Reviews

Going Through Stages
The Many Careers of the Red Clay Ramblers
By Steve Romanoski
Option Music Alternatives, March/April, 1988

Here is Tommy Tompson talking about The Red Clay Ramblers:

While the band has maintained a high level of popularity in the folk music community, there are still hard-core traditionalists who look upon the work of the Ramblers with scorn. This is because the band takes chances with their sound and doesn’t worship past musical idols. The Red Clay Ramblers are pioneers in a field that is beginning to expand. Recently, two new bands have surfaced who take even more liberties with the style. The Chicken Chokers and Horseflies are young and innovative groups who, like the Ramblers, maintain a foothold in string band music, but take the genre one more step down the road. In the case of the Horseflies and Chicken Chokers, it is done with new wave-influenced vocals and instruments that include synthesizers.

http://originalredclayramblers.com/tt1988option.htm

Review by Marty Racine of Chokers & Flies - Old Time Music LP in The Houston Chronicle 9/15/85

The Horseflies' side swings like mad in a traditional format on banjo and fiddle, although the highlight is a droning version of ``Zion'', an old reggae tune originally recorded by the Ethiopians. The Chokers, by contrast, are sillier, more like a jug band reminiscent of the early '60s and Jim Kweskin. So out with the new and in with the old. Or is it the other way around?

NEW ENGLAND'S FOLK 'FINEST' . . . HAS BOTH HITS AND MISSES
Steve Morse, Globe Staff. Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.: Dec 8, 1986. pg. 50

A Review of The Annual Folktree Festival of New England's Finest

The Chicken Chokers were not overly impressive -- the singer was as shrill as an air raid siren at times -- but their old-timey jamming connected with the crowd.

Telegram & Gazette. Worcester, Mass.: Oct 22, 1996. pg. C.3
'The Primitive Characters, preservers of traditional string band music, play tomorrow at the Old Vienna Kaffeehaus, 22 South St., Westboro. Born out of the Chicken Chokers, the Primitive Characters now include guitarist Chip Smith, banjo player Michael Donoghue, fiddler Sandy Stark, banjo and ukele player Jim Reidy and bassist Paul Stother. The band is wrapping up work on an album due out this winter.'