Blind alfred reed biography

Blind Alfred Reed (June 15, 1880 – January 17, 1956) was an.
Blind Alfred Reed was an American folk, country, and old-time musician and singer-songwriter.
Blind Alfred Reed was an American folk and country musician whose poignant and socially conscious songs captured the essence of life in.

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Alfred Reed

American composer, arranger and conductor

For the New Zealand writer and publisher, see Alfred Hamish Reed. For the American folk, country, and old-time musician, see Blind Alfred Reed.

Alfred Reed (born as Alfred Friedman) (January 25, 1921 – September 17, 2005) was an American neoclassical composer, with more than two hundred published works for concert band, orchestra, chorus, and chamber ensemble to his name. He also traveled extensively as a guest conductor (most notably for the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra after the retirement of Frederick Fennell) and served as a professor at the University of Miami School of Music.^[1]^[2]

Life

Alfred Freidman was born on January 25, 1921, in Manhattan, New York City, to Austrian immigrants Carl Friedemann von Mark and Elizabeth Strasser. Because of anti-German sentiment during World War I, Carl changed the family surname to Friedman shortly before having Alfred. Alfred began his formal music training at the age of ten studying cornet at the New York Schools of Music. In 1938, he started

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The Blind Man’s Song – Recalling Alfred Reed By John Lilly

Young Violet Reed climbed a tall tree near her family’s home in Summers County and watched the road. She was looking for her father, Blind Alfred Reed, to return from Hinton, where he would go most days with his fiddle to play and sing on a street corner, a tin cup by his side. She could see him coming from a distance, walking down the road, fiddle tucked under one arm. Sometimes, if the day went well, he’d have a pound of bacon in his hand. Or, if the day had gone very well, an entire bag of groceries. Other days, he’d come home literally empty-handed.

These were the years leading up to the Great Depression, and Blind Alfred Reed was fighting valiantly to support his family through his music. A gifted songwriter, fiddler, and singer, Alfred also played the guitar, banjo, mandolin, and organ. He taught music lessons, played for meetings and dances, made recordings, and sold printed copies of his song lyrics. On many days, he made the three-mile walk from his rented farm to downtown Hinton, to play and sing on the

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West Virginia Music Hall of Fame – Class of 2007.

“Well, the doctor comes ’round here with his face all bright And he says, in a little while you’ll be alright | All he gives is a humbug pill, a dose of dope and a great big bill | Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?” – How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?
Blind Alfred Reed, December, 1929.

In 2007, Blind Alfred Reed was the first person inducted into the brand new West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. He was not alone, as nine other West Virginia musical legends including Little Jimmy Dickens, Bill Withers, and Hazel Dickens, were also enshrined that night as the first class of inductees. But Blind Alfred Reed went first, and all others deferred. He was described that night, and remains, “one of West Virginia’s little known musical treasures.” Simply called a “hillbilly artist” in the old days, critics and other artists have caught up with the work of this “Appalachian visionary”. Nowadays he is often characterized