The Down Hill Strugglers is an old time string band. They have released albums on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and Jalopy Records and are featured on the soundtrack to the Coen Brothers film, "Inside Llewyn Davis" produced by T-Bone Burnett as well as other films and video games.

The band formed while hanging out at the home of their mutual friend Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders, where they also met bandmate and mentor John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers.

Their music reflects and extends the strong feeling and diversity of sounds found on old commercial and field recordings from as early as the 1920s. The Down Hill Strugglers carry forward the sounds of the old, rural America.

Old Juniper is a new album from The Down Hill Strugglers, their first in seven years and first to feature all original songs and tunes. It will be issued by Jalopy Records in August, 2024.

QUOTES:

"From the first track “I’m Gettin’ Ready to Go” to the last “Let the Rich Go Bust", this is a wonderful collection of original songs and tunes by The Down Hill Strugglers—this is their first in seven years and it’s a doozy. Old and new, evocative, current—all original...I love this recording.

The Down Hill Strugglers have, as Nathan Salsburg put it in his notes, 'an exquisite sensitivity to [the] seam where collective tradition and individual artistry meet….' I couldn’t agree more."
~Alice Gerrard

"If it’s possible to be at the forefront of something old, The Down Hill Strugglers are right there with this new recording! Imaginative arrangements of interesting tunes played with soul, all while reaching back to the best of the old mountain sounds."
~Bruce Molsky

"These guys are a first rate string band! Walker, Jackson and Eli have absorbed the old tradition, and the songs and tunes they wrote for this album are outstanding."
~Tony Garnier
(Bob Dylan, Asleep at the Wheel)

More quotes:

"Throughout the record, the musical texture of Old Juniper shifts and blooms. Eli, Jackson, and Walker exchange roles freely— the banjo, fiddle, and guitar change hands almost every track. No matter their instrument, the three fall into place with the tune their guide. As these dynamics build and transform, a sound raw and beautifully sincere appears.

This album of new old-time tunes and songs will surely be a welcome addition to the well loved canon of American traditional music."
~Nora Brown
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"How wonderful is it that The Down Hill Strugglers are releasing a new album? I’ve been a fan of theirs from the beginning and will happily spend time with anything they put out!

I see The Down Hill Strugglers as the primary successors of the great and longstanding tradition of urban interpreter-performers of American vernacular string band music - They pick up where the NLCR left off, with Cohen’s considerable creative guidance ever in their hearts and minds. “Old Juniper” is a testament to the vibrancy of this legacy."
~Jake Xerxes Fussell