett Ratliff's COLD ICY MOUNTAIN as simply a 'latest release' as if it's just the next musical cab off the rank.  Pieces of music as honest and grounded as this don't come along that often and deserve better.  Whilst it is timeless by design, built around the traditions of bluegrass and old-style country, Ratliff extracts every ounce of energy and passion from COLD ICY MOUNTAIN and makes it sound fresh and alive.  But in  it's what the album goes much deeper.  Since being hooked on the music of his mountain home at an early age, Ratliff has stayed very close to those roots whilst exploring and stretching himself and his music in the process.  Title piece Cold Icy Mountain for one, is a heartfelt ant sincere love letter to all that Brett Ratliff holds dear.

Because of that personal intensity, COLD ICY MOUNTAIN's banjo ballads demand as much from their audience as they do from their creator.  Instrumentals like Bumble Bee In A Jug are not superficial throwaways, they require careful listening to fully appreciate the skill and heart that has been poured into them.  Ratliff also demonstrates that bluegrass/folk is not simply a matter of geography.  While High On A Mountaintop is instantly recognisable American country, it blends seamlessly with Feed My Horse On Corn And Hay, which owes as much to the wild mountains of Scotland and Ireland as the Blue Hills of Kentucky.

For once, the album's PR is and understatement when it describes Brett Ratliff as a 'force in the worlk of banjo'. You don't need to be an expert to wonder at the skill and artistry behind the likes of the title track.  Musicians like Brett Ratliff reinforce the idea that music without a rich past has a poor future.  COLD ICY MOUNTAIN may be sepia-tinted, but whether it's the foot-stomping Ain't Gonna Work Tomottow or the rough-hewn honesty of The War's A Ragin' For Johnny, Brett Ratliff brings tradition to life and looks to tomorrow.