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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IezlYcERTX8

another great old-timey tune with piano --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANkdDtgJx6A

no piano on this one but i love it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frupwl5UveA

great reminiscence by bert layne of the skillet lickers about getting into trouble with lowe stokes, clayton mcmichen etc. primarily abt the time lowe stokes got his hand shot off--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dXKDYrLLeo&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNaqFzdQEP4

http://www.youtube.com/v/DIB4Pio0Y4U&fs=1&hl=en

http://www.eastriverstringband.com/radioshow/?p=881

^^ radio program of R Crumb playing some of his country blues records. my friend john does these shows and they're pretty much all great.. many with crumb and other pioneering record collectors.

Wow, that Bobbie Leecan version of Nobody Needs You When You’re Down And Out is beautiful.

The piano on that Skip James record is also incredible.

i was really impressed by that "Decatur Street Drag" tune... great stuff. it's fun to listen to these guys talk about records.

http://cdm16020.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/collection/p15131coll4/searchterm/Video.Music/field/type/mode/all/conn/and/order/subjec/page/2

video archive of old-timey and blues music... great stfuf.

ahhh i love this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfUe0nkuV20

that is awesome - they have more stuff? is that 20s or 30s?

late twenties.. they recorded, uh, 8 sides i think? "georgia stomp" is on the harry smith anthology.

copy of bamalong blues/k.c. railroad blues on ebay at the moment that i've bid on. but i dont think i'll win. it's a rare record, and the copy for sale is a nice copy. prob sell for $400+ if i had to guess. maybe much more.

ah ok... georgia stomp is pretty happening too.

they were a great duo. andrew baxter recorded with the georgia yellow hammers -- "G Rag" being one of the earliest integrated country music recordings.

oh yeah the baxters are the shit

zow, jack white can be as weird and silly as he wants as long as he makes things like this possible:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jack-whites-third-man-records-to-co-release-paramount-records-set-20130924

the LPs reissues of blues stuff third man is releasing sound bad are ugly and redundant. but if he's subsidizing the paramount box set then all is forgiven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReoKKsWtXvU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHRGXvfSu3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixCql24CFFg

<3 me some nugrape twins
http://tofuhut.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_tofuhut_archive.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzbMALS0Edo

rockin'.

thanks -- that's great!

been listening to some skillet lickers 78s tonight. can hear some of the real bluegrass roots in some of these thirties sessions w ted hawkins on the mandolin. fast pickin and melodically inventive, by old-timey standards.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hawkins+rag&sm=3

hey i have only listened to the second ep of this so far but man it just slays, this is gonna be part of my week,

http://soundcloud.com/yetimike/buked-scorned-the-gospel

mcgonnigal is very much a bro

listening to it now. gracias.

pretty major pre-war blues story in ny times magazine today by john jeremiah sullivan.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/13/magazine/blues.html?hp&_r=0
totally amazing

this is great.

Don't want to blow your mind twice in one day but here is something else that will make you think twice: http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=240701&sid=68adecf93f0a6d6a9f44886f63059313

Just took a peek at Elijah Wald's The Blues: A Very Short Introduction and, while it seems reasonable enough, the guy inevitably comes up with either a challop or mistake to stick in my craw. In this case it is saying that Hank Williams was born in Georgiana, Alabama. No he wasn't, even though he grew there, he was born in nearby Mount Olive. Is such a picturesque and a propos fact so hard to remember and get right?
/little_things_that_make_you_irrationationally_angry

Probably wrong thread for that anyway

that john jeremiah sullivan piece is fucking amazing

For some of us, reading that article is the payoff for decades of music geekery, the way This is Spinal Tap was the payoff for watching lots of rockumentaries.

yeah it both totally de-romanticizes the whole thing and deepens the mystery immeasurably. which is quite a thing.

otm. It has the effect of one of those famous Hitchcock scenes where he starts with a wide angle shot from the top of a huge ballroom filled with people and then slowly, every so slowly, the camera zooms in to eventually arrive at the Macguffin/key/blinking eyes of the killer.

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.

Had an AP physics teacher who one sunny day let us go out and study the aerodynamics of the frisbee.

Other, more jazz oriented message board totally digging on that article, but disputing whether "Low Down Dirty Shame" was done by the gentleman mentioned in the article or another Don Wilkerson who played with Ray Charles and Amos Milburn and passed away a few decades ago.

the only thing that makes me slightly uncomfortable here is the "quasi theft" that unlocks some of the story for Sullivan -- the interview notes that McCormick's researcher takes photos of... ethical? Kind of a weird thing:
"I admired the bravery of her act of quasi theft, feeling strongly that it was the right thing to do. You’re not allowed to sit on these things for half a century, not when the culture has decided they matter. I know he didn’t want to sit on them — he was trapped with them. I give us both a pass. Caitlin had no job. Mack had been her job. But we had these pages, a grand total of nine, the letters and the transcripts. And we had a full-time, on-the-ground researcher/reporter in Houston, whom fate happened to be catching smack in the midst of her own budding Geeshie-and-L.V. enthusiasm. If Mack wouldn’t talk to us anymore, we would do this as an assignment for him, we would follow his leads."

agreed. as well-written as it was, parts of this article constituted odd confessionals or asides by the author. still a brilliant piece.

i mean, it's sort of terrifying to think about all the stuff in mccormick's archives that have gone unseen for 40+ years, all the leads that haven't been followed up that are probably completely cold cases at this point. hopefully the dude has a will worked out where it all goes to a university that'll take care of his work. but it is weird (as sullivan notes) for him to come across as even remotely a villain in the article, since he is the only guy who has devoted his life to gathering all of this priceless info. complicated. i wonder if his bio of robert johnson will come out in any form some day, if someone else could piece together something out of all the research mccormick has done. i remember reading about it in guralnick's book in the 90s, where he says, "it will be published shortly" or something. it's like the smile of blues books.

haha hmmm

http://www.mackmccormick.org was established to serve as a public resource for information pertaining to music and cultural historian, Robert "Mack" McCormick. This site will be expanded in the future.

Most of McCormick's archives remain unpublished, and thus McCormick welcomes serious inquiries that would result in the preservation and publishing of his archives so that the public could benefit from them.

As a result of preferring not use email, McCormick welcomes and encourages institutions and researchers to mail or telephone him at:

Robert "Mack" McCormick

9023 Autauga Street

Houston, TX 77080

Phone: 713-462-5114

McCormick's contribution to researching and documenting early American music and culture is substantial. His research has helped to uncover histories and biographical information that would likely have been lost forever had McCormick not conducted his meticulous field research of geographical locales where some of America's earliest recorded musicians were born, raised, and traveled. For example, McCormick's research on Henry "Ragtime Texas" Thomas is noteworthy because Thomas was one of the oldest African Americans to record in the 1920's. The list of others on whom McCormick has shed light is vast, and includes Lightnin' Hopkins, Robert Shaw, Buster Pickens, The George and Hersal Thomas Family (including Sippie Wallace), Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Peck Kelley, and Lydia Mendoza, to name only a few.

paging eric clapton, if you have a couple million dollars lying around, this would be a good thing to invest in...

Speaking of Hank, there's an intriguing review of The Hank Williams Reader in this just-past weekend's WSJ. The Free Pass sample of subscription content may not work for long, so better to google hank williams reader barry mazor wall street journal. Here's the gist of it (apparently like The Bronte MythandThe Coltrane Legacy, re tracking Rorschach effects):
This anthology's editors have left writers' errors, exaggerations and fantasies in place, though not without warnings and comment, the better to grasp the way "Hank Williams" has been brought to readers over time. It's not to the credit of some of the more posturing latter-day commentators included that they have, after so many decades of effort to get the slippery Hank Williams story right, reverted to some of the most lurid and unlikely versions—sometimes only to show approval of the same behavior that the earlier sensationalists were shaking fingers at. British entertainment writer Douglas McPherson fantasized in 1978 that "perhaps his ghost is there in the smoke and whisky fumes as some unknown singer shoots up, drinks up, and carrying his guitar in trembling hands, walks into the blinding spotlight. . . . Perhaps he is . . . trading guitar licks or one last beer with Gene Vincent, Sid Vicious and Elvis Presley. "
There's fine writing included, too—Ralph J. Gleason looking back at his encounter with Williams as a young reporter, Nolan Porterfield remembering what it felt like, as a Texas teenager, to hear the news of Hank's death, musicologist Henry Pleasants offering up his analysis of Williams's singing and writing, Peter Cooper recounting a trip he took that retraced Hank's last ride, biographer Colin Escott considering what Williams's fate might have been had he lived longer.
In the end, the editors suggest, we still make of Hank Williams what we will: "We know more about him, his work, and his influence than ever before. There remains, however, significant disagreement regarding the essence of the man and his music. . . . Williams has become an infinitely malleable figure." Take by writer's take, "The Hank Williams Reader" is an accessible, valuable reference for readers interested in the making of legends or American music, a volume to reshape our thinking about "The Lovesick Blues Boy," the continuing appeal of his music, and our relation to both.
—Mr. Mazor writes about country and roots music for the Journal.

my dad was just bitching about scholars, foundations and colleges who sit on the entire works and papers and music of great unknown artists with the intent of keeping the story until they die and then they have no plan to release.

I have both the Barry Mazor book on Jimmie Rodgers and the Colin Escott Hank Williams bio. Haven't read either from cover to cover, just dipped in here and there, so far so good.

Also recommending for the umpteen time Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity, by Richard A. Peterson.