The Hollow Rock String Band has been playing old-time string band music in the Durham, North Carolina area since 1966. All the instruments but the guitar play the melody, and even the guitar occasionally takes up the melodic line. Of the fiddle style it can only be said that, while each player has his own mannerisms and certain regions likewise develop their own stylistic traits, fiddlers generally learn tune by tune, leaving many of the stylistic elements in the tune as they acquired it.
Few fiddlers play every tune in the same style, and the differences reflect their multiple sources.
The mandolin generally follows the fiddle, making only the adaptations necessary in transferring the melody to a different instrument. Shortly before this album was recorded, Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia died at the age of 83. Mr. Reed, who provided us with most of the tunes on this record, was an extraordinary repository of traditional tunes of the highest caliber. He was born near Peterstown in Monroe County, West Virginia and grew up in the midst of a vigorous tradition of old-time instrumental music. At an early age he learned to play the fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, and harmonica, and he quickly acquired a rich and varied repertory of East and West Virginia tunes.