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
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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:
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.
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!
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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!
[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.
Obit from Mike’s local newspaper
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:
On today’s show I speak with The Tillers, an excellent 3 piece string band on tour from Cincinnati, Ohio. The Tillers were in New York over the weekend where they played at my “Down Home Live” show that I host every month at Banjo Jim’s on the Lower East Side. We met on Saturday afternoon at the Music Inn, the great old instrument and record shop on W. 4th St. and recorded this interview there in the basement.
The Tillers are Michael Oberst, Sean Geil & Jason Soudrette. Mike and Jason started out playing punk music, but in the past couple of years have begun playing old-time music – and have been particularly inpsired by Woody Guthrie. They do a number of songs that Woody Guthrie & Cisco Houston did together, and do them very well! I recorded their set at my “Down Home Live” show on Saturday night and play cuts from that, as well as from the Tillers’ studio album on today’s show. The Tillers also play some of their favorite records, both current favorites and old standbyes.
The Tillers’ CD, “Ludlow Street Rag” on the Chestnut Tree Records label is availale at: http://www.chestnuttreerecords.com .
Eli with the Tillers outside of the Music Inn on W. 4th St. in Greenwhich Village where this interview was conducted.
Last December, Down Home Radio co-founder Henrietta Yurchenco passed away at the age of 91. I met her when she was 89 and we had a great time doing this show together and generally hanging out in the last 2 years of her life. She was a tremendously accomplished person who over a very long career left an amazing musical and historical legacy, some of which has been preserved for us to hear. For a short history of her carreer read my essay, her obituary from the New York Times, her excellent autobiography, or visit her website.
Starting now I will begin to bring out some of the things from her archives which I have or can get my hands on. In this entry I am re-posting a very remarkable show we did in January of ’07, airing a radio show Henrietta produced for WNYC in 1940 at the beginning of her career – It was Leadbelly’s show, and that week the guest was Woody Guthrie. This amazing show was recorded in excellent quality, preserved and found by the archivist at WNYC! We re-aired it together with Henrietta’s comentary 67 years later. So look out for more excellent material from the Yurchenco archives, as well as all the shows we hosted here on Down Home Radio.
This week Henrietta and Eli discuss outlaw ballads and how criminals are transformed into popular heroes. In conjunction with that and of extra special interest, they rebroadcast a show Henrietta produced for WNYC radio back in 1940. It is Leadbelly’s show and he has as his guest, Woody Guthrie. This program has not been heard since it was first broadcast 67 years ago! Down Home would like to thank WNYC and archivist Andy Lanset for providing us with this rare material.
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!
While looking through my record collection the other day, I realized that this had to be the next addition to the Down Home “Awesome Out-of-Print Records” series. This record is awesome. I first heard it coming over the PA before a show my band was playing at the Palace of Culture in Warsaw, Poland in 2004! All I heard that day was Big Bill’s version of “The Glory of Love,” but I was blown away. Eventually I found out that it was from this record and tracked down a copy. What a revelation. This is possibly my favorite Big Bill. Maybe that’s because his set at this live show is kind of a greatest hits of folk music, so he does a bunch of favorites. But he does them so well! There’s great versions of songs you might not think he had covered like “Take This Hammer,” “Midnight Special,” “I Get the Blues When It Rains,” and even “Sixteen Tons”!
See below for notes from the back of the record and more track information.
