The Mountain Ivy Band – Dance Tunes and Sentimental Songs

People

Performer: Melvin Felts
Performer: Dea Felts
Performer: Marie Gallimore
Performer: Annie Bell Primm
Performer: Kermit Waller

Date

2006

Places

Galax, Virginia

Material/Medium

Compact Disc

Specifications

• 16 Tracks

Description

This collection of band members’ favorites includes folksongs (Casey Jones, Nellie Gray), popular music from the 1920s and 1930s recorded by the Carter Family (Storms Upon the Ocean, Darling Little Joe), and a variety of waltzes, blues, and ballads. Band member Melvin Felts produced the recordings.

Keywords

String band, Old-Time country music, Hillbilly music, Carter Family tunes, WHHV Radio, WGFC Radio

Notes

The Mountain Ivy Band was one of many for Floyd County native Marie Vaughn Gallimore (1928-2007). She played both doghouse and electric bass and shared vocals with Annie Bell Primm on this CD. Marie began performing professionally as a singer in the 1950s and soon began playing bass. In 1955 her band “The Dixie Ramblers” won the Galax Fiddlers Convention (her husband Dale Gallimore’s band was one of the competitors). The Gallimores worked at radio stations throughout the region and, with help from their two sons, started Hillsville’s WHHV and Floyd’s first radio station WGFC.

Several members of this band played regularly at Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway and were known as the Mabry Mill Band.  The photo at left shows Marie playing her doghouse bass during a Sunday afternoon session at the Mill.