here are records, and then there are records that clearly reflect a label’s thoughtfulness in artist choice, presentation, attention to detail and care in packaging. Nora Brown’s Long Time To Be Gone, her third LP for Jalopy Records, is an example of the latter. The record, one of a signed edition of 1000, came hand-wrapped in Kraft paper, sans shrink wrap, like a Christmas present. To keep the LP free of dust, hand-applied masking tape held the custom printed jacket together. Slitting the tape enabled the flat, blemish-free record to be removed for play. The 12-page black-and-white booklet accompanying the record has, in addition to photos of the recording sessions, notes by Brown on the tunes, the instruments she used and the tunings. It also contains a hand-printed card of download information. There are 16 cuts on the rather short album, the longest running just over four minutes. Some of the tunes are region-specific, such as “Jenny Put the Kettle On” and “Wild Goose Chase.” Others, such as “Cumberland Gap” and “Shortnin' Bread,” are old-timey classics. Four of the cuts feature Brown’s demure vocals.

Beginning her journey into the world of music and stringed instruments at age six, Nora Brown soon began attending and winning banjo and folk-song contests around the country. In 2019, her first album (at age 13!), Cinnamon Tree, hit Billboard’s bluegrass chart at number 7. Two years later, her second album, Sidetrack My Engine, rose to number 6 on that same Billboard chart. Just sixteen years of age when she recorded Long Time To Be Gone, Brown projects an image of someone much older. There is no barn-burning fretwork or virtuosic displays of technique in her pickin’, only the distilled purity coming from a deep understanding of the music’s heritage. Her voice hints at innocence. Intent on preserving the culture of old-time traditional music, Brown continues to teach both beginning and advanced banjo classes at the Ashokan Center in New York State’s Catskill Mountains.

The label here also has an interesting back story. Jalopy Records is the in-house record label for the Jalopy Theatre and School of Music located in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, Brown’s hometown. The institution serves as a community music and cultural center dedicated to folk music from all over the globe. Its goal, via Jalopy Records, is to make both historic and contemporary performances of crucial folk music available to all via LPs, CDs, cassettes and digital formats. The current catalogue contains over thirty titles.