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Author: Eli Smith

Interview with Æ

June 16, 2009 by Eli Smith 1 Comment

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:
www.myspace.com/aesings

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.
Posted in: Reviews, Shows Tagged: accordion, aurelia, balkan music, ballads, eva, georgian music, panduri, Æ

Banjo Workshop with John Cohen

June 9, 2009 by Eli Smith 6 Comments

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:

Posted in: Live Recordings, Other, Shows Tagged: Banjo, Brooklyn Folk Festival, charlie poole, gaither carlton, high atmosphere, Jalopy, John Cohen, lesson, New Lost City Ramblers, old time, sydna myers, workshop

Art Rosenbaum & Al Murphy LP 1972

May 29, 2009 by Eli Smith 5 Comments

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:

Posted in: Articles, Out of Print Records Tagged: Al Murphy, Art of Field Recording, Art Rosenbaum, Banjo, fiddle, indiana, iowa, lp, meadowlands, old time

The Brooklyn Folk Festival: May 15th-17th

May 9, 2009 by Eli Smith Leave a Comment

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!

Posted in: Other Tagged: Blues, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Folk Festival, Folk Music, Jalopy, old time, Roots n Ruckus

Pete Seeger Turns 90, Happy Birthday!

May 2, 2009 by Eli Smith 2 Comments

http://www.dionphoto.com/New/fullsize/PeteSeeger97copy_fs.jpg

On today’s show we honor Pete Seeger on his 90th birthday.  Pete Seeger is a man who in his person has been an incredible force in American music and social movements, both as a performer and as an organizer and well spring of good ideas.   He has been literally everywhere for so many many years, singing, playing and inspiring people around this country and around the world to sing, play guitars and banjos and take part in the social struggles that define their history.  Pete has an off the charts level of talent as a singer, song leader, banjo and guitar player, performer, songwriter, song adapter and folk music popularizer.  He’s also probably the oldest person to ever make a comeback, having won a grammy and played at the Obama inauguration concert.  Pete Seeger is impossible to keep down, I was talking with some people recently and we were recalling that even when Pete was blacklisted in the 50’s the upshot of that was that he started playing for kids at schools and summer camps and thereby played a large part in inspiring the folk music boom of the 1960’s when those kids grew up.  I was at a reunion of people who used to gather to play folk music in Washington Square park back in the 50’s and 60’s here in New York City and I recorded a bunch of short interviews with these folk musicians remembering encounters with Pete Seeger.  So many musicians and lovers of folk music from that generation remember encounters with Pete Seeger that changed their lives.  So on today’s show we’ll hear a bunch of my favorite Pete Seeger songs along with a selection of interviews with people that Pete inspired.

Click Here to listen to the Down Home Radio Interview with Pete Seeger from Oct. ’07

Also included here are the A sides of two obscure Pete Seeger albums available at Smithsonian Global Sound .

Click the 2nd play button above and you will hear:
9640
FW03864_201
Studs Terkel’s Weekly Almanac: Radio Programme, No. 4: Folk Music and Blues featuring Pete Seeger and Big Bill Broonzy, 1956. 170
Love You Baby/Hush-A-Bye /Crawdad Song / John Henry/ Bach, J.S. – Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring /Lonesome Valley/You Got To Stand in Judgement /The Midnight Special
followed by:
FW05702_101
Pete Seeger Sings and Answers Questions, 1968.

Opinions and Social Justice / Backgrounds to Social Songs in Europe and the USA / Social Songs from the Colonial Times to Today / Songs of the Immigrants

The 3rd play button in this post: Carly Nix interviews Eleanor Walden, organizer of a grassroots campaign to get Pete Seeger nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize via an online petition.  This is the first grassroots attempts to get someone nominated for the Nobel Prize.  Walden also talks about her personal experiences with the Greenwich Village sings, the People’s Songs Collective and the Folk Revival scene and social activism.


Here’s a film, “To Hear Your Banjo Play” from 1947, produced by Alan Lomax and featuring a young Pete Seeger as the narrator.

Posted in: Shows Tagged: 90th birthday, Banjo, Folkways, nobel prize campaign, Pete Seeger

Tribute to Archie Green (1917-2009) & Work’s Many Voices LPs

April 28, 2009 by Eli Smith Leave a Comment

Archie Green and posters
In this posting we pay tribute to Archie Green, the great scholar of laborlore (the study of the expressive culture of working people) who passed away in March at the age of 91.  Included here are his now out of print LPs “Work’s Many Voices” volumes 1 & 2 – a selection of labor related songs drawn from Archie’s collection of rare 45 rpm singles.  These songs span the years 1950-1985 and cover a number of musical styles including country, blues, Mexican corridos, Cajun and polka. To hear the 1st volume in its entirety, click the top play button.  Click here for the track list.

Work's Many Voices by you. Work's Many Voices by you.
Click here to Download Work’s Many Voices Vol. 1

Click here to Download Work’s Many Voices Vol. 2

Also posted here is a selection from Nathan Salsburg’s Root Hog or Die radio program, originally aired on East Village Radio, paying tribute to Archie by playing a bunch of recordings that were influential to him and that he loved.

Back in December I did a long (all afternoon long, he loved to talk) interview with Archie at his home in San Francisco.  It was a great conversation and there’s probably material in there for several episodes of DHR, so look out for that in the coming months.

Selections from Mother Jones, The New York Times and The Daily Yonder obituaries:

“Archie Green, a shipwright turned folklorist whose interest in union workers and their culture transformed the study of American folklore and who single-handedly persuaded Congress to create the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, died last Sunday at his home in San Francisco. He was 91… (NY Times)“

Posted in: Articles, Out of Print Records, Shows Tagged: archie green, john edwards memorial foundation, laborlore, songs about work, work songs, work's many voices

Interview with Jessy Carolina

April 21, 2009 by Eli Smith 4 Comments

On today’s show I speak with New York folk singer and song writer Jessy Carolina.  Originally from Venezuela, Jessy grew up in North Dakota and later New York City.  She sings a lot of early blues songs, old-time and folk songs, Woody Guthrie songs and writes her own songs. We recorded this interview in a park in New Orleans when we were both down there back in February, busking on Royal street and escaping the New York winter.  Jessy plays live on the show, talks about her background, the trip down South and life busking in NOLA.  I also play some live recordings that I made of Jessy at the Jalopy Theater in Redhook, Brooklyn.

Jessy will be performing, along with 20 other great acts, at the upcoming Brooklyn Folk Festival, which will be held at Jalopy the weekend of May 15th -17th.  Its gonna be fun!  Check out www.BrooklynFolkFest.com for details.

Jessy Carolina sings “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie,” by Elizabeth Cotten on the streets of New Orleans, Feb. 2009.

Posted in: Shows Tagged: Blues, busking, folk, Jessy Carolina, New Orleans, Roots n Ruckus

True Story of Abner Jay – Mississippi Records

April 8, 2009 by Eli Smith 5 Comments

Abner Jay, Mississippi Records by you.

On today’s show I speak with Eric Isaacson, founder of Mississippi Records & owner of the record store by the same name, located on Mississippi Ave. in Portland, OR.  Mississippi Records has been releasing some really amazing music, compilations of old 78s which are really well chosen and programmed as well as more modern recordings of vernacular music, a lot of gospel and blues stuff. They are committed to releasing their music on vinyl LPs, but occasionally they do small releases of cassette tapes.  Whoever is responsible for the artwork on their record jackets should be commended, they’re really great.

On today’s show we will hear a selection of cuts drawn from various MS Records releases, and then we’ll feature, in fact hear the whole A side of their new release, “True Story of Abner Jay.”  This is an amazing record of Abner Jay a one man band and song writer from around Atlanta, GA who passed away in 1993 and had apparently been actively playing since the 1930’s.  He has a deep style that is related in some amazing way to Bob Dylan’s music, but is really its own and operating on a number of levels.  He plays the guitar or 6-string electric banjo, harmonica and bass drum and high hat with his feet.  See below for a video of him.

Mississippi Records by you.
Some MS Records releases featured on today’s program

Fuck Your "Progress" in Portland, OR 7-14-7 by xXxBrianxXx.

See below for the back of the Abner Jay record, notes, etc…

Posted in: Shows Tagged: Abner Jay, I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore, Last Kind Words, Life Is A Problem, Lipa Kodi Ya City Council, Mississippi Records

…A Country Mule Ready to Kick a Hole Into the Future…

April 3, 2009 by Eli Smith 2 Comments

Vinyl http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/TypewriterRem1924.jpghttp://www.freytag-grafik.de/kameras-Dateien/rolleiflex-1954-1956-HPIM1347.jpg

“…a country mule ready to kick a hole into the future…” – Alan Lomax

Vinyl LP records are back. A lot of people I know own typewriters.  Many musicians, photographers and other artists record their work analogue and then transfer it to digital later for distribution.  Examples include musicians recording to old fashioned tape machines and photographers using various film cameras, working in the darkroom and then digitally scanning their work.  What does this mean?  Why do people continue to use obsolete forms of technology?  The answer that I’ve often heard when discussing this with people is that these technologies still work well, they still exist and are in fact better suited to certain uses and forms of expression than more recent inventions.  I will try to summarize here some of the ideas I’ve heard knocked around lately plus add in some of my own thoughts that I’ve hatched while trying to write this article!

There is a dual relationship developing between the physical world and the digital world.  People obviously want to go into the digital world, but they want to leave it too, out of a pure physical and psychological need to see, hear and touch something plain and simple.  On a personal level and on a cultural level people are also judiciously considering their notions of technological progress.  Practically speaking, through a process of trial and error, they are finding out what forms of technology work best in different situations.

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/sound-editing-4.jpg http://goholga.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/spool.jpg

Digital: Looking at information on a computer screen, or even typing in album titles, pressing play and listening to music on a computer – all of this is like looking through the glass at a diorama in a museum, with the feeling that if you stepped through the glass it would all come alive.

What’s the difference between digital music in a computer and a vinyl record with its sleeve?  I think that CDs will eventually die out, and in the short term will be used mostly to transport music from a vendor to one’s computer.  Most people will get and listen to their recorded music digitally, and some smaller number of people will gravitate towards vinyl records.  These people will use digital music to some lesser and practical extent, such as when traveling, listening to internet radio or to something unavailable on LP.  For myself, if I hear something I really like and treasure I’d want to own it as a physical object on LP, where as something I were only lukewarm about I might want to just have filed away digitally.

Why are these music lovers attracted to this older form, why has it been selected?  Yes, records do sound better than digital, sometimes surprisingly better.  It’s a warmer sound, fuller – not so cold, hard and matter-of-fact as digital – there’s some surface noise and a crucial bit of remove that is desirable in a recorded medium.  But there’s more to it than that, having to do

Posted in: Articles Tagged: film, Lps, mechanical technology, obsolete technology, the future, typewriters, Vinyl

Tribute to Richie Shulberg aka Citizen Kafka

March 24, 2009 by Eli Smith 1 Comment

Citizen Kafka by kenf225.
(L) Richie Shulberg, aka Citizen Kafka in a recent photo, (R) Kenny Kosek, CK & John Goodman doing “The Citizen Kafka Show” on WBAI, 1980’s.

Its been a hard couple weeks around here.  On Wednesday March 11th Bob Guida of the Otis Brothers passed on, he was 54.  A few days later on Saturday the 14th Richie Shulberg aka Citizen Kafka, age 61, left the physical plain and on Sunday March 22nd Archie Green, the great folklorist, laborlore scholar and advocate of vernacular culture died at his home in San Francisco at the age of 91.  I will be doing tributes to all three of these great people in the next few weeks.

On today’s show I am rebroadcasting a tribute to Citizen Kafka that was done on WBAI this past Saturday on the “Morning Dew” show.  Kenny Kosek, Ed Haber & John Goodman came down to WBAI and put together this broadcast, playing old recordings of Citizen Kafka and “The Citizen Kafka Show” that they hosted together back in the 1980’s, as well as sharing some of their reminiscences. The Citizen Kafka show was really crazy and awesome!

The Citizen (born 1947 in Canarsie, Brooklyn) had a number of talents, he was a great fiddler, top notch – also really spontaneously funny, a talented and funny poet, an accomplished collector of records and many other types of objects, he was also knowledgeable about natural medicine, obscure, local and pop cultures, had driven a cab and had apparently done some mineral prospecting/mining work out West!  He was the leader of the infamous Wretched Refuse String Band, hosted the music/comedy show, “The Citizen Kafka Show” on WBAI and co-hosted the “Secret Museum of the Air” with Pat Conte on WFMU.

I had a great time hanging out with the Citizen, although I only knew him in the past year or two.  He was loud, manic, difficult with many people- he was some kind of genius and a real mensch – incredibly generous and kind.  He would hire me to come to his house and help clean up the place, which was a

Posted in: Shows Tagged: Citizen Kafka, Richie Shulberg, WBAI
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