PODUNK TODDLE. American, Country Rag (cut time). C Major ('A' part), F Major ('B' part) & B Flat Major ('D' part). The Freeny Harmonizers, from the town of Freeny (outside of Carthage), central Mississippi, were Ira Ellis (fiddle), S. Carlton Freeny (banjo), and Neal Babb (gtr. and vocals). They recorded only two sides, in 1935 in Jackson, Mississippi, for the Brunswick Record Company, released on their Vocalion label. The Freeny Harmonizers, a more modern development of Freeny's Barn Dance Band, were formed in 1931, and, according to researcher Tony Russell, were "a show band with brass, reeds, piano and drums, but were stripped down to a trio for the 1935 Jackson session."
There is a census for 1940 lists an Ira Ford Ellis, who was born in 1896 or 1897, Reeltown, Tallapoosa, Alabama, and living at the time in Leake County, Mississippi, with hie wife, Nell and two daughters. He died in 1962. Carlton Freeny was also a member of Freeny's Barn Dance Band, with fiddler Leslie Freeny, cousin Hendrix Freeny, and guitarist A.F. "Fonzo" Cannon.
Additional notes
Recorded sources : - Document DOCD 8009, Freeny Harmonizers - "Mississippi String Bands vol. 1". Nanny State Records NSCD-4401, The Ninetree Stumbers, vol. 1. Old Time Tiki Parlour, Erick & Suzy Thompson DVD (2015). Vocalion 03140 (78 RPM), Freeny Hamonizers (1935)
See also listing at : Hear the Freeny Harmonizer's 1935 recording at Slippery Hill [1] and youtube.com [2]
For complete information, see Tony Russell's article "The Freeny Story" in Old Time Music No. 8, Spring 1973, pp. 15-19.
