folk

Woody Guthrie at 100 – A Tribute Concert at the Jalopy Theatre

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Dear friends,

On Saturday July 14th I will be hosting, “Woody Guthrie at 100 – A Tribute Concert at the Jalopy Theatre.”

Songwriter, poet, political activist and Coney Island resident Woody Guthrie, born July 14th, 1912 would have turned 100 years old this year.  Best known for his composition “This Land Is Your Land,” a song known as a second national anthem and sung by school children nationwide, Guthrie was a native of Oklahoma who moved to Brooklyn in 1940 and lived here basically for the rest of his life.

On Saturday July 14th, Woody’s 100th birthday, the Jalopy Theatre will present a tribute concert to Guthrie featuring a number of New York City and Brooklyn’s best folk music performers, including people that knew Guthrie personally and can speak about him.

The event will feature a number of performers including John Cohen (of the New Lost City Ramblers), Eli Smith, Mamie Minch, Ernie Vega, Geoff Wiley, Jesse Lenat, Elizabeth Butters, Stephanie Jenkins, Bob Malenky, Jaime Longhi and others performing Woody’s songs.  Smith and Cohen will also be reading brief selections from Guthrie’s works of poetry and goof-offs and Longhi will read from his father’s memoir of serving with Guthrie during WWII.  The film “To Hear Your Banjo Play,” the only footage of Guthrie in his prime, will also be screened.

Details:

Jalopy Theatre
315 Columbia St.
Brooklyn, NY
11231
(718) 395-3214

Saturday July 14th
Showtime: 9pm

Gonna be a great show.
Hope to see you there!

P.S.  Don’t forget to check out:

Woody Guthrie on live on WNYC with Leadbelly in 1940

The program was produced in 1940 by Down Home Radio co-founder Henrietta Yurchenco for WNYC and the recording was discovered in I believe in 2006.  Down Home Radio rebroadcast it for the first time in 67 year in 2007 with commentary by Yurchenco.

Lomax’s Southern Journey Reissued!

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“People were saying that Southern folk song was dead, that the land that had produced American jazz, the blues, the spirituals, the mountain ballads and the work songs had gone sterile.” –Alan Lomax, 1960.

Happily, Alan Lomax’s 1959-1960 field recordings from the American South have been reissued on stunning LPs by Mississippi Records out of Portland, OR.  The reissue was currated by Down Home Radio friend Nathan Salsburg over at the Alan Lomax Archive/Association for Cultural Equity.  For more information, check out the blog entry at Root Hog Or Die, and be sure to check out Nathan’s awesome online radio show of the same name at EastVillageRadio.com.

Here’s a bit of what Nathan had to say about the reissue.  Read more on his blog entry at RootHogOrDie.com

“Without delving into the twists and turns of the most highly specialized folkloric record business or indulging in musings about its current strange renaissance and the stranger counter-cultural moment from whence it comes, I’m pleased to say that the season of my tenth year with Alan Lomax’s archive also marks the release of five new LPs commemorating Lomax’s most famous field-recording trip: what he called his “Southern Journey” of 1959 and 1960. Production for a commemorative series began exactly a year ago, after I met Eric Isaacson of Portland, Oregon’s Mississippi Records – one of the principals in the unlikely vanguard of the vernacular music LP resurgence – at a panel discussion put on as part of Asheville’s fine Harvest Records’ fifth anniversary festival. While Harvest was turning five, the Southern Journey turned 50, yet there was not a whisper regarding it anywhere (outside of a season-long tribute series in Belgium, put on by the noble Herman Hulsens and the Ancienne Belgique). Adding insult to injury was the fact that not a single release of Southern Journey material was currently in print…” READ MORE

Photos From the Festival

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[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…

Interview with Jessy Carolina

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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.

Interview with the Tillers

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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 .

The Tiller’s myspace page


Eli with the Tillers outside of the Music Inn on W. 4th St. in Greenwhich Village where this interview was conducted.

List of Free Internet Music Resources

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On today’s episode I play only tracks that I have downloaded for free from the internet. I actually ended up using only tracks that I got from the fantastic music blog www.eldiablotuntun.blogspot.com , but there are many other great ones out there! See my complete list below. The internet has made it possible to hear pretty much anything you want, even and especially obscure folk music, for free. This is quite a positive turn of events – the only trouble is finding out what you want to hear. Down Home Radio is here to help! But you can now really educate your self thoroughly, feed your aural addiction and generally have a great time, with out breaking the bank. This should be taken advantage of to the fullest extent.

Here’s my list of favorite music blogs, archives and downloading software:

(If anybody has additions to this list, please let me know!)

http://eldiablotuntun.blogspot.com

http://www.juneberry78s.com

http://totallyfuzzy.blogspot.com/ – Search the world of music blogs!

and more… See below: