Fellowship Presentation 12/18

As our Fellowship draws to a close, we are excited about what we've accomplished and what remains to be done! 

We are very busy digitizing 45's and additional photos we found...

 ...sifting through archival collections...

...and now preparing for our Fellowship presentation!

We will be sharing an hour-long presentation with another Sound Archives Fellow (Meredith Doster) on Friday, December 18 at 3:00 p.m. at the Berea College Hutchins Library.  We're not sure which room yet, but it will likely be one of the multi-media classrooms downstairs on the ground floor. The event is open to the public, and there will be light refreshments.

We would love to see some of our friends, colleagues, and supporters next Friday even though it's close to the holiday. Rest assured, there will be other presentations in the future as well. We were recently informed that our multi-media proposal for the Appalachian Studies Conference in March was accepted, so we're also looking forward to updating all the happy Appy folks in Georgia!

Harry Rice Oral History *

The following oral history interview with Harry Rice, Berea College Sound Archivist, covers a variety of topics, including Harry's personal and educational background; his work in Special Collections and Sound Archives; the Appalachian Music/Sound Archives Fellowship; and the significance of Frances and John Reedy's music and documentation.

We learned a lot about Harry that we didn't know in terms of where he grew up and went to college. Timi was surprised and pleased to learn that he had lived and worked in the counties and towns in Eastern Kentucky that she is most familiar with (Barbourville, Corbin, etc.). Harry answered most of our prepared questions without being prompted and in general was an excellent interviewee who needed little guidance. He also offered some good insights about oral histories and archives that are inspiring and useful.

The overall interview is about 40 minutes long, which is relatively short given Harry's background, knowledge, and experience. There is especially much more that could be said about the Reedy project in particular, so we anticipate that we would like to interview him again at some point. He also has a special interest in David Lundy of Lundy Records in Barbourville, and he would like to meet with him in the near future to discuss his recollections and musical collections. We hope to facilitate this meeting in addition to setting up an oral history interview with Mr. Lundy. 

* We conducted this interview with Harry Rice in conjunction with our Appalachian Sound Archives Fellowship as well as the Community Scholars Program sponsored by the Kentucky Folklife Program.  The contextual information is excerpted from the corresponding "Interview Log" and "Field Notes" that we completed as part of our overall graduation requirements to become Community Scholars.

Frankie & Johnny at Dogpatch

An Archival Document Analysis Exercise*

 

 

John and Frances Reedy at Dogpatch, KY

This photo is of John and Frances Reedy, and they appear to be in their 20's or 30's. Their real clothes are not visible because they are posing with their heads peeking through cut-outs in a painted set. The costume cut-out is of a stereotypical hillbilly man and woman.

John and Frances are clearly having a good time posing for the photo. Because it is a novelty photograph, they were likely visiting a tourist destination, but they may or may not have been visiting as tourists. Because the photo was cut in half and remained in separate pieces in Frances' collection of photos, this picture also more subtly depicts John and Frances at another, later stage in life when they were briefly divorced.

The photo was taken in the daytime at Dogpatch, Kentucky, a tourist destination in Eastern Kentucky. The exact date is difficult to determine because we can not see John and Frances' real clothing, but in comparison to other photos of them at similar ages, the photo was likely taken in the late 1940's or early 1950's. Again, it would be easier to tell the season of the year based on their actual clothing, but the little glimpse of leaves on the tree in the upper right-hand corner indicate it was probably during spring or summer.

The only really visible objects in the photo include the wooden costume cut-out, a wooden fence behind it, a telephone pole in the distance behind it, and the small patch of leaves on a tree in the upper right-hand corner. The sign on the fence is clearly a helpful reference that identifies their exact location. Otherwise, the most telling aspects of the photo are the significance of both the hillbilly costumes and the severing of familial ties when Frances cut the photo in two.

The picture was probably taken by a professional photographer for a fee since it was a staged scene at a tourist destination. However, it is also possible that people were allowed to take their own photos with the cut-out as the setting, in which case it could have been taken by a family member such as John's brother or sisters. The purpose of the photo is ambiguous because John and Frances were originally from Harlan, Kentucky, so the hillbilly photo would represent a different novelty than for the typical tourist at Dogpatch.

This photograph tells a couple of stories, both within the actual timeframe when it was taken as well as temporally beyond it's creation to when it was at least partially destroyed by being cut in half. The hillbilly costumes likely represent John and Frances' Appalachian heritage and love for their native home during a time when they had already moved to Dayton, Ohio to work in the factories. This would most likely place the timing of the photo during the 1950's as they were living in Dayton by around 1953. While they lived in Ohio during the workweek, they traveled home to Kentucky every weekend, so the trip to Dogpatch could have either been a pleasure visit or a destination where the Reedys were booked for a musical performance. The hillbilly costumes are also a play on the Reedy's sometime musical moniker as the “Stone Mountain Hillbillies.”

They appear happy, and the hillbilly cut-out emulates their status as a couple. This makes the subsequent story about the rending of the photograph even more significant, as the severing of the couple in the picture symbolically represents the separation of the couple later in real life. The fact that Frances never taped the picture back together also implies that she may never have fully forgiven her husband, but nevertheless she kept both halves in a keepsake box with other family photos.

It would be helpful to know the actual date of the photo, which would make more clear the relevance of their visit and the photograph when it was taken. It would also be good to know more about Dogpatch as a tourist destination and whether it was also a musical venue at which they might have played. John and Frances' son Tim Reedy or one of his cousins might be able to provide more information about the timing and purpose of their visit to Dogpatch.

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* The archival document analysis exercise was one of our graduation requirements for our Community Scholar program. Items for analysis included artifacts, documents, or photographs. The exercise included several questions as a guide to the kinds of observations to make and document, but it flowed even better when I removed them to create a cohesive narrative. This picture had too much to tell to not use it for the analysis, and its stories are too interesting not to share.  

p.s. We're now officially certified as Community Scholars! It's good to be recognized for something we already are...

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UPDATE:
(20 Dec. 4:56 pm)

Here's the press release about the Community Scholars graduates: http://history.ky.gov/news.php?articleID=330&pageid=16&sectionid=5. It erroneously refers to the graduates as "Fourteen Laurel Countians," when the class simply took place in London. There were several folks from Laurel County, but also from Rockcastle, Harlan, Madison, Rowen, Jackson, and Casey Counties!

Fellowship Goals & Accomplishments Update

We have just reached the mid-point of our research fellowship in the Berea College Special Collections and Sound Archives, and so Harry Rice asked for a brief update on our original fellowship goals and the progress we've made thus far. The details of our research plan were articulated and outlined in the residency timeframe of our fellowship proposal. Therefore, this reflection on our activities thus far follows the same general categories of project implementation as our proposed research timeline. 

1. New Research and Documentation:

A primary component of our fellowship, of course, was conducting new research on Frances and John Reedy (primarily) and their contemporaries (secondarily) in the Berea College Special Collections manuscript and audio archives. We originally identified several promising collections that we thought would likely include some reference to the Reedys. For example, one of the main collections for review was the John Lair papers and corresponding audio to look for any documentation of the Reedys at Renfro Valley. 

According to the family timeline we've compiled based on family documents, excerpts of a video oral history with Frances, and Timi's own recollections, the Reedys would most likely have played at Renfro Valley between the early 1940's and early 1950's (prior to their temporary migration to Dayton, Ohio) and between the mid-1960's and mid- to late-1970's. At this point, we have examined all of John Lair's relevant business correspondence and publicity as well as about a quarter of the relevant radio program transcripts; however, so far there are only a couple clues and no direct documentation of their presence there.

John Lair's business correspondence alluded to some of the Renfro Valley “units” of performers who traveled to various venues such as schools, civic clubs, and communities in the region. This could possibly correlate to Frances' recollections of the different places they played. For example, we found among her memorabilia an old ticket stub of a “Hill-Billy Show,” and a Renfro Valley booking agent uses this same phrase in a 1943 letter to responding to an inquiry about bringing performers to their community. “I could not give you a Renfro Valley Name Show for $550 Per week. However, I could give you a good hill-billy show to play these camps, for that amount.”

A review of the Renfro Valley Barn Dance transcripts from 1938—April 1950 has not surfaced even a minute lead such as this one, although there are occasional references to guest musicians or “extras” in addition to the regular cast of Renfro Valley stars. It seems doubtful that they will be included in subsequent transcripts of that program, but we plan to continue browsing them nonetheless. Since the Reedys were mostly recognized as a gospel bluegrass band, we are more hopeful that they might be referenced in the transcripts for the Sunday morning Gatherin' program.

Another area we planned to explore was the Reuben Powell collection. So far, we have only looked through one box of material focusing on some Renfro Valley festivals, etc. While there was no direct mention of the Reedys, there are several “track lists” of bluegrass festival performances that Reuben Powell recorded, one of which included an interesting lead worth pursuing. The track list for the first annual Bluegrass Festival indicates that Shenandoah Valley Quartet performed “Somebody Touched Me” at the end of their set on Sunday, July 10, 1971. This recording will at least provide another audio version of the song for our collection and may also include a reference to John Reedy as the song's composer and/or how the group came to learn the song. We plan to explore additional manuscripts and recordings in the Reuben Powell collection before our fellowship ends.

A preliminary search of the sound archives database resulted in several recordings by John and/or Frances Reedy on cassette. Two of these, “Oh Death” and “Prayer is Worth More than Silver or Gold,” were in the Ed Ward collection; however, after listening to them, we determined that were dubs of a 45 record, most likely Starday SEP 166 as both songs were included on Side A of that recording. (While these are not live recordings, they are fortuitous because this 45 is one of the few we do not currently have in the collection.) The other three recordings are obviously of another man named John Reedy as they were made in the early 1990's, nearly a decade after Timi's papaw's death. Otherwise, there are several versions of “Somebody Touched Me” by various artists in the Sound Archives that we would like to digitize for comparison at some point. 

2. Processing and Digitizing New Materials:

The other significant set of tasks we set out to accomplish was organizing, digitizing, and processing the donation of Frances' music and manuscript collection for incorporation into Special Collections and Sound Archives for use by other researchers. Because of the volume of material and the urgency to get it into appropriate climate conditions, we ended up spending most of the first month of our fellowship on this task (as opposed to new archival research, which we began in more recent weeks).

Of particular importance was the digitization of several reel-to-reel recordings for which we previously had no way to playback. John converted these tapes to CD so that we could listen and identify titles of songs, participating musicians, and approximate recording dates. We have completed preliminary track-lists for all 15 CD's worth of reel-to-reel material. Most of these are home recordings of jam sessions or what we believe to be multiple takes of songs that they were rehearsing prior to commercial recordings. There is also a tape of performances at an unknown church with additional unknown singers and musicians. Some recordings are of family gatherings, and others are dubs of 45 recordings. One tape included a recording of a radio “infomercial” advertising the release of the Starday Hall of Fame records and playing selected tracks, including “Oh, Death.”
 

These recordings are important because they reveal a process of collaborative musicianship that is sometimes contentious and comical but always fun-loving and focused. They're also valuable because they include a couple of original songs written that were not commercially recorded (i.e., “Parking Meter Blues”) as well as a John singing an unusual medley combining song titles from their repertoire.

We had some difficulty playing cassette tapes ourselves, so John was also able to convert these to CD for us.

We are still in the process of listening and identifying track lists for these 10 CD's, but it's already clear that some of them are dubs of 45's and the reel-to-reel recordings. Fortunately, one of them apparently includes a dub of the single commercial 8-track recording.

In addition to digitizing and identifying audio tracks, we've also scanned a substantial number of images. For example, we've scanned more than 40 labels from 45's and LP's, about 20 musician photos (of the Reedys and others), and over 50 family photos.

We have also scanned other important archival material such as newspaper clippings, liner notes, and a radio station brochure that Frances had kept. This process was sometimes tedious but still illuminating as we discovered material that we hadn't seen before. The newspaper articles and other archival documents have also provided valuable facts, points of reference, and leads that have been useful as we have drafted a timeline of their career and begun researching in the archives.

For the most part, we have completed this phase of our fellowship with the exception of digitizing vinyl recordings that will remain in the Sound Archives. We recently purchased a turntable with a USB connection so we can have digital copies of recordings of not only the Reedys' commercial recordings but other musicians that they collected as well.

Digitizing the Reedy recordings will also enable us to more closely compare different versions of the same song at different times in their lives. 

3. Comprehensive Inventory and Finding Aid:

The final phase of the fellowship is compiling a comprehensive inventory and finding aid of Reedy materials in Special Collections. We have completed a substantial portion of this part of the project already as we created a master discography spreadsheet at the very beginning on and have updated throughout all of the aforementioned activities. For example, while sorting through 45's and scanning labels, we compiled track lists, record labels, approximate recording dates, etc. The spreadsheet now includes additional pages of track-lists for the reel-to-reel tapes and now cassette tapes. We have shared this information with Harry as we have added more detail to the discographies, but this process will likely comprise our primary activity, along with photo logs for all of the photographs that we have scanned and are donating to Special Collections, as our fellowship draws to a close.

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With just over a month remaining, we feel very productive so far, but we also realize that there is still a lot to accomplish, especially in the archival research. This part of the project has been very time-consuming with relatively little reward, which can sometimes be frustrating. However, there is still a lot of valuable information to garner from reading about the Reedys contemporaries and musical industries like Renfro Valley.

In the next couple of weeks, we will be completing the requirements for our Community Scholar program and preparing for a short presentation on our project for our last class session. We anticipate that this will be an excellent opportunity to share our findings with others in an abbreviated format and will help us prepare for our final fellowship presentation on campus at the end of the semester.

Fellows' First Month

Much has transpired over the course of our first fellowship month and since we last posted an update. We have gathered, discovered, and digitized various photos, audio, and video footage that are really exciting and important to the overall project. We have also begun digging around in the numerous archival manuscripts and sound archives to try and find other evidence and reference of the Reedys' career. And we've continued to participate in the weekly Community Scholars Program where we have learned much and enjoyed the unique group of people we are getting to know there.

One major accomplishment and rewarding process was listening to the digitized reel-to-reel tapes and identifying the track lists, performers, etc. So far, John has converted and we've labeled more than 15 CD's worth of material. Most of the material is musical performances, sometimes with multiple takes of the same song, and occasionally with comedic outtakes as they fuss about who's supposed to sing or play what when. There are also some conversational recordings of pseudo-radio interviews, sermons, or family gatherings. The intentionality regarding the creation and preservation of this material is astounding.

Another substantial digitization project was scanning the labels of all of the 78, 45's, LP's, various photographs, and a few news clippings. Timi scanned most of these materials, and there are some intriguing leads in terms of people they played with and places they played. 

Timi remembered her mamaw and papaw having a comedy routine called "Scrapiron," and she was tickled to find this photo of them at what might be WHLN radio station in Harlan in the 1940's or early 1950's.

Here's an interesting article that was published in the Corbin Times-Tribune when their song "Somebody Touched Me" was included on The Early Days of Bluegrass, Vol. 1 in 1975.

 
The article is interesting for several reasons. Of course, the obvious message of the story is a celebration of local residents being included in a commercial compilation with other well-known bluegrass artists. But there is a more subtle story when they discuss the songwriting process and other songs they had written, such as Frances' song "Tiny Bitty Pieces." 

She attributes the origin of this catchy country tune of lost love and trust to the demise of "a couple of friends," but it was in fact written to and for John. "You took my heart and you broke it/Into little bitty pieces/Tiny bitty pieces/So small you can't mend/You say that you're sorry/And you ask me to forgive you/Why should I forgive you/I'd just get hurt again." Similarly, John wrote "Knocking on Your Door" to Frances as a result of their brief separation. "I'm knockin' on your door again, my darlin/I'm knockin' on your door please answer me/I've tried to make you realize, my darlin'/That no one else was ever meant for me."

We finally found a VHS copy of the oral history video that Timi helped produce in the mid-1990's. We had anticipated that the bluegrass interview would help clarify the timeline of their career, who they played with, etc., and it has certainly provided valuable information that we hadn't documented yet. For example, all of our current sources indicated that the first recording of "Somebody Touched Me" on the Twin City label was produced in 1949, but Frances said it was recorded in 1947. So we need to follow up on this to find out which date is in fact correct.

However, the interview narrative is truncated and ends before they even migrated to Dayton, so it didn't include as much information as we were counting on. We also need to follow up with our friend Mark who video-taped the interviews to see if there might be additional raw footage or another, more complete version of the video. The video does end with Frances performing a couple of traditional tunes that Timi loved from her childhood.

Such a performance was a truly rare and special treat during the latter part of Frances' life. And the interview footage is an extremely important piece of media for the overall documentary project.

Next week, we plan to visit with David Lundy, who produced the LP Hymns from the Hills of Harlan County Kentucky at Lundy Studio in Barbourville. We hope to interview him as part of our Community Scholars project and for the documentary, of course. Harry also wants to meet with him, so we're going to help set up a meeting between the two of them in the near future. We also plan to interview Harry at some point before our fellowship ends.

So we have accomplished much in the past month, and I will post some additional photos and other fun treasures in the near future. We also still have a lot of material to look through in the archives, so there is much left to do for the remainder of the semester!

Help With History?

We're really inspired by the rare audio that we're so privileged to listen to. We've started adding the tracks from the reel-to-reel recordings that John has already recorded into the master discography we're working on. We also brought our desktop computer and scanner so that we can begin digitizing photos and images of the 45 labels that we have. 

For example, below is an old family photo from the 1940's or 1950's. We know that the first two people are Frances and John, but we're not sure who the second woman is. Timi thinks it might John's sister Marie, but she hopes that family members can maybe help confirm her identity.

Also, we scanned our first 45 record label and plan to scan the rest to help supplement the documentation available on the online "45 RPM Records of The Ohio River Valley" database. I picked this one because I thought their recording name "Frankie and Johnnie Reedy" was cute and clever!

I'm also intrigued by the fact that Frances wrote "Tiny Bitty Pieces" when she and John were temporarily separated, and yet they harmonize so beautifully on this catchy country tune. It sort of reminds of me of Fleetwood Mac and the way in which they were able to harness some pretty raw and dissonant emotions as a group in such a melodic accessible way.

We also scanned this image of the single 8-track recording in the collection.

There is no information about the recording label or when it was produced, and Timi does not remember who in the world "the Brush Creek Grass" might be! There is absolutely no online information that we could find, so any leads toward solving this mystery would be appreciated.

We've also been working on a preliminary timeline of events throughout Frankie and Johnny lives as well as beyond their own lifetimes. We will continue filling in gaps and updating this timeline as we go along, but we obviously have a lot of information already and some opportunities to get feedback from others for clarification and correction. Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer information!

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Date/Year	Activity	Location
12/09/18	John William Reedy born	Tennessee
12/31/22	Frances Williebob Ridner born	Bell County, Kentucky
11/22/36	John and Frances married	Harlan, Kentucky
1939	John wrote “Somebody Touched Me”
1930’s-40’s	John and Frances have radio program on WHLN for 17½ years sponsored by Fuller Furniture	Harlan, Kentucky
1949	John and Frances’ first recording of “Somebody Touched Me” on a 78	Bristol, Tennessee
Early 1950’s	John and Frances moved to Dayton to work at GM	Dayton Ohio
12/25/61	Reel-to-reel recording of family Christmas	Dayton, Ohio
Early 1960’s	John and Frances recorded three 45’s on the Jalyn label	Dayton, Ohio
Early 1960’s	John and Frances recorded six multiple-track 45’s on the Starday label	Nashville, Tennessee
Early 1960’s	John and Frances independently recorded four 45’s	Dayton, Ohio
Early 1960’s	John and Frances recorded one 45 on Ark label	Cincinnati, Ohio
1962	Starday released a compilation titled Tragic Songs of Death and Sorrow featuring Oh Death	Nashville, Tennessee
Early 1960’s	Reedy family returned to Kentucky	Corbin, Kentucky
1972	“Somebody Touched Me” included in Library of Congress
1973	Frances and John record 45 on Jewel label	Cincinnati, Ohio
1974	Rounder records released Early Days of Bluegrass, Vol.1, which includes “Somebody Touched Me”
1974-1976	Frances and John recorded three 45’s on the Viola label (Lundy Records)	Barbourville, Kentucky
1977	Frances and John released LP Hymns from the hills of Harlan County Kentucky on the Lundy label	Barbourville, Kentucky
Late 1970's / early 80's?	On My Way to Heaven 8-track released by John Reedy and the Brush Creek Grass
12/25/80	Family Christmas VHS video	Corbin, Kentucky
01/30/83	John Reedy passed away	Corbin, Kentucky
1996	Frances Reedy oral histories (one on forest and one on music) collected and preserved by Appalachia—Science in the Public Interest (ASPI) in collaboration with Kentucky Historical Society and UK Archives	Corbin, Kentucky
March 2001	Japanese CD Bob Dylan Live 1961-2000: Thirty Nine Years of Great Performances includes “Somebody Touched Me,” recorded live at Portsmouth, England in 2000, as the first track
2004	“Somebody Touched Me” released on a compilation CD, Bluegrass Early Cuts 1931-1953
04/06/06	Frances Reedy passed away	Corbin, Kentucky
07/22/08	“Somebody Touched Me” released on a compilation CD, Authentic Rare Bluegrass: Independent Label Sides 1951-1954
2009	“Somebody Touched Me” released on a compilation CD, The Appalachian Tradition: Original Bluegrass Classics

Reel-to-reels on CD!

We came in this afternoon very excited to tell Harry about the DVD and let him watch it. Then shortly afterward when we got to our work area, we noticed three CD's of converted reel-to-reel recordings were waiting on us!

We just finished listening to and ripping the first one, and we completed a partial track list for it. Some of the tracks are a little hard to hear, and some are only 30-second snippets, so a couple of them remain nameless for now. But we have a mostly complete list to share with Harry and John. I wish there were a way to export a Media Player track list into a table or some portable format so we could transfer it more easily than typing it again. These tracks are turning up additional songs in their repertoire that were not commercially recorded.

John has a couple more tapes to convert, but they had to be "baked" first. Vaguely, the process temporarily repairs old tapes that have transferred the oxides from the back of the tape to the recording side while wound together. I know I'm not doing the science of it justice, but the main thing is that there will be more CD's to listen too soon! Meanwhile, let's get back to the ones we have...
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UPDATE:
(18 Sept. 8:34 pm)

We listened to all three CD's that John converted from reel-to-reel so far. One was a church service with mostly performances, some personal testimonies, and a couple of songs by another artist. Several songs included some children singing, and we're not sure if it's Timi or an earlier recording that would've been her cousins. Another CD was a 1961 Christmas recording with a Dayton radio sermon by John's brother Roger followed by home recordings by John interviewing his relatives coming in to visit. 

Harry was really intrigued by the DVD Christmas footage as well. He made a comment to Timi about how rare and important this material is, and he's already had a copy of the DVD made. Today he mentioned that it would be useful to have even a rough timeline of Frances and John's lives, where they were and when as well as some general context about the time and region(s) in which they lived. So we plan to get started on that next week.

Reedy Christmas 1980

Today I hung out at Jeneene and Travis' house (kitty-sitting whilst they're at the beach wedding) and worked on and off on some consulting research I'm doing. (I'm also not feeling 100% today, and thus the on-and-off.) It's also an off-day from Fellowship research because Special Collections is closed, and today's Timi's day to hang out with her dad in Corbin.

When Timi came back this evening, she had a DVD from her step-mom with some video footage of her mamaw and papaw playing songs together for what she said had been the first time in a couple of years. She also said it was taken at their house on Ford Street and was Christmastime around 1980. I knew Frances but never knew John, and I knew her much later in her life. They were really cute to watch together! 

Harold's videography was a little swimmy at times, but the sound quality was much better than expected. Also, Timi noted several of the songs weren't commercial recordings that she could remember, and some were childhood favorites that her mamaw sang to her and that she was listening to for the first time again in years! There's definitely some good footage to use, and I think there's even more good audio to reproduce. Thanks to Pooger for capturing the original VHS and making us a DVD to use for the documentary.

Groundhog Day?

So yesterday was not as productive as we'd hoped. We finally got the cassette out of one player (which we discovered was not functioning properly in the first place), and then went to listen to another cassette on a different player. We got to listen to one that ended up having some live songs recorded on it (very cool), and we were laughing out loud at Timi's papaw literally whooping it up because he was having such a good time. 

And then...déjà vu all over again... we got another cassette stuck in the player in the research room. So twice John had to come to our aid, screwdriver in hand, and rescue the jammed tapes from the equipment. Had it been our own, we would've dug in with miscellaneous tools to dismantle said tape players, but we hesitated because they didn't belong to us. So alas, we ended up resigning ourselves to our fate and ending our day before we could wreck more havoc.

Tomorrow will be a better day?

Reedy Discography (V.2)

[NOTE: This version of the discography in the post below has been replaced by a standalone page that we update regularly. Please see the "Reedy Commercial Discography" page for the most recent version (additional updates/corrections are welcome).]

The updated discography below includes some additions that will surely be of interest to other researchers, collectors, and enthusiasts. Items shaded in green are already in the collection we're working with. The listings are (mostly) in alphabetical order by record label, then (mostly) grouped by format.

ARTIST REFERENCE	LABEL	SONG TITLE A SIDE / SONG TITLE B SIDE / or ALBUM TITLE	FORMAT	CITY, STATE	YEAR
John Reedy and The Stone Mountain Quartet	Ark 200	My Imagination / O Sinner Man / Walk Around Me, Jesus / Be Good To Mommy / The Lord Is My Shepherd / Going Up	EP	Cincinnati, OH	1961
John & Francis Reedy	Jalyn 210	Quit Kicking My Dog Around / Tiny Bitty Pieces	45	Dayton, OH	1964
John Reedy & Danny Roberts	Jalyn 213	Knocking On Your Door / Lost John	45	Dayton, OH	1965 (or 1967?)
John Reedy And Danny Roberts	Jalyn 324	Going To Tennessee / The Rolling Winds	45	Dayton, OH	1964 or 1968?
John Reedy and The Stone Mt. Trio	Jewel 1017	Little Sparrow / Tiny Bitty Pieces	45	Cincinnati, OH	1973
John Reedy and His Stone Mountain Trio	John Reedy 413-1	I Just Dropped By / I'm Walking The Road To Heaven	45	Dayton, OH	1960
John Reedy and His Stone Mountain Trio	John Reedy 502	Oh, Death (John and Francis Reedy) / Driftwood (John Reedy)	45	Dayton, OH	1961
John Reedy and Stone Mountain Trio	John Reedy CP-6151	Somebody's Been Praying for Me / We Can Please God	45
Frankie & Johnnie Reedy	John Reedy 13053	Kicking My Dog Around / Tiny Bitty Pieces	45	Dayton, OH
John Reedy and His Stone Mountain Trio	Starday SEP 166	Oh Death / A Prayer Is Worth More Than Silver and Gold / Driftwood / I Just Dropped By	45	Nashville, TN	Early 60's
John Reedy and The Stone Mt. Trio	Starday SEP 179	Somebody Touched Me / I Saw a Pale Moon / Walking the Same Road / Climbing the Stairway to Heaven	45	Nashville, TN	Early 60's
John Reedy and The Stone Mt. Trio	Starday SEP 209	Mighty Hand of God / Jonah / I Feel Jesus / That Big Hand of God	45	Nashville, TN	Early 60's
John Reedy / John Reedy & Alvin Morgan	Starday SEP 219	Banks of Jordan / Jesus / Charity / Looked Down the Road	45	Nashville, TN	Early 60s
John Reedy & the Stone Mt. Trio	Starday SEP 199	You Take One Step-He’ll Take Two / I’ll Fly High Up In the Kingdom / My Warfare Will Be Ended	45	Nashville, TN	Early 60s
John Reedy Trio	Starday SEP 222	St. John / Sunshine and Flowers / He’s Coming Back / Come and Go With Me	45	Nashville, TN	Early 60's
John Reedy & His Stone Mountain Boys	Twin City 1021	Somebody Touched Me / Driftwood	78	Bristol, TN/VA	1949
John & Francis Reedy	Viola Records (Lundy Music) VR 225	Cherokee Lady / Tennessee Duals	45	Barbourville, KY
John Reedy & Stone Mtn. Trio	Viola Records (Lundy Music) VR 188	Summer is Gone / That's the Man I'm Looking For	45	Barbourville, KY
John Reedy and the Stone Mountain Hillbillies	Viola Records (Lundy Music)	Moonlight and Music (Winford Storms & Francis Reedy) / Grandad's Fiddle (Francis Reedy)	45	Barbourville, KY
John Reedy and His Stone Mountain Hillbillies	Lundy 206	Hymns From the Hills Of Harlan County	LP	Barbourville, KY	1977 or 1982
John Reedy and the Brush Creek Grass		On My Way to Heaven (Track List) 1. Somebody Touched Me / On My Way to Heaven / Sin City 2. Who's Gonna Take My Girl Around / Something Else Breakdown / Tennessee Blues 3. I Saw the Light / You Can Have Her / Rawhide 4. I'll Just Think I'll Go Away / Knocking on Your Door / Children Go Where I Send Thee	8-Track
John Reedy		How Happy Are They	CT	Defeated Creek ORBC, KY	08/20/92
John Reedy		Prodigal Son	CT	Blair Branch ORBC	03/18/90
John Reedy		Prodigal Son	CT	Little Dove ORBC	04/15/90
John & Frances Reedy		Oh! Death	CT
Francis Reedy		Prayer Is Worth More Than Silver or Gold, A	CT
Various Artists [John Reedy]	Starday SEP 168	Hall of Fame Series Gospel Songs By All Star Artists [Compilation: Oh, Death]	45	Nashville, TN	Early 60's
Reedy [Various Artists]	Starday SLP-168	Tragic Songs of Death and Sorrow [Compilation: Oh, Death]	LP	Nashville, TN	1962
John Reedy & His Stone Mountain Hillbillys [Various Artists]	Rounder	Somebody Touched Me [Compilation: Early Days of Bluegrass, Vol. 1]	LP		1974
John Reedy & His Stone Mountain Boys [Various Artists]	Fuel 2000?	Somebody Touched Me [Compilation: Appalachian Heart: The Original Bluegrass Classics]	CD		2006
John Reedy [Various Artists]		Somebody Touched Me [Compilation: Bluegrass Early Cuts 1931-1953: Classic Recordings Remastered]	CD		2004
John Reedy & His Stone Mountain Boys [Various Artists]		Somebody Touched Me [Compilation: Authentic Rare Bluegrass: Independent Label Sides 1951-54]	CD
John Reedy & His Stone Mountain Boys [Various Artists]		Somebody Touched Me [Compilation: The Appalachian Tradition: Original Bluegrass Classics]	CD