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A Visit with Joe Thompson

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[Photos by E. Smith]

On a beautiful day in early June my band The Dust Busters paid a visit to the home of Joe and Polly Thompson.  Joe Thompson is 91 and lives outside of Mebane, NC.  He has been playing fiddle since he was 5 years old, way back in 1923 and is perhaps the very last traditionally schooled African-American fiddler in the world. Joe is a World War II veteran and is long retired from his job at a furniture factory.  He continues to play music at home and at gigs including taking his music to Carnegie Hall in New York City, the National Folk Festival and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the International Music Festival in Brisbane, Australia.  In 2007 Joe Thompson was honored with the National Heritage Fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts.  The Carolina Chocolate Drops have spent a lot of time with Joe and have learned a lot from him.  They continue to present many of his tunes in their performances.  We met Joe at the 2nd Black Banjo Gathering, held in Boone, NC in March of this year.

Joe Thompson with The Dust Busters Joe Thompson with The Dust Busters

We sat around the Thompson’s picnic table in the field behind their house and played a number of tunes as Joe recalled his musical family and his upbringing.  Joe and Polly were tremendously nice and hospitable and we were really touched and honored to spend time with them.  Here are some excerpts from the long afternoon that we spent at the Thompson’s home.

Big thanks go to Joe and Polly’s friend Larry Vellani for bringing us to their home that day, and a shout out goes to our friend Steve Kruger who joined us with his banjo and guitar.

Here’s the songs we played that you’ll hear on this recording:

I Shall Not be Moved
John Henry
Dona Got a Ramblin’ Mind
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad
Lights in Valley
Georgia Buck
Molly Put the Kettle On
Ladies on the Steamboat
Molly Put the Kettle On
I’ve Got Oil in my Vessel
Careless Love

More photos below:


And don’t forget to check out our friends at the Old Time Herald Magazine – www.oldtimeherald.org – lots of great articles, reviews and more!

Elektra Old Time Banjo Project LP

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Greetings!  I’m back from Dust Busters summer touring and I’m ready to get back on the job here at Down Home Radio.  Its gonna be a great Fall season, with lots of excellent material waiting in the wings, ready for posting here on DHR.

Here’s my first offering- I’ve had several requests for this LP, and am happy to finally be bringing it out on Down Home Radio.  This is a relatively forgotten but definitely classic record from the 1960’s New York City folk scene featuring performances by a number of its key participants.  There’s great music on here!  I had a hard time laying my hands on a copy of this record, but I did and here it is.

Musicians on this record include John Cohen, Peter K. Siegel, Alan Block (owner of the famous sandal shop), Bob Siggins, Winnie Winston, Hank Schwartz and Bill Vanaver all playing old-time style banjo.

CLICK HERE to download.

Hope you will enjoy.  See below for liner notes and track information.

And if you like the Elektra Old Time Banjo Project LP you might also like my recent album with Old Time Banjo Project contributor Peter K. Siegel, his first recorded offering since that Elektra record came out many years ago!

12x2front by you.
“Twelve Tunes for Two Banjos” is a CD of old-time banjo duets played and sung by Peter K. Siegel & Eli Smith, using mostly 5-string but also 4 and 6-string banjos.

To Order: Go to http://cdbaby.com/cd/siegelsmith where you can order online.  Its also on iTunes.


And don’t forget to check out our friends at the Old Time Herald Magazine – www.oldtimeherald.org – lots of great articles, reviews and more!

Dough Rollers and Dust Busters

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View All Photos | Ford's String Band

Malcolm Ford and Jack Byrne of The Dough Rollers were living out in LA over this past winter and in late January/early February Craig and I from The Dust Busters went and stayed with them out there.  We had a great time, living down near Venice Beach, beating the New York cold and playing a bunch of shows around the LA area.  We even made it up to San Francisco for a gig!  One night we ended up playing a house party at Elvis Perkins’ place and happily our set was recorded.  Hope you will enjoy…  Also, The Dust Busters are out on tour right now on the West Coast, we’re headed to Portland tomorrow and then Seattle.  Check out our website for dates.

Thanks go to Paul Chesne for recording this show!

View All Photos | The Dough Rollers
[photo by Oz Perkins]

Interview with Oscar Brand

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On today’s show I speak with folk musician and pioneering radio host Oscar Brand, who celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this year.  Happy birthday Oscar!

Oscar Brand is the host of Folksong Festival on WNYC, a radio show which he has hosted since he got out of the army in 1945.  I believe Folksong Festival to be the longest running radio program with a single host in the world!  Oscar has had many many incredible guests on the show over these many years, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Jean Ritchie, Bob Dylan, everyone you can think of and more…an amazing program.  It was great to hear his reminiscences of these people and the history of his program as we recorded this interview at his home in 2008.

Brand is a man of many talents, he is a very well known folk singer and a great wealth of songs on every topic imaginable, including bawdy songs and campaign songs! He was a founder back in 1959 and then the MC of the Newport Folk Festival.  As an MC he was lucky enough to introduce both Jean Ritchie at her debut performance at the first ever Hootenany at Irving Plaza back in the 40’s, and then in 1959 introduced Joan Baez to a mass audience in her first appearance at Newport.  Oscar is an old old friend of Down Home Radio founder Henrietta Yurchenco.  They had the first folk music radio programs in New York back in the 1940’s.

A big thanks to Steve French for editing the audio of this interview.

You can hear Oscar Brand’s Folksong Festival program by clicking HERE.

George Pickow, Jean Ritchie and Oscar Brand, WNYC, 1947
[George Pickow, Jean Ritchie and Oscar Brand at WNYC in New York City, 1947]

A Special Treat:
On Thanksgivings over the years Oscar Brand would always have whatever traveling folk singers that happened to be in town over to his house for Thanksgiving dinner.  In 1966 he had Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, Jean Ritchie, Ralph Rinzler, Mike Seeger and Almeda Riddle and others at his house.  Oscar broke out his tape recorder and they made some really great recordings, posted here as an extra special treat! – He airs these recordings on his show every year at Thanksgiving, but here they are now, recorded from one of his broadcasts.


[Me and Oscar at the Alan Lomax memorial conference at Cooper Union in 2003.]

Paxton and Fairfield in the NY Times

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[Paxton and Fairfield perform “Poor Little Bennie.”]

Down Home Radio favorites and past guests on the program Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton and Frank Fairfield have recently been featured in the New York Times, following their appearance last Tuesday at the Jalopy Theater.  CLICK HERE to read the NY Times piece by Ben Ratliff.

CLICK HERE for the Down Home Radio interview with Frank Fairfield, and HERE for the interview with Blind Boy Paxton.

Here’s some more footage I shot at the Jalopy show:

The Cards Visit Shanghai

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The Cangelosi Cards, one of Down Home Radio’s favorite bands, have just completed a three month stint playing nightly at a club over in Shanghai, China.  The Cards are a brilliant old-time jazz, blues, country band local to Brooklyn who have been touring the U.S. for several years and are now starting in on the rest of the world!  Filmmaker and “Down Home TV” producer Chris Low happened to be over in Shanghai on another project and was able to catch up with The Cards to film this segment:

An extended interview with The Cangelosi Cards


And don’t forget to check out the Down Home Radio advert in the Old Time Herald Magazine – www.oldtimeherald.org – lots of great articles, reviews and more!

American Industrial Folksongs LP

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Today, in honor of the recently completed U.S. Social Forum held in Detroit, I’m posting up a 1955 LP by John Greenway.  Greenway was a Folklore/Anthropology/English professor at the University of Colorado back in the 50’s and 60’s and wrote an excellent book called “American Folksongs of Protest,” published in 1953.  On this LP Greenway, also a good folksinger records a selection of the protest, topical and labor songs he talks about in the book.  Its a cool record and an excellent compilation of material that is hard to find recorded examples of elsewhere.  Greenway’s strong suit is the Woody Guthrie material he covers on here, he does a good Guthrie.

CLICK HERE to download.

Below are the notes, click to enlarge:

Photos From the Festival

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[Radio Jarocho at The 2010 Brooklyn Folk Festival.  Photo E. Smith]

Well, the 2010 Brooklyn Folk Festival has come and gone, and I can tell you that it was a great success!  It sold out every night, the new outdoor stage was a huge success and people had a great time!  The whole thing was professionally recorded by Don Fierro and we look forward to the release of at least one Brooklyn Folk Festival 2010  CD/LP probably over the winter on the brand new Jalopy Records label.  The music that was played at this festival was to put it plainly AMAZING.  I knew it would be good, but didn’t realize just how good.  As the organizer and MC I was very emotionally moved by the whole proceeding!  Truly.  Already planning for next year… well maybe I’ll take a break.  But I’m already excited!

Below are some photos I took at the festival.  All of my photos from the event can be seen at this link. Look out in the reasonably near future for some films from the festival shot by filmmaker Chris Low.  I’ll be posting up a bunch of those plus audio and some videos I took, etc.


[The Calamity Janes.  Photo E. Smith]


[Feral Foster.  Photo E. Smith]


[Rashad Brown performs at the outdoor stage.  Photo Susan Heske]


[Clifton Hicks (R) The Dough Rollers (L)  Photo E. Smith]


[The Tillers. Photo E. Smith]


[John Cohen.  Photo E. Smith]


[John Cohen screens his new film “Roscoe Holcomb From Daisy Kentucky.” Photo by E. Smith]


[Brotherhood of the Jug Band Blues.  Photo E. Smith]

To see all my photos from the 2010 Brooklyn Folk Festival Click Here. And check back for audio and video from the festival coming soon…

The Brooklyn Folk Festival is Here!

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Brooklyn Folk Festival Logo by you.

The Brooklyn Folk Festival has arrived again!
May 21-23rd, 2010 at the Jalopy Theater!

Down Home Radio is proud to announce the 2nd annual Brooklyn Folk Festival.  This festival will feature the best in old-time music, blues, pre-blues, jug band music, New Orleans jazz, folk style songwriting, Greek, African and Mexican folk music and dance with concerts, workshops, and a Sunday afternoon square dance.  Thirty-one musical acts over 3 days! Come down and check it out, its gonna be fun!

–See below for the complete schedule–

*This festival is brought to you by Down Home Radio, and will be MCed by Down Home Radio host Eli Smith.

Pricing:
$15 per day for the main stage evening concerts and workshops or $40 for all three evenings.
$5 per day for Saturday afternoon concerts and Sunday afternoon outdoor stage, square dance included!  What a deal!

Contact The Jalopy Theater to buy advance tickets.

The Jalopy Theater
315 Columbia Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
(718) 395-3214
www.Jalopy.biz

Schedule:

Friday May 21st at Jalopy:
7:30pm – Hubby Jenkins – Blues and folk songs
8:15 – George Stavis – Original improvised banjo music
9pm- Salieu Suso – Gambian Kora player
9:30pm- Calamity Janes – Oldtime String band
10:15pm- The Dust Busters – Oldtime string band
11:15pm- Blind Boy Paxton – Blues guitar, stride piano, old time banjo
12am – Ernie Vega – Blues, folk and original songs

Saturday May 22nd at Jalopy:

The Dust Busters on Woodsongs

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While out on tour back in March my old-time string band The Dust Busters appeared on the Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour.  Woodsongs is a radio/TV show filmed weekly at the Kentucky Theater in Lexington (KY).  Thanks to Michael Johnathon and all the folks at Woodsongs for having us, it was a fun show!  Here is our appearance on that program:

And be sure to check us out, Friday May 21st, 10:15pm at the Brooklyn Folk Festival.