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Photos From the Festival

Brooklyn Folk Festival

Photos From the Festival

June 11, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment


[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…

Posted in: Other, Reviews Tagged: Banjo, Blues, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Folk Festival, fiddle, folk, Jalopy, music, old time, redhook, Urban Meadow

Brooklyn Folk Festival Approaches…

April 12, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Hey Everybody!  Look out for the next Brooklyn Folk Festival – May 21-23rd, 2010 at the Jalopy Theater!  Its gonna be fun…

CLICK HERE for more details.

Posted in: Other Tagged: Brooklyn Folk Festival, Jalopy

Brooklyn Folk Festival Preview Concert and Benefit

March 11, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Hey everybody, just wanted to let you know about a great show I organized for this coming Saturday at Jalopy:

Please support the production of the 2010 festival by attending –The Brooklyn Folk Festival Preview Concert and Benefit on Saturday March 13th at the Jalopy Theater.

This fabulous show will give you a taste of what is to come at this years festival and will also serve as a benefit to get vital funds necessary to make the Folk Fest possible.  I need to fill Jalopy on Saturday night to get enough money to rent a big tent for the outdoor stage, get the festival promoted around town and hire some folks to help me run it, plus incidental expenses.  Below is the info.  Can’t wait to make this years festival a reality.

Hope to see you there! – Eli (the organizer).

Sat. March 13th 9pm till midnight or whenever it ends!
The Jalopy Theater
315 Columbia Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
(718) 395-3214
www.Jalopy.biz
$10 Cover

p.s. There’s gonna be a raffle with awesome prizes!  Plus I’ll have Down Home Radio T-shirts and stickers, as well as Brooklyn Folk Fest 2009 CDs for sale.

Posted in: Other Tagged: Brooklyn Folk Festival, Jalopy

Save Down Home Radio!

December 2, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

Hello everybody,

The show’s been going on now for more than 3 years.  Its been a great project; a quick look through the archives will show you the depth and scope of what has been aired on Down Home Radio – dozens of in depth radio interviews with well known elders of the folk scene as well as many great new performers you won’t hear about anywhere else, articles, archival materials, tons of amazing old recordings drawn from obscure sources, plus lots of hard to find out-of-print LPs, digitized and posted for your pleasure and convenience, all for free.

But I can’t continue to do the show without your support.  Increasing demands on my time from other projects and the rigors of getting along in New York City make it hard to find time for Down Home Radio anymore.  If you value this show/archive, recognize it as something unique and much more than just a blog, please support what I’m doing.  Down Home Radio needs funds to replace broken equipment, to pay for all the technical, logistical and office expenses involved with the program and to continue to bring you the coverage only DHR can.

With your support DHR can not only continue but will be able to expand its programming and produce new shows of all kinds on a regular basis, as well as pay for ads in magazines and generally increase its profile and listenership.  I have not set a specific monetary goal for this fund drive, but rather hope that listeners will show their appreciation for the shows already produced and donate an amount that will offset to a significant degree the cost of its continuing production and progress for a years time.

Check out today’s show to hear music from some of the awesome new performers I would like to have on the show in the future, plus live recordings from the 2009 Brooklyn Folk Festival, sponsored by Down Home Radio and organized by yours truly.  I also have a number of great interviews already recorded that I can’t find the time to get to, including Jack Elliott, Del McCoury, Peter Rowan, Jody Stecher, Larry Hanks, as well as Archie Green, Harold Leventhal and Jim Longhi – very important figures in folk music history who are now deceased.  That’s why I have staged this fund drive, in an effort to muster the resources to continue this unique voice in the media and add this important material to the public archive that is Down Home Radio.

Down Home Radio is live from the grass roots of the folk revival that’s going on right now.  If you appreciate this kind of coverage, please make a tax deductible donation to Down Home Radio, and receive any or all of the 3 awesome premiums listed below.

Thanks.  Your host,

Eli

“Eli Smith is the only young musician I know who is single-handedly reporting on the present scene and documenting its continuity with the past.”
– John Cohen, New Lost City Ramblers

Down Home Radio offers innovative coverage you won’t find anywhere else.  An excellent program.”
– Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

“Keep on!  The people who listen to you really depend on you.”
– Pete Seeger

“Down Home Radio compensates for the lack of traditional folk music of the Americas in both mainstream and niche media by serving as the only national or international resource consistently offering in-depth long form radio interviews with a variety of established figures of the folk music landscape.  But even more importantly, the program provides a platform for emerging folk artists who have no alternate outlet for this kind of discourse, giving them a chance to tell their story and perform their music live on the show.  As a journalist and fieldworker who is also an active performer, Eli is in a unique position to relay grassroots and cutting-edge coverage of the folk music scene, much like Broadside or Sing Out! magazines did in their early incarnations.”
– Lynette Wiley

The Stuff:

For a $25 pledge, receive a Down Home Radio bumper sticker.  For $50 receive the fabulous “Best of the Brooklyn Folk Festival” live CD, 15 songs totaling more than 1 hour of music, only available right here right now.  Check out selections from the CD on today’s show!  For $75 receive the awesome Down Home Radio Show t-shirt, modeled here by our executive producer!

And the special holiday deal of the century! For $100 receive all three, the bumper sticker, “Best of the Brooklyn Folk Festival” live CD and the t-shirt!  What a deal!  That’s fully 33% off!

All donations are tax deductible.

Brooklyn Folk Festival CD Cover
[L] DHR T-Shirt                                       [R]
CD of live recordings from the festival!


Bumper Sticker

Donate online with a credit card:

Make an easy, secure tax deductible donation to “2nd Mind Music,” my business name, via the Fractured Atlas website.
Click below:

Donate now!

If you would like to donate by check, please make donation checks payable to: “Fractured Atlas” with “2nd Mind Music” in the memo section of the check. 2nd Mind Music is my business name and “Fractured Atlas” is the non-profit that sponsors my getting tax deductible donations.  Email me for the mailing address:
DownHomeRadio@hotmail.com.

Once you have made your donation,
please email me at DownHomeRadio@hotmail.com

with your mailing address and what you would like to receive for your money
.

Thanks go to Ernesto Gomez and Maria Flores, without whom this fund drive would not have been possible.

Posted in: Shows Tagged: Brooklyn Folk Festival, Down Home Radio, fund drive

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

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
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Archival Resources: Music & Film

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Various Links

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