down home radio show

 

 Interview with Ken Waldman: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On this week’s show I talk with Ken Waldman - Alaska’s Fiddling Poet. I interviewed him last Friday while sitting on stage at the Jalopy Theater in Brooklyn, just prior to his show there that night. Ken is an ex-college English professor who taught via telephone to Inuit villagers on the Aleutian Islands that stretch between mainland Alaska and Russia in the Bering Sea. He now tours the country constantly, reciting his poetry and playing his fiddle. Ken has played everywhere from the Kennedy Center to nightclubs to small independent bookstores. He is celebrating the release of a new prose book, a memoir called “Are You Famous?” and a new double CD of his own fiddle tune compositions called “55 Tunes, 5 Poems.” Great stuff!

 

 Martin Carthy Radio Show Jan - Feb 1994: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Martin Carthy Radio Show Feb - March 1994: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Back in 1994 British folk musician and scholar Martin Carthy hosted a series of 6 radio broadcasts on the BBC 2 station. I recently got my hands on cassette tapes of these broadcasts, and they’re awesome! He did a really good job- plays some amazing music. I digitized the tapes, and here they are. The first tape is programs 1-3, Jan-Feb 1994 and the second is programs 3-6, Feb-March. You will notice in the middle of each tape it cuts off and then cuts back in, that’s where the tape side switches. I really recommend these shows, fun to listen to.

Enjoy!

 

 Interview with Hubby Jenkins: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On today’s show I speak with Hubby Jenkins, a great young blues musician and songwriter from New York. Hubby (short for Hubert) is 22 and has been playing old blues and folk music for about 5 years. He’s doing great stuff with the old material and writing great new songs as well! He plays live in the studio, talks about his background, the current state of affairs for folk musicians in NYC, and plays a bunch of his favorite records.

Hubby plays as part of the Roots ‘n’ Ruckus music collective down at the Jalopy Theater every Wednesday, and also plays many other gigs through out the city, the North East, and everywhere in his ramblings throughout the country.

Links: (more…)

 

 Interview with Baby Gramps: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On today’s show I interview blues/jazz/country/everything musician Baby Gramps. Gramps was in NYC on tour from the West coast. I ran into him at the Jalopy Theater and we arranged to meet for an interview the next day at Zebulon, another Brooklyn club where he was playing a show. This interview takes place out on the street. We talk about his early days back in the 60’s hanging out with Furry Lewis, Jesse Fuller and Elizabeth Cotton, hunting for old 78’s at the “Starvation Army,” hear some old records he was influenced by and play a bunch of tracks from his excellent new CD, “Baptized on Swamp Water.”

See below for links associated with today’s program: (more…)

 

 Interview with Dan Patterson: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On this episode of Down Home Radio, Eli interviews his own roommate, Dan Patterson. Dan is a reporter for the Talk Radio News Service and is an expert on the medium of Podcasting and “Social Media” in general. He hosts his own awesome podcast, The Creepy Sleepy Show - “Independent Music, Independent Politics,” featuring his own amazing reporting from his recent trip to Darfur as well as his on site reporting on the massive flooding in his own home state of Iowa. On today’s show Dan and Eli sit around their apartment, smoke a hookah and discuss the medium of Podcasting itself, its history and its future!

 

 Interview with the East River Strings Band: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week Eli interviews Eden Brower and John Heneghan- The East River String Band about their new CD/LP “Some Cold Rainy Day,” with artwork by R. Crumb. They play some cuts from the new record, and also delve into John’s extensive collection of rare 78 RPM records, playing a bunch of un-reissued records you won’t hear anywhere else!

The East River String Band will be playing this Saturday night, June 14th at my Down Home Live show at Banjo Jim’s on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. No Cover! Come and check it out, should be a great show.

Links: (more…)

 

 Interview with Willy Gantrim: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week I’ll speak with New York based blues/country musician and songwriter Willy Gantrim. We both play as part of the Roots ‘n’ Ruckus music collective, every Wednesday at the Jalopy Theater in Redhook, Brooklyn. Willy’s been writing great songs, and has just returned to New York from New Orleans, where he spent the winter busking as well as playing shows. We had a good interview about his background, and Willy plays some blues and originals live on the air! (more…)

 

 Best of LPs vol. 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hello everybody- well for the past couple months pretty much all I’ve been doing here is digitizing and posting up old out of print LPs from my collection, for what has been known as Down Home Radio’s “Awesome Out of Print Records” series. I’m gonna be doing that in fits and starts from here on out, but I think I’m gonna call this first round complete and start back producing regular episodes of Down Home Radio. I’ve got a lot of good interviews waiting to come out!

On this show I have put together a play list of a bunch of my favorite tracks drawn from all the records I’ve posted up. It was hard to choose which tracks to play, because there are so many great ones on these albums! This show serves as a sampler, and you can go back and download all the records and listen to them in their entirety!

Track list for today’s episode: (more…)

 

 Interview with Art Bailey: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Orkestra Popilar Live at Banjo Jim's Dec. 5th '08: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s show is an interview with Art Bailey of the New York based Klezmer band Orkestra Popilar. The show features recordings by Orkestra Popilar as well as early Klezmer source recordings by the great Romanian cymbalom (hammer dulcimer) player Joseph Moskowitz which have been a large part of the inspiration for Orkestra Popilar’s music.

Art Bailey’s Orkestra Popilar - See above for a live recording of them from Banjo Jim’s Dec. 5th, 2008 (more…)

 

 African Roots of the Banjo: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Complete tape of field recordings of akonting music: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On today’s show Eli attempts to demonstrate and explicate the real links between African & African-American music.

The show features a direct comparison of African akonting music to African-American banjo music followed by an interview with Daniel Jatta, music researcher of the Jola tribe from Senegambia. In the interview Daniel plays Jola songs on the akonting, and gives a description of his research into the instrument and its clear connection to the African-American banjo. He also discusses the cultural center he has founded in Gambia to preserve and promote Jola culture and other traditional cultures of the region. This group in Africa has retained a musical culture closest to that which arrived with slaves brought to America from that region hundreds of years ago.

Included above is also a complete 46 min tape of field recordings of akonting music sent in by Daniel Jatta.

(L) Anonymous folk painting. South Carolina, c. 1790. One of the oldest depictions of an early gourd banjo in America. (R) Master akonting player Jules Ekona Jatta with drums and percussion, Mandinary, Gambia 2003.

Daniel Jatta and the Jola akonting:

Daniel is doing real amazing work. For years American researchers have tried to trace “the roots of the blues” back to Africa, with little real success. African America music is just not that much like any African music that they could discover. Daniel’s research into the music of his tribe, the Jola, really presents the most direct link between African and African-American music that is known. The instrument that he learned from his father, the akonting, is obviously banjo like in its construcion and its playing technique is identical to that used by elder African-American banjo players here in the USA. (more…)