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CDBABY LINK for MIXT COMPANY: Family 'n' Favorites
"to hear entire CD go to www.cdbaby.com/mixtcompany "
M I X T C O M P A N Y ! ! !
Music and the Mixt Company family-The gift of music, be it performing, listening, or dancing, is one that can be handed down from generation to generation. Such was the case with The Halcomb Family, rooted in the harsh mountains of Eastern Kentucky and transplanted to Southwestern Virginia. Frank and Ethel (Asher) Halcomb raised six girls in a home filled with bluegrass music. Both the Halcomb side and the Asher side of the family were known through the region for their musical abilities. Virginia Lee and her sisters were raised up in a home of music. Some of them absorbed the music, and it has played a big part in their lives.
I - (Dave Blood, transplanted Yankee) met the Halcomb family eleven years ago, near Nashville, Tennessee. It was at a jam at "The Paint Store" in Goodlettsville, Tennessee I met the duo known as The Virginia Ladies, Virginia Lee and her daughter, Letitia Jolene. They sang like angels and stole my heart. I joined them musically, and later, in marriage, as Virginia Lee honored me by becoming my wife. And so the band, Mixt Company, is in its eleventh year of life. Virginia Lee (Monkey) sings and plays rhythm guitar. Virginia's daughter, Letitia Jolene has carried the family tradition of singing and playing into another generation, and sings and plays rhythm guitar and upright bass. Martin O'Doherty, from Nashville, Tennessee, and originally, Coventry, England, plays five-string banjo. David Knight, from Nashville, Tennessee, by way of Richmond, Virginia, plays upright bass, and sings bass vocals on quartet numbers.
The first offering on the album, House Of The Rising Sun, is a new take on an old song, transported from the Old World, brought to the mountains, and carried to the rest of the country. Featuring Rhonda (the baby) Halcomb, banjo, guitar and vocals, Jackie Halcomb, vocals, Letitia Jolene, bass and vocals, Virginia Lee, vocals, and Dave Blood, mandolin and vocals, the song has about forty-leven verses, which we pared down to our favorite five, to tell a story. This leaves the listener with an eerie feeling of deja vu, as if maybe he'd been there in the story with the singers.
Most of these songs are taken from Mixt Company's first two CDs The final song on the album came from an older family recording from the Seventies, featuring "Daddy Frank" Halcomb, with his "high-lonesome" vocals and distinctive mountain lingo, and daughters Virginia Lee and Rhonda. Virginia Lee, known to one and all as "Monkey", was born in Beehive Holler, below Hazard, in Eastern Kentucky. She moved to the Roanoke, Virginia area at the age of twelve, then to Nashville around 1986. Letitia Jolene was born in Roanoke and followed her mom to Nashville soon after her mom went there. I was born in Georgia, and our family traveled a lot. We finally settled in Eastern Pennsylvania when I was twelve. After eight years in the US Air Force, I moved to Nashville in 1974. I have played with Eddie and The Mueller Brothers, Lonnie Jones and Newgrass Express, Harold Morrison and Smokin' Bluegrass, and the Mueller Family.
