What is Muckland Music ? - continued
This regional music tradition came to the attention of the outside
world briefly in 1923. The recording industry was in it's infancy, and
one industrious company executive from New York City ventured upstate in
search of a certain "homespun sound" rumored to be the work of backwater
farmhands and day laborers there.
The portable studio consisted of a Model T truck with "state-of-the-art"
wire recording gear. Posters were put up by an advance team weeks ahead;
offering modest compensation for "rural songs of a oral tradition."
In one small village in the heart of central New York's potato farming
region that record company got more than they bargained for. An
enigmatic Spanish-American war veteran and potato farmer known as
Captain W.F. Mudflap emerged from the muckland potato fields bringing
with him a captivating indigenous brand of country music that would be
forever known as "Muckland Music."
Mudflap would soon form a group of touring musicians known as the
"Muckland Crooners." After 80 years and a number of generational
changes, amazingly the group is still going strong. A number of it's
current members are third generation decendents of it's founders.
The music is even more relevant today than ever before. As our society
grows ever more technological laden and urbanized, the longing for a
simple, honest retrogressive style of music grows ever stronger.
The Muckland Crooners, have almost single-handedly kept the torch burning. Billed as the "Garage Band That Wouldn't Die", in their current incarnation they are resurrected from a loosely knit group from the mid 1970's.