Clarence Ashley was a guitar and clawhammer banjo player active in the old-time music circuit from 1911, when he began playing with travelling medicine shows, until the late 1940s, when he injured the index finger of his right hand. During the Depression he found that music was no longer sufficient to support his family and turned at various times to mining, freight hauling, farming, and lumbering to earn a living wage until the economy improved.
Ashley made several recordings in the 20s and 30s, primarily with bands but including two solo albums in 1928 and 1933. The 1933 album was his last recording until he was persuaded to come out of retirement in 1960 by folk historian Ralph Rinzler. Encouraged by the renewal of interest in old-time music, he continued performing until his death seven years later.
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Kämpfer was a Hungarian bassist who purportedly taught himself to play from a violin method book while serving in the Austrian army. He was active in Vienna in the 1760s, where an unusually strong bass tradition was developing, and by 1774 was a member of the Salzburg court orchestra. It was about that time that he began cultivating a career as a soloist, and he embarked on his first concert tour of Germany in 1776–77. Later tours took him to Paris, London, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, and Stockholm, where he gave his last known concert in 1796. Details about his life after that point are unknown.
Critics praised his technical facilty and tone quality. He played a variety of four- and five-string basses, and is claimed to have designed a travelling bass that could be disassembled for easier transport while still retaining an agreeable timbre.
As was customary for touring virtuosi of the period, Kämpfer composed his own music, but none of it is known to have survived.
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