1-CD Digipak, four panel, with booklet, 27 tracks. Playing time 70:51 minutes

Historic Country Music Discovery! Recordings of an Interracial Duo located after 60 Years.

Sometimes people who make music history have no idea they're doing so at the time. Bear Family Records has uncovered just such a case and will proudly be releasing this rare and previously undocumented piece of country music history in November 2010.

You can count on one hand the number of African American country music performers who recorded prior to the mid-1950s. Early Grand Ole Opry star Deford Bailey comes to mind because of his unique status as an instrumentalist. Indeed, the Country Music Foundation treats him as the historical oddity that he was. Jimmie Rodgers used Louis Armstrong's cornet on a 1930 session, but it's a cinch the two men never sang together. Black and white country duets are as rare as hen's teeth during this period. In fact, they may be altogether unknown.

Now Bear Family Records has found one. In several months we will proudly release the historical recordings of Allerton & Alton, The Cumberland Ridge Runners. They are perhaps the first interracial country music duet. Their performances dating from the late 1940s/early 1950s were broadcast over radio station WLAM in Lewiston, Maine and heard throughout the Northeast and parts of southern Ontario, Canada. The story of how these two country music fans met while browsing old 78s is as fascinating as their recordings. Perhaps the most amazing part of their story is the utterly unself-conscious way with which they approached the racial aspect of who they were and what they were doing. Equally compelling is the story of how the Korean War put an abrupt end to this interracial duo, after Alton returned a changed man, having experienced the cruel realities of a segregated US Army.
This release will present their music in typical Bear Family style: lavishly illustrated with vintage photos, full historical notes and as many digitally restored recordings as we can fit on a CD.

Track Listing

• Keep On The Sunny Side (Theme Song)
• Orange Blossom Special
• Kentucky
• I'll Get Along Somehow
• Twelfth Street Rag
• Memory Lane
• Don't This Road Look Rough And Rocky
• Drifting Too Far From The Shore
• Three Ways Of Knowing
• I'll Sign My Heart Away
• Every Day Is Mother's Day To Me
• Standing Somewhere In The Shadows (radio show
• Somehow Tonight (off-the-air)
• Branded Wherever I Go (WW2A 1947)
• Raining On The Mountain (WW2A 1947)
• Kentucky (studio practice)
• That Pretty Little Face (take 1) (studio prac
• That Pretty Little Face (take 2) (studio prac
• What Would The Profit Be (studio practice)
• Let Me Be Your Salty Dog (studio practice)
• Branded Wherever I Go (promotion disc)
• Can't Feel At Home In This World Anymore (194
• Cabin In Caroline (WW2A 1948)
• Rambler's Call (WW2A 1948)
• Keep On The Sunny Side (short version)

Additional Details

Label: Bear Family Records

Genre: Country

Run Time: 70 mins

Release Date: 11/15/10

UPC: 4000127165596