Ernest V. Stoneman: A Rare Find!

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Ernest V. Stoneman LP Front by you.

Here’s an LP from Ernest V. Stoneman, “The Unsung Father of Country Music.” Stoneman made records starting in 1924 through the end of his life in 1968.  These recordings were made near the end of Stoneman’s life and were lost until a decade after his death.  This excellent record, released by Stoneman’s daughter, came out in the early 1980’s.  It features Stoneman solo, singing old-time gospel and spirituals and playing the autoharp.

Ernest Stoneman was a very prolific recording artist, recording in a number of different combinations over his long career.  During the years 1925 through 1929 Stoneman recorded more than 200 songs. He played the guitar, autoharp, harmonica, banjo, and jew’s harp, and also served as an A&R man.  He was responsible for arranging the Victor Records recording sessions for Ralph Peer in Bristol, TN in 1927 where Jimmie Rodgers, The Carter Family, Alfred G. Karnes and many other amazing old time musicians made their debut recordings.

Click Here to download Lp cut up into tracks.

See below for liner notes and track information:

Tompkins Square Records’ new release- “I’m Going Down to North Carolina”

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red fox chasers

On today’s show I speak with Josh Rosenthal, the founder of the New York based Tompkins Square Records.  This is  a great record company that has been putting out really interesting CDs, Lps and 45s over the last few years.  There latest is “I’m Going Back to North Carolina: The Complete Recordings of the Red Fox Chasers [1928-31].” Its a wonderful 2 disc set remastered by Chris King who made the old records sound real good!  The Red Fox Chasers are a classic era old-time string band that I hadn’t really checked out before.  Turns out they’re great!  On today’s show we draw from that set as well as a number of other Tompkins Square releases, the brand new soon to be released Frank Fairfield self-titled album, the Cd of 100 year old amazing recordings by Polk Miller and His Old South Quartette, Spencer Moore, Charlie Louvin and more!

I will be hosting two CD release events for the “I’m Going Back to North Carolina” album, one in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn.  The Manhattan event is Sat. Sept 12th and Banjo Jim’s on the Lower East Side and will feature The East River String Band, The Whistling Wolves, and Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders playing with my band The Dust Busters.  The Brooklyn show will be held at the Jalopy Theater on Thursday Sept. 17th and will feature Dom Flemons of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Strung Out String Band and Peter Stampfel with the Dust Busters.  Gonna be great shows!  Hope to see you there if yer in the New York area.

The Dust Busters on WFHB 98.1FM- Bloomington, IN

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IMG_3272_0098 by nixellany.
While on tour in early August, my old-time string band The Dust Busters made our first radio appearance.  Here we are on Mike Kelsey’s program on WFHB 98.1FM, community radio in Bloomington, IN.  We play live, talk with Mike and promote the show we played in Bloomington that night.  It was a great tour!  Met a lot of really great people (many thanks to all those that put us up, fed us and helped us out along the way), played a lot of music and got quality time in the car!

A Walk Around Clifftop 2009

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I went down to the Clifftop Appalachian String Band Festival just a couple of weeks ago with my band The Dust Busters. We had a great time, met and played with a million different people and played a set on Saturday afternoon with our friends John Cohen and Tracy Schwarz of the New Lost City Ramblers.  The old-time music never stops at Camp Washington-Carver in Clifftop, West Virginia, so about midnight on Saturday I broke out my field recording device and made a round of the different campsite jam sessions that were in full swing.

This broadcast is a just a straight 45 minute recording of my midnight wanderings through the grounds of Clifftop.  I walked from one great group of musicians to the next in rapid succession.  Each campsite had its own huddle of musicians playing fiddles, banjos, guitars, doghouse basses, harmonicas and singing away at the old-time tunes- no matter which direction I turned, it was hard to go wrong!
Jammin' by blueathena7.

Mike Seeger (1933-2009)

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[Mike Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival 1966]

With sadness we mark the passing of one of the real true greats of American music in the last half century.  Mike Seeger was a master of the banjo, guitar, fiddle, autoharp, mouth harp, jew’s harp, quills, mandolin and essentially any instrument he laid his hands on as well as being a great singer.  He died at his home in Virginia on Friday after a long battle with cancer, he was 75. 

I’m writing from the road, out on tour with my old-time string band.  We’re here in Cincinatti, OH today, listening to Mike’s “Second Annual Farewell Reunion” album, a wonderful record he did with a number of friends back in 1973 and remembering this man who brought us so much amazing music both as a member of the New Lost City Ramblers, a solo performer and  as a promoter/field worker.  Mike Seeger’s influence on American music is untold.  He was an inspiration to nearly everyone involved in the field of traditional music in this country for the past 50 years and consistently brought to light amazing songs, musicians, musical styles and histories which we might otherwise never have heard about.  Although he had cancer for a number of years his final passing was quick and he left the world still busy performing and documenting the music that he loved.

I’m reposting here an interview I did with Mike Seeger back in 2003 and first posted on DHR back in 2008.  It was my first real radio interview!  Also included (the 2nd play button) is a recording of the live set that Mike played when I booked him at the Oberlin College Folk Festival in 2003.  Below are links to a lot more information about Mike Seeger and his work.

Here is a link to a nice obituary and rememberance done by Mike’s friend and fellow musician Paul Brown for NPR

Obit from Mike’s local newspaper

Mike Seeger. Photo by Ron Pen

Reposted from 2008:
This week I’ll be drawing from my “archives” for an interview with Mike Seeger, multi-instrumentalist, field-recordist, record producer and 1/3 of the New Lost City Ramblers. This interview is from a tape of one of my old radio shows from college. It was conducted in May 0f 2003 at WOBC, the radio station of Oberlin College in Ohio. This was my first real radio interview! I had booked Mike to come and play at the Oberlin Folk Festival and while in town he appeared on the weekly radio show I hosted with my friend Jacob Groopman. We talk about his parents Ruth Crawford and Charles Seeger, Elizabeth Cotton, Dock Boggs, Josh Thomas, Henry Thomas, Alan Lomax, the current state of folk music and more, and Mike plays some gourd banjo and jaw harp live on the air.

Included above are the interview with Mike, and a recording of his appearance at the Oberlin College Folk Festival, May 2003.
Special thanks to Tom Reid of Oberlin College for providing the live recording of Mike Seeger at the Oberlin Folk Festival.

Links:

Interview with Æ

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On today’s show I speak with Aurelia Shrenker and Eva Primack, amazing singers and ex-UCLA enthnomusicology students who have relocated to New York and together form the singing duet “Æ.” They do a wonderful and unprecedented mix of songs from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, mixed and mashed with ballads from the American South.  A & E sing together in a capella arrangements and also accompany themselves on accordion and panduri, a 3-string lute from the Republic of Georgia.  Because of their wonderful voices, good approach and depth of knowledge, it works really well.
Tamar Korn, the singer with the Cangelosi Cards told me I had to come down to Barbes, a club in Brooklyn to hear Æ, so I went not knowing at all what to expect.  They were great!  I caught up with them a few days later to record this interview before they left for a West Coast tour.

Check out their website for tour dates:

More info on the band bellow (from their press release):
Æ (Aurelia Lucy Shrenker and Eva Salina Primack) has been performing as a duo for a year.  Aurelia and Eva have performed together in Europe, New York, and California and are finishing up their debut CD!  The two women bring together a deep knowledge of different vocal traditions, and create something new and daring with each song they sing together. They have chosen the name Æ (the joined a and e, officially pronounced “ash”) because it represents something of a dual nature–not singular, not plural, but exactly two.  They primarily perform a cappella but enjoy accompanying themselves on mountain dulcimer, accordion, and Georgian panduri.  In addition to their upcoming CD, Æ recently contributed to the soundtrack of “The Great Soviet Eclipse”, the newest film produced under the auspices of the Museum of Jurassic Technology and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Information (www.mjt.org). Æ’s work is rooted in folk culture and never falls short of being visceral and provocative–in their music, the exuberance of youth and the reverence of ancient tradition coincide.

Banjo Workshop with John Cohen

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Banjo Tunings and Styles Workshop with John Cohen

Here’s the first bit of audio I’m posting from the Brooklyn Folk Festival – John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers leads a banjo workshop focusing on different tunings and styles used by a number of banjo players he has learned from either directly or studied through their old recordings.  Banjo player Wade Ward describes tunings as “different atmospheres.”  Each banjo tuning carries its own set of possibilities and its own feeling.  In 1965 John Cohen encountered Ward and many other banjo players as he journeyed through the South finding musicians, making field recordings, discovering banjo tunings and lots more along the way.  Many of these field recordings were released on his wonderful album “High Atmosphere”. John discusses and demonstrates these many styles, sounds and techniques in this workshop from May, 17th, 2009.

The first play button plays a banjo music mix tape of all the original recordings of songs John covers in this workshop.  The second play button plays the audio of the workshop itself.  This is for banjo players only! (Unless you’re really interested)


John begins with a bit of Pete Seeger up picking, then a bit of frailing and thumb lead 2-finger picking, then more up picking (the same rhythm as clawhammer but picking up instead of hitting down on the string), Charlie Poole style finger picking banjo, Bascom Lamar Lunsford / George Landers style up picking (the workshop focuses a lot on this style, where in the first finger picks the melody and also then brushes up over the strings and the thumb picks the fifth string and drops down to some of the other strings.  There are no downward motions in this style.)  Sydna Myers style clawhammer, Dock Boggs finger picking and finally Pete Steele finger picking

Links:
Film about John Cohen on FolkStreams.net: Remembering the High Lonesome
Down Home Radio Rufus Crisp Feature Episode – playing recordings of Crisp, a banjo player very influential to John Cohen and the early folk music scene in New York.

Tunes included in the workshop:

Art Rosenbaum & Al Murphy LP 1972

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Apparently this album is still in print and I was asked to take it down.  Oh well, great album.  But it is available for download on iTunes.

Art Rosenbaum & Al Murphy LP front by you.

Here’s a wonderful LP from Art Rosenbaum (banjo) & Al Murphy (fiddle).  Art Rosenbaum has recently been issuing his fantastic field recordings on the “Art of Field Recording” series from Dust to Digital records.  Art Rosenbaum is a musician, field-recordist, painter and professor of painting at the University of Georgia.
Art of Field Recording: Volume I

“Art Rosenbaum likes his music to have roots. ‘As a kid I listened to labor union songs, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger and the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music,’ said the UGA art professor and self-taught folk musician. ‘Fairly early on I realized the most exciting music was that music developed in a style and passed on to the next generation.’

While living in New York City, he and a friend John Cohen, the filmmaker and Beat generation photographer, thought pop music ‘was kind of bland.’ So they and their like-minded friends organized concerts of traditional and folk music. Rosenbaum and Cohen began collecting folk music in the field. In his home state of Indiana Rosenbaum rediscovered blues guitarist Scrapper Blackwell and recorded fiddler John W. Summers.” (This text from below website)

For more information about Art and to view his awesome paintings, check out: www.artrosenbaum.org

“Al Murphy is eastern Iowa’s premier fiddler. He has been playing since he was a teenager, influenced by his Uncle Leo, who was a fine old time fiddle player. Named four times as a Master Artist for the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program, Alan continues to pass his skills and knowledge along to younger players.” (This text from www.iowaartscouncil.org)

See below for track info and complete 5 page liner notes in PDF format:

The Brooklyn Folk Festival: May 15th-17th

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Thanks to everybody who made the festival such a big success.  See ya next year!

(Look out for audio, pictures and video from the festival coming up real soon here on DHR)

Brooklyn Folk Festival Logo by you.

Friday, May 15th thru Sunday, May 17th at the Jalopy Theater.

Down Home Radio is proud to announce the 1st 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, African folk music and Mexican folk music and dance.  Come down and check it out, its gonna be fun!

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

$10 Per Day or $25 for 3 days – Afternoon Workshop Included!