Patuxent CD-065 The Maloy Brothers - Time Will Tell

The Maloy Brothers, Frank and Joe, have been playing this music together for sixty years. Frank Maloy was born January 2, 1927; his younger brother Joe Maloy was born May 15, 1930. They grew up in rural Milan, Georgia in a family in which nearly everyone played stringed instruments. Frank took up the fiddle, Joe the guitar, and the boys learned tunes from relatives, from touring musicians, and from the rich musical potpourri which was broadcast over the radio in the prewar era.

   Frank’s first fiddle bow was haired with sewing thread. Beginning at a very early age, Frank and Joe played in several Georgia bands, cutting their musical teeth playing theaters, parties, and dances around their local area; they performed a mixture of southern square dance music and western swing. Frank soon bought a copy of M.M. Cole’s 1000 Fiddle Tunes from Sears and Roebuck. Motivated by a desire to learn the traditional fiddle tunes contained in that volume, the boys learned to read music from a "U. S. School of Music" correspondence course.

   By 1946, the two teenagers were performing over radio station WBHB in Fitzgerald, Georgia with Charlie Dowdy and the Prairie Boys. Frank played with this group on a regular basis, while Joe, still in school, worked with them on weekends. Their music spanned country, western swing, and popular styles. The youngsters’ natural curiosity about other instruments led them to expand their instrumental skills. Over time, Frank learned guitar, mandolin, saxophone and clarinet; Joe added five-string banjo and bass to his guitar proficiency.

   In 1950, Frank began a ten-year stint playing on TV and radio with "Uncle Ned and the Hayloft Jamboree" at WMAZ in Macon. Meanwhile, Joe was working with the WMAZ-TV staff band, "The Polka Dots." Subsequently, the two brothers organized a dance band called "The Swingmasters," playing in the Macon area for a number of years. During the 1980’s, the two played "beach music" and '50's rock and roll in the Outer Banks area of North Carolina. They returned to south Georgia and played swing and dance music with the Dave Mercer Band for over a decade. The brothers have recently reorganized under their old name "The Swingmasters," performing at dances and concerts throughout the south Georgia region.

   While Joe has had other careers in addition to playing music, Frank has spent his entire life in music, as performer, teacher, and arranger and transcriber for numerous bands. He has transcribed thousands of songs into several huge volumes covering most of America’s swing, jazz, and pop repertoire. Frank has been a contributing writer to the fiddle journal The Devil's Box for over thirty years.

   This CD was recorded with reel-to-reel equipment in a friend’s living room in Tifton, Georgia. Frank and Joe sat on straight chairs across from one another and played tune after tune after tune, straight through with no overdubbing. The decades of playing music together made these sessions a breezy, seemingly effortless enterprise.

   Joe’s remarkable guitar accompaniment spans a startling range of styles, from western swing to jazz to Latin rhythms. His guitar work anticipates Frank’s phrasing on the violin, evidence of the long musical association of this duo. Frank’s magical violin style displays warmth, love for the material, and exquisite taste.

   This is the first commercial recording of the Maloy brothers. For too long their wonderful music has remained largely undiscovered by the world-at-large. We are truly lucky that this amazing duo has finally recorded. Now, Georgia’s best-kept secret is out.

                                                               Jack Leiderman