Down Home Radio Show

Just a word to let everyone know that John Cohen’s new film, “Roscoe Holcomb: From Daisy, Kentucky” is out now!  It has been released by Shanachie Video and is available for purchase by CLICKING HERE.

The film has been packaged by Shanachie as “The Legacy of Roscoe Holcomb.”  The DVD includes John’s new film about Roscoe as well as his classic 1962 film about Holcomb, “The High Lonesome Sound.” You get both!

“Roscoe Holcomb: From Daisy, Kentucky” recently premiered at the Margaret Meade Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History together with a retrospective of John’s work and also just won the award for Best Documentary Short at the Woodstock Film Festival.

Also, a very nice piece about John Cohen and the new film just aired on NPR’s Weekend Edition: CHECK IT OUT

Here’s a synopsis that I wrote for the program guide of the Woodstock Film Festival:

“John Cohen explores the life, philosophy and music of Eastern Kentucky banjo player, coal miner and construction worker Roscoe Holcomb. Holcomb has been injured on the job and forced into early retirement. He discusses his life and music and plays a number of traditional songs from his region. Using intimate footage of Holcomb at home as well as footage of his family, community and region, Cohen presents a remarkable and visually beautiful portrait of Roscoe Holcomb, a man who despite economic hardship and changing times has maintained a powerful and authentic personal music and philosophy.”

John used old footage from the early 60′s that he couldn’t use for “The High Lonesome Sound” because the technology didn’t exist at that time to put the film footage and audio into sync.  But now that is possible and was accomplished in expert fashion.  For this new film John also used really awesome color footage that he took of Holcomb and his family in the 197o’s.  It’s a beautiful film and a wonderful tribute to Roscoe Holcomb.

[Roscoe Holcomb with John Cohen, 1964]

“People were saying that Southern folk song was dead, that the land that had produced American jazz, the blues, the spirituals, the mountain ballads and the work songs had gone sterile.” –Alan Lomax, 1960.

Happily, Alan Lomax’s 1959-1960 field recordings from the American South have been reissued on stunning LPs by Mississippi Records out of Portland, OR.  The reissue was currated by Down Home Radio friend Nathan Salsburg over at the Alan Lomax Archive/Association for Cultural Equity.  For more information, check out the blog entry at Root Hog Or Die, and be sure to check out Nathan’s awesome online radio show of the same name at EastVillageRadio.com.

Here’s a bit of what Nathan had to say about the reissue.  Read more on his blog entry at RootHogOrDie.com

“Without delving into the twists and turns of the most highly specialized folkloric record business or indulging in musings about its current strange renaissance and the stranger counter-cultural moment from whence it comes, I’m pleased to say that the season of my tenth year with Alan Lomax’s archive also marks the release of five new LPs commemorating Lomax’s most famous field-recording trip: what he called his “Southern Journey” of 1959 and 1960. Production for a commemorative series began exactly a year ago, after I met Eric Isaacson of Portland, Oregon’s Mississippi Records – one of the principals in the unlikely vanguard of the vernacular music LP resurgence – at a panel discussion put on as part of Asheville’s fine Harvest Records’ fifth anniversary festival. While Harvest was turning five, the Southern Journey turned 50, yet there was not a whisper regarding it anywhere (outside of a season-long tribute series in Belgium, put on by the noble Herman Hulsens and the Ancienne Belgique). Adding insult to injury was the fact that not a single release of Southern Journey material was currently in print…” READ MORE

[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…

Here is a brief excerpt from the film “Homemade American Music” made by Carrie and Yasha Aginsky in 1980, featuring Mike Seeger and Alice Gerrard as they pay a visit to Roscoe Holcomb.   This film follows Mike and Alice as they visit Tommy Jarrell, Lily May Ledford, Roscoe Holcomb and Elizabeth Cotten and recount their own history as musicians and students of the music.

The complete 40 minute film is available for viewing at: http://www.folkstreams.net/film,153

This incredible incredible website features literally dozens of amazing folkloric documentary films, mostly on music but also on other folk art forms.  It is worth it to watch everyone of these films- visit www.FolkStreams.net today!

Eli here, you’re trusty Down Home Radio host.  When I’m not on DHR playing records and recording interviews, I’m keeping busy by making records of my own! Here’s an album my friend Peter and I did recently.  We asked ourselves, “can two banjo players play together?”  After some experimentation we were able to answer, “yes!”  Here’s a big ad for our new album:

“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.

Track List:
(click tune to hear audio samples)

1. The Worried Blues
2. Jesse James
3. Soldier’s Joy
4. Goodbye Booze
5. John Henry
6. Otto Wood the Bandit
7. Marching Jaybird
8. Sweet Betsy from Pike
9. What a Friend We Have in Jesus
10. Poor Boy Long Way from Home
11. Ever See the Devil Uncle Joe?
12. New Prisoner’s Song

To Order:

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

About the Musicians:

These are Peter K. Siegel’s first recorded banjo performances since he played on Elektra’s Old Time Banjo Project in 1964. Says Siegel: “You play this thing long enough, it begins to sound pretty good.”

In the interim, he produced more than 60 albums of traditional and roots-based music. Peter’s productions include albums by Doc Watson, Hazel Dickens, Joseph Spence, Roy Buchanan, Paul Siebel, and Los Pleneros de la 21.

Siegel founded the Nonesuch Explorer Series, for which he produced 15 albums of traditional world music. Folk Roots (UK) called Siegel “one of the earliest shapers of interest in world music.” His Gorô Yamaguchi album, A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky, continues to make its way spaceward in NASA’s Voyager Time Capsule.

His recent three-CD boxed set Friends of Old Time Music was released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. The New York Times called the set “a boxed set of awesome and concentrated power” and The Boston Globe called it “a precious, wildly beautiful document.”

Eli Smith is a banjo player, writer, researcher and promoter of folk music living in New York City. He regularly plays in a string band known as The Dust Busters, as part of the Roots ‘n’ Ruckus show at the Jalopy Theater and hosts the internet radio show Down Home Radio. He also presents Down Home Live, every second Saturday of the month at Banjo Jim’s on the Lower East Side as well as the Brooklyn Folk Festival, scheduled for May 21-23rd, 2010.

Here’s some preview tracks from the new Tompkins Square Records release, “Fire In My Bones,” a really amazing gospel compilation.

1. Don’t Let Him Ride – Mississippi Nightingales

2. Storm Thru Mississippi – Henry Green

3. How Long – Sister Ola Mae Terrell

Don't Let Him Ride Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Storm Thu Mississippi Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

How Long Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Check out the Village Voice for a nice write up of Down Home Radio.  DHR won in the “Best Way to Compensate for the Lack of Roots-Music Radio” category.

“Everyone complains about how the local airwaves suck, but instead of bitching, you should go online to find a Gotham-based program that actually has good roots music—the podcast-formatted Down Home Radio Show…“

Here’s the rest of what they wrote.

Plus, the Jalopy Theater won in the “Best Old-Timey Venue” category!

What follows is a review of the book, “American Folk Music & Left-Wing Politics 1927-1957″ by Richard A. Reuss and completed after his death by JoAnne C. Reuss. This is an awesome book, the best book on the subject. I discovered it while doing research in my college library, I found it in its pre-book form, as Richard Reuss’ doctoral dissertation (unindexed!) and then to my delight discovered it had recently been published. This book is remarkably lucid, the stuff he says makes sense (as opposed to many other books that try to deal with music and politics, which do not make sense). Reuss was a gifted researcher and in the course of reading the book you realize that he has uncovered and written down the real interactions that characterize the relationship between the musicians in the scene and political events that played out in more or less the Popular Front period surrounding World War ll. This was certainly a seminal time, making possible the careers of many great artists including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Leadbelly (as well Henrietta Yurchenco). This excellent book review was done by Mat Callahan, author of another great book on music and politics called, “The Trouble with Music.”

- Eli Smith (Host- Down Home Radio, etc.)

Book Review by Mat Callahan, musician and author of the book, “The Trouble with Music.”

American Folk Music & Left-Wing Politics: 1927-1957
Richard A. Reuss with JoAnne C. Reuss

Richard A. Reuss came to folklore studies by way of his interest in music. He led a folksinging group while a counselor at summer camp and as an undergraduate student at Ohio Wesleyan University. He earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1971. He taught at Wayne State University in Detroit, broadening his studies to labor lore and music. (more…)

“Been returning recently to one of the more intense and affecting albums I’ve experienced in my short life of trouble: recordings made by Bruce Jackson in 1965 at Texas’s Ramsey Prison Farm (now the Ramsey Unit) of a fellow named Johnnie B., or J. B., Smith. The record was released in 1966 on John Fahey’s Takoma label, and is as far as I can tell the only LP devoted to a single unaccompanied singer of prison work-song (or field hollers, if you prefer). Not only that: the LP, “Ever Since I Have Been A Man Full Grown,” devotes nearly all of its second side to a composition of Smith’s of that same name, a 24-minute opus drawing on imagery and lyrics most fans of African American work songs, hollers, and blues will find familiar, but strung together and performed with an artistry and delivery both unsettling and incredibly moving.” – Nathan Salsburg , excerpt from his entry on the Root Hog or Die blog.

I was first made aware of this record, and its incredible title track, by Nathan Salsburg, host of the fantastic internet radio show Root Hog or Die. I listened to the record and was blown away. Then Nathan played it again on his show last week and I realized the gravity of the situation and that I had to jump on this bandwagon and post the album on my site as well. This song, “Ever Since I Have Been A Man Full Grown,” is a masterpiece, it draws together moving lines and imagery from all across the spectrum of folk music. Smith’s performance is apparently completely relaxed and masterful. Give this 24 minute song the time it deserves. Listen closely or intermittently, or both as it bears many repeat listenings.

This record was digitized and is available for download on the Magic of Juju blog.

Click Here To Download the Record directly!

Bruce Jackson, the folklorist who made this field recording is currently a distinguished professor of American Culture at State University of New York at Buffalo and edits the online journal The Buffalo Report, mostly covering politics but also some cultural stuff. He mentioned Down Home Radio last year when Henrietta and I rebroadcast the program she produced on WNYC back in 1940 featuring Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. In 1966 Bruce Jackson, together with Pete, Toshi and Dan Seeger made a film called “Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison.” An incredible film, you can watch it for free on your computer at FolkStreams.net. Bruce Jackson continues to do great work, definitely check him out. (more…)