Etta’s Timeless Railroad

The only thing better than an Etta Baker record is an Etta Baker vinyl record. Baker’s pristine picking style is augmented when encased in vinyl, the notes ringing out like church bells.

Baker was one of the best Piedmont pickers in the business. Unfortunately, her husband didn’t want her to perform in public, so her talent went largely unheralded for most of her life. A chance encounter with folksinger/producer Paul Clayton, who heard her play at the urging of Baker’s father, Boone Reid, resulted in Clayton recording her for some cuts on 1956’s Instrumental Music Of the Southern Appalachians. That exposure led to her being invited to play the Newport Festivals in the early ’60s, but she turned down the offers because of her husband’s wishes. Baker raised nine children while working in the Buster Brown textile factory for over two decades, until she was in her early sixties, before quitting abruptly to tour and record.

As is often the case in the music business, others profited from her talent without her getting a share of the profits. After a visit to Clayton’s vacation cabin in 1962 for his 21st birthday and seeing Baker perform, Bob Dylan went back to New York and re-worked one of Clayton’s songs, “Who‘s Going to Buy You Ribbons When I‘m Gone,” allegedly borrowing Baker’s guitar figures for what would become “Don’t Think Twice, It‘s All Right.”

In 1990, she recorded the album One Dime, the title of the song she played when she was discovered. Tim Duffy and the Music Maker foundation got in touch with Baker in ’95, helping her with health and domestic issues and recording her at Baker’s Morganton home from ’95 to ’98 for what become the Railroad Bill album. Music Maker is releasing a deluxe vinyl re-issue February 19 with a limited 500 copies containing a previously unreleased track and a never before seen video of Baker and Taj Mahal.

The first thing that strikes you about Baker’s playing is how clean it is. Every note sounds carefully selected, plucked from the air and nestled gently in its proper place. She accomplishes that without sounding deliberate or forced, every note flowing smoothly beside its mate.

Any folkie or blues fan has heard these tunes countless time, but in Baker’s hands, they take on new life.

The all -instrumental showcase highlights tunes that have been borrowed and adapted for a wide range of performers and genres. A couple of Grateful Dead standards, “Going Down The Road Feelin’ Bad” and “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down” are shown on their best behavior here, uncluttered by psychedelia, just steady rollin’ Piedmont flatpicking, Baker sounding like a heavenly wire choir with just her solo acoustic.

“One Dime Blues” showcases the talent that got her discovered featuring some stop motion action in the middle that makes the cut sound even cleaner. Her originals sound as pretty and pristine as her covers. “Sunny, Tennessee” lopes along at a gentle canter perfect ofr head bobbing and foot dangling accompaniment. “I Get The Blues When It Rains” is too pretty to be called a blues, it’s more like a lavender, raindrop pattering on a windowpane in a sleepy rhythm.

Baker breaks out the banjo for some clawhammer virtuosity on “Cripple Creek, flowing as smoothly as her guitar phrasing.

Its a great re-visitation, as powerful today as it was on its debut nearly two decades ago. This isn’t retro and never will be. It’s a timeless showcase of one of the finest piedmont pickers ever to pick up an instrument, a stunning tutorial on how simple is better- and  prettier.