Clarence "Tom" Ashley was born in Tennessee in 1895. He played guitar and clawhammer style banjo. He learnt to play with his extended family, who ran a boarding house near the Appalachian Mountains. They played the traditional Tennessee Appalachian folk songs and ballads, as well as songs picking up from passing boarders. Though out his career he would regularly join the travelling medicine shows. Early on he played banjo and guitar in a ‘black face’ comedy routine. By the 1920’s Ashley was also being paid to make records by local independent record labels. He even recorded for Columbia Records in 1929. But soon the Great Depression silenced the smaller independent labels and people no longer had money for entertainment. So Clarence "Tom" Ashley became a part-time musician and took other employment. He was always an active musician, he never retired. Then during the late 1950’s Folk and Blues revival Clarence Ashley was re-discovered and started to make a living playing the Folk festive circuit. He even played at Carnegie Hall in New York. He died of cancer in 1967.
My Sweet Farm Girl is a lowbrow song loaded with double meanings. Ashley plays guitar and sings, with Gwen Foster on guitar and harmonica. It’s played in a Country music style but the structure is 12 bar blues. Like Elvis did thirty years later on That’s All Right Mama.
My Sweet Farm Girl is a lowbrow song loaded with double meanings. Ashley plays guitar and sings, with Gwen Foster on guitar and harmonica. It’s played in a Country music style but the structure is 12 bar blues. Like Elvis did thirty years later on That’s All Right Mama.
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