Waitin' for the Hard Times to Go

This is the first recording of folk singer Jim Ringer, joined by accomplished singer-songwriter and frequent collaborator Mary McCaslin, Jay Ungar, Jon Wilcox, and folk-legend Utah Philips. On Waitin' for the Hard Times to Go, Ringer plays guitar and sings a calm baritone, accompanied with vocal harmonies and fiddle. At the time of this album's recording in 1972, Ringer did not posses a steady address and had spent much of his life as a traveling laborer, working various construction jobs as he drifted through the West. As such, Ringer's gentle delivery possesses a subtle intensity and authenticity that speaks to the years of nomadism and uncertainty that preceded his time as a professional musician; as Folk-Legacy founder Sandy Paton put it, "when you’ve seen those hard times, first-hand, you just naturally learn how to sing about them".