S/D: Old-Timey Music (e.g., Prewar Gospel Blues, Bluegrass, Mountain Music)

Put together a Spotify playlist of the Alan Lomax "commercial records" list (or at least the 200 that are available).
http://open.spotify.com/user/arosner/playlist/3VGX58Cv02j2wFGqacxQ1i
Interesting to listen through the filter of Lomax's taste and (I assume) the unavailability of a lot of records we take for granted now.

In his review of the Patton (and heavy friends) box, Luc Sante doesn't think much of "the bizarre and obsessive" Calt's characterization of Patton. Don't know if I'd agree; I only know the music from the box (still want that Fahey book!)
http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-08/music/oracle-testimony/

re xpost recommended blues books, def check Robert Palmer's Deep Blues, Charles Keil's Urban Blues, Paul Oliver's The Story of the Blues, probably something by William Ferris, Samuel Charters; plus, mixing it up a bit more, Robert Gordon's It Came From Memphis, and Michael Bane's White Boy Singin' The Blues (Bane's also from Memphis, witnessed quite a bit of the 50s and 60s there).

Another good early blues comp reviewed by LS:
http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-03-16/music/roots-of-everything/

In addition to the books Don mentioned I'd add The History of the Blues, by Francis Davis. And, even though a hundred poptimists bloomed to contend on the other thread against something he or his brother said, Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music, by Ted Gioia is actually pretty good.

Probably some Peter Guralnick books too, especially Lost Highway and Feel Like Going Home.

yeah whatever dust gioia kicked up recently he's a great, super knowledgeable writer.

Gave away my copy of Lost Highway but it's been so long think I need a new one. They've added some A/V material to the digital edition and put that famous picture of Hank Williams and Roy Acuff's daughter on the cover. Note the dedication:
For Sam Phillips and Chester Burnett, the real heros of rock'n'roll.

just started Ragged but Right, that's a great-looking book

It makes me wish I was a history teacher so I could say Put away the textbook, we're spending the next week on this.
Not that history teachers ever do that, but they should.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Sunday, April 13, 2014 10:10 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, one thing that article strongly conveys is the (occasional) joy of real research. not everything is on the internet, kids!

calt is a weird, ornery motherfucker. his skip james book reveals the sort of violently mixed feelings about his subject that probably shouldn't have been aired unadulterated.

also, forkslovetofu, your dad is d0ug s3roff? I've dug his work on black gospel for a while. i wish i could afford those books (ragged but right / out of sight). i've certainly read them a few times over from library copies.

i think maybe the article plays down mccormick's bullheadedness a bit, or maybe the mccormick the author encountered is mellower than the one i've read about. from what i've heard/read it's not just that personal afflictions have kept him from publishing as much as he would want (something i can strongly relate to btw). he was often very very stubborn in revealing his sources and sharing basic information with other researchers. that may have been in part b/c some of the other researchers were, to one degree or another, assholes (certainly true of e.g. calt and fahey), but some very nice people got the same treatment. but again, i'm not going to hold it against mccormick.

the saddest thing is what somebody (tyler?) mentioned upthread; that some of the leads that could have been generated by his notes have long since gone cold. i've encountered that sort of thing in my own research: a name comes up in a 1955 memo that nobody knows was attached to "x" project, but that person died 25 years ago so it's too late to ask them about it.

also i find the individual stories as fascinating as anyone else but I find that the best (or at least the most ambitious) books on american music try to step back to see the bigger picture. which is mccormick's animus too, so it's doubly sad that he hasn't produced much of anything.

"bigger picture" = e.g. how blues arose within af-am music, what its musical parameters and variations were (by region, urban/rural, generational, etc.)

i should wirte that calt /was/ an ornery motherfucker; he died a few years ago, at a young age IIRC

I am not any kind of musicological researcher but I feel a vaguely similar pain of trail gone cold when I see some old jazz musicians that I know well enough to at least say hello to and try to ask them about the old days, maybe when they did studio work, but I just can't get any traction and if I do I get interrupted - somebody calls them to the bandstand, a member of the adoring public butts in to pay court, etc.

Kind of a derail, I guess, sorry

nah, i hear you. people are living their blues, they don't always (or can't) see their value as a witness to history. can't blame them.

had! i meant living their /lives/, but perhaps they are living their blues, too.

New borad title.

John Sullivan responds to various questions on the organissimo thread through the medium of Allen Lowe: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?/topic/75432-geeshie-wiley-and-elvie-thomas/

Just found the Bill C. Malone country book darkening my doorstep, along with Marybeth Hamilton's In Search of the Blues, when I left Angola got home tonight. That thing is a brick! Looking forward to curling up with it during a climate-change induced stormy night. Also had the occasion today to dip into my copy of the Encyclopedia of Country Music, which I don't thing anybody has recommended yet but is really quite substantial.

hey amateurist: yeah that's my pop.
BTW, he's currently working (like today even) on a new book with his writing partner about the roots of the blues from the 1890's to the late 19-teens that should be out in a few years that should directly address the scholarship y'all are requesting upthread.

Cool. Did your old man manage to find out who was the first to sing

First Line
Second Line, Same As The First
Another, Completely Different Third Line

?

he's not magic you know

Robert McCormick’s Daughter ‘Appalled’ by NYT Magazine Cover Story

UPDATE: Ms. McCormick said in a phone conversation this afternoon that her father, who suffers from bipolar disorder, had “unquestionably suffered” from the article’s publication.

“He’s old and sickly,” she told us. “His mental and physical health are fragile, so for something like this to happen is extremely upsetting to him.”

When asked why she believes that Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Love had more of her father’s notes in their possession, Ms. McCormick said: “When somebody exhibits a clear willingness to steal and to cross ethical boundaries, you have to assume that they’re fundamentally not trustworthy.”

Mr. Sullivan, for his part, defended his actions to the Observer in a telephone conversation shortly after the article was published.

“I won’t try to make it sound like I didn’t struggle with it,” he said of the ethical blurriness of the situation. “It’s not the kind of thing you want to do with every story.”

He added, however, that he was legally in the clear, as one cannot own somebody else’s speech, and Mr. McCormick’s transcript features the words of Elvie Thomas. (“You’re not allowed to sit on these things for half a century, not when the culture has decided they matter,” Mr. Sullivan writes in the article, referring to the transcript.)

Ms. McCormick called Mr. Sullivan’s comments “glib.”

“There is reason to believe this theft of my father’s research was their intention all along,” she said, “and that they have stolen far more from him than just the items Sullivan has publicly admitted.”

Not the best defense

eek! yeah, it's definitely uncomfortable ethical ground, which I'm sure Sullivan is aware of.

in more pleasant news, this is a good one: www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2014/apr/28/issue-84-visions-coahoma/

Good title. Will take a look this evening.

this one is pretty amazing -
http://static.squarespace.com/static/5128322ce4b006d82fb7218b/t/52db06cbe4b0a428d2e470a6/1390085921081/?format=750w
http://longgonesound.com/current-travails/2014/1/18/alexis-zoumbas-a-lament-for-epirus-1926-1928-original-artwork-by-robert-crumb-10-recordings-with-deluxe-gatefold-lp
need to get more music along these lines...

There are some other ideas here:

http://everynoise.com/engenremap-oldtime.html

And see the little inset map at the bottom for related genres with even more ideas...

Tyler, you could check out a few of the other records Chris King has compiled -- "Don't Trust Your Neighbors" ; "Five Days Married & Other Laments" and "Aimer et Perdre"

also of interest could be the stuff Ian Nagoski has been compiling for MIssissippi/Canary, especially the Marika Papagika LP if you never grabbed that.

yeahhh, i've been digging into the canary records stuff -- haven't heard the papagika.
i think i need to go to greece.
and yeah, looks like chris king has a bunch of good releases! loved the cajun thing he did for tompkins sq. last year.
that everynoise.com thing is kind of cool!

haha yesss
http://f0.bcbits.com/img/a0407194569_2.jpg
http://canary-records.bandcamp.com/album/bed-of-pain-rembetika-1930-55

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/05/oh_you_kid/140529_CBOX_Cover-LoveLoveLove.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg

Oh! You Kid! How a sexed-up viral hit from the summer of ’09 — 1909 — changed American pop music forever.

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/05/oh_you_kid/140529_CBOX_Photo-ShoesWide.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg

read this yesterday -- very good.

good piece!

hmm that byline seems familiar somehow

good read!

Rosen is passionate about that era

hmm that byline seems familiar somehow

should have had joke tags around that

(yes)

On the tenth anniversary of the Night Train From Nashville project, celebrating the 'ville as an early hub of African-American recording, http://musiccityroots.com/roots-tv/'s weekly live show (7 to 10-ish, CST) features the Fairfield Four, Charles Walker Band, Robert Knight, Mac Gayden and several others, full details here: http://musiccityroots.com/events/wednesday-july-30th/ It can also be heard on them there "devices": http://new.livestream.com/musiccityroots and here: http://www.hippieradio945.com. All shows (so far)are archived as podcasts and mp3 downloads at musiccityroots.com

The opening act, the Valentines, incl. Mac Gayden, was lousy old man lounge (of good early 70s lounge R&B hits depending who's singing 'em), but second act, the McCrary Sisters, sound good, though some glitches in the stream for the moment.

And we're back! Sassy!

Kind of asking the musical question, "What if there were four Staples Sisters?" Not up to Mavis solo, but close enough.

Now the Fairfield Four, fixing to start.

Here we go, up there already!

Smokin the chitlin soul blues with Charles Walker's fleet crew.

jean ritchie RIP

http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/sfc/index.php/2015/06/02/thank-you-jean-ritchie/