Album Notes

Clint Howard began singing around the age of 6, listening to hymns and ballads sung by his mother. His father gave him a guitar at age 11 and he began to sing professionally in 1953, when he moved to Newport News, VA to take a welding job at the shipyards there. He sang with good friend, the late Hobart Forrester, at theaters, concerts and store openings.

When he moved back to Mountain City in 1957, he began to play with friend, neighbor, and fiddler extraordinaire Fred Price. They joined up with another neighbor, Clarence 'Tom' Ashley and began to play out in the area. After the famous meeting with Ralph Rinzler at the Union Grove fiddler's convention in 1960, an attempt was made to capture their relaxed old-time sound. A young Doc Watson was brought over from Boone, NC to play with Clint, Fred and Tom on two volumes of Folkways' Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's. Clint, Fred, Doc, Tom and Ralph traveled as a team from the west coast to the east, from the University of California to Carnegie Hall and the Newport Folk Festival. Clint fronted the band, introducing songs and telling jokes with an ease audiences loved. Vanguard's Old Timey Concert Album gives the listener a little taste of Clint's showmanship.

Now and Then follows the next three decades of Clint's picking and singing, from 1972-2005. It is a collection of hand-selected songs from various albums and recordings and shows Clint's talent as a singer, rhythm guitarist and songwriter.
For more history and information on Clint and his music visit www.mountainmusicrecording.com.