Search - E.C. Ball :: E.C. Ball, with Orna Ball

Mountain Gospel at its best

M. J. Smith | Seattle, WA USA | 07/04/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album is as authentic as any field recording by Lomax - a quiet Mountain Gospel style. E. C. Ball"s guitar style is his own i.e. while showing similar influences to the Carter Family, he developed a style rather than copied. His singing is straight-forward with excellent harmonies provided by his wife. Some of the tracks that stand out:Give Me Just a Little More Time - a gem also available on a Wiregrass shapednoted note album. Here this gospel song is sung as pure gospel with notable tempo changes. However, while it doesn't sound rushed, try singing along - the tempo is fast but unhurried.The Parting Hand - a common closing hymn for Sacred Harp conventions is here sung as gospel. The gospel harmonies work every well providing a different and excellent unusual arrangement to the hymn.If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again - bet you have to sing along. Simply an excellent rendition that trusts the music itself and "reduces" the performers to invisible channels of the music.Listen closely to the words of John the Baptist ... voice like a what! The net result of the album is that you feel in the presence of warm, welcoming performers who sing out of love of the music."

Great picking, nice harmonies

Michael Tobit Gray | Starkville, MS United States | 08/11/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"E.C. Ball can pick as good as Chet Atkins or Doc Watson. Had he made more recordings perhaps he would be better known. The instrumental pieces "Chow Time" and "Raggin'The Wires" use harmonics and far-out chord progressions with a technique that amazes without being flashy. This is honest, home-made, enduring music by a married couple with deep faith. They read the Bible literaly; the opening track simply and plainly relays the peaceful respite afforded the believer while the rest of us endure a horror-show phantasmagoria of the end times, yet somehow it isn't preachy. Even though "Do You Call That Religion" is about throwing the ill-mannered out of church, the song fails to offend perhaps due to the understated delivery, or the whimsical, almost pop-rock licks E.C. throws in. Speaking of licks, "Ain't No Grave" by itself makes this album worth buying. I would like to see Rounder release the second album, "Father's Have A Home Sweet Home" on CD. That one has a spine-tingling version of "Pretty Polly" with just EC and banjo, as well as a great version of "Jubilee.""

The sound of people singing what they is.

The Hammer | Seattle, WA | 12/05/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"You know that Bible Belt rhetoric aimed at converting the listener? This ain't none of that. What you got here is people singing plain. Nothing in their voices gives any indication of being tinged with anything other than exactly what is in them. It's classifiable nowadays as music from an historial cultural period. But it can also be listened to as if you just liked it."