Here's one of Ruth Welcome's wonderfully eerie instrumental zither albums. (Capitol Records 1959) This should easily appeal to fans of Santo & Johnny or even Joe Meek. Mediafire Download Link: Ruth Welcome- Zither Magic (1959)
1 Take My Love
2 It Might As Well Be Spring
3 Hawaiian Wedding Song
4 Parisian Heiress
5 Allez-Vous-En, Go Away
6 Golden Earrings
7 Vaya Con Dios
8 The Girl That I Marry
9 Wunderbar
10 Galaway Bay
11 I Talk To The Trees
12 Memories Are Made Of This
4 comments:
I have this record. There is no zither on it, it's a guitar duo. I don't think any such person as Ruth Welcome exists.
Its funny to have just gotten the first comment on RW-ZM today, as I was just thinking about getting some more of this stuff. I love it, whatever it is. I guess I could believe it was really guitar duo. Then again, this bona fide zither sounds like a guitar duo to me too: Anton Karas- Third Man
Hi there - just thought I'd clarify the situation here. Ruth Welcome seems truly to have existed - check Smithsonian Folkways here:
http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=2216 where you can download and read the original LP cover in a.pdf file. But I agree that her recordings are confusing listening, for two distinct reasons. If you listen to the sound samples on Smithsonian, you will notice firstly that the instrument she plays here is clearly acoustic, but that for some crazy reason the first side of the LP, with both zither tracks and cimbalom tracks, has been produced to simulate stereo by cutting the original mono signal in stereo with a time delay so it sounds like an echo. But I promise you, the unadulterated mono sound, which you can get if you turn off one of your stereo channels, is the true sound of the Austrian zither - a fiendishly difficult instrument, on which you can simultaneously play melody, chords and arpeggiated accompaniment. See this fantastic clip of Karas on youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFz79SBnuk8
On the Ruth Welcome LP Zither Magic the problem is that she is quite clearly playing an amplified instrument. This explains why her melody notes sound deceptively like an old lap steel, and give rise to the illusion of two electric guitars
I am a huge, huge, fan of ruth welcome and all of zither music. I know her sound was deceptive, but so haunting and awesome as well. i have about 8 or 9 of her lps. they all sound like this. but i never had this one, even though it is available regularly on ebay.
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