Wrath of the Grapevine

The Great Grapevine Giveaway! - Ola Belle Reed

2009-07-09T17:52:00.001-06:00

Way back in May, I received and posted this email:

Greetings from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings,

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum of the United States. We are dedicated to supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding among people through the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of sound.

From reviewing your website, we think a recent episode of “Tapestry of Times”, a new weekly radio program and podcast form WYPR public radio in Baltimore that explores the Smithsonian Folkways collection, would be of interest to your users. The episode, entitled “Ola Belle Reed: An Enduring Legacy” (http://www.tapestryofthetimes.org/shows/archive/episode_27.php) is online now and takes an in-depth look into the life and legacy of Ola Belle Reed, the influential singer/songwriter/instrumentalist, with testimonials, interviews, and original on-site recordings. It’s a must-listen for any fans of Ola Belle Reed, bluegrass, and old-time music, or compelling storytelling in general. The show is available for free stream or download, via the podcast.

Listen to the podcast: (http://www.tapestryofthetimes.org/shows/archive/episode_27.php)

Watch the video: (http://shanecarpenter.com/ola/ola.html)

See Ola Belle Reed’s Albums at Smithsonian Folkways (still in print!): (http://www.folkways.si.edu/searchresults.aspx?sPhrase=ola%20belle%20reed&sType='phrase')

With your blessing, we’d like to post the above note to your message board or forum. Alternatively, you can post this on our behalf. Our goal is to spread the word about this tribute to Ola Belle Reed and Tapestry of the Times (www.tapestryofthetimes.org). In addition, we’d like to offer your listeners a discount code on any Ola Belle Reed recording from Smithsonian Folkways. Just enter “OlaBelleReed09” to save 20% off either CDs or Digital Downloads. Lastly, if you’d like a copy of an Ola Belle Reed CD to give away to one of your members as a contest, just let us know!

Please contact us if this interests you. Thank you very much for your time and consideration, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Based on readers' interest, I replied and asked for a CD to give away. And then a couple weeks later I got this email:

This is Tanesia North, with Smithsonian Folkways. Again, we at Smithsonian Folkways would like to thank you! I just wanted to let you know that we’ll be sending the CDs out to you today. You’ll be receiving one copy each of “All In One Evening”- Ola Belle Reed, “Epitaph”-Ola Belle Reed and “Classic Mountain Songs”-Various. Although this allows for three people at most to win a CD, we’d like to encourage you and your users to take advantage of the discount code on any Ola Belle Reed recording from Smithsonian Folkways. Just enter “OlaBelleReed09” to save 20% off either CDs or digital downloads.

I got the CDs a few weeks ago and I was trying to figure out some sort of quiz to give to you ~~suckers~~ readers, with which to make some sort of fair-seeming method to distribute said items.
Well, I couldn't think of anything trivia-related so I'm going to do it this way:

You may all send me an email (see my profile for the address).
In this email, say which of the CDs you'd like.
You can also tell me:

why you want it
some story or fact about Ola Belle or other affiliated folks, that you think might interest me and that I don't already know
how beautiful, strange, haunting, etc. old time mountain ballad singers are, and how desperately you need to have this one in your collection
who the hell this Kevin Roth fellow is and why he gets to cheese-up the All in One Evening album with his sensitive singer-songwriting antics/aesthetics
something else that will liven up my inbox and entertain me, or at least be worth the amount of time it takes to read

The "contest" ends on Friday, July 17. Please get your emails in before then. You have a week.

Oh, and if you don't know how awesome Ola Belle Reed (and Classic Mountain Songs) is, read below:

Ola Belle Reed

Biography by John Lupton

Take a stroll through the campground at just about any festival -- folk, bluegrass, old time, Celtic, or any mixture -- and at some point it's a good bet that a haunting refrain will drift into consciousness from a nearby jam or song circle: "High on a mountain, standing all alone, Wond'ring where the years of my life have gone" To some, it's a timeless line from a song that must certainly be at least a hundred years or more old. To others, it speaks of the new age mysticism and introspection of the latter-day singer/songwriter. The truth is somewhere between. "High on a Mountain," along with many other classic folk and country songs, came from the fertile mind- and soul-searching lyricism of North Carolina native Old Belle Reed. Popular among old time country and bluegrass audiences for decades, the '90s saw her music gaining currency in Nashville and points beyond as well. Ola Belle Campbell was one of thirteen children of Arthur Campbell, whose family had lived in the New River Valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina since colonial times. Born into a musical family in 1916, Ola Belle learned to play guitar and clawhammer banjo as a young child, coming to love not only the old traditional tunes taught to her by her parents, but also the early country music on radio and 78-rpm discs which were making their way into the mountains. In her teenage years, she first teamed with her brother Alex in an early version of the North Carolina Ridge Runners. Like many Blue Ridge residents during the Depression years, Arthur Campbell left the mountains and moved north looking for work, taking his family with him and eventually settling in the region along the Mason-Dixon Line where Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania come together. Alex Campbell saw military service in the Normandy invasion, and was later heard on Armed Forces Radio during the Occupation as part of Grandpa Jones' Munich Mountaineers. Returning home after his discharge from the service, Alex and Ola Belle teamed up for what would be a long-running radio pairing that would be heard live and in syndication over much of the country on a number of stations, including Wheeling, WV's WWVA, which for many years was a powerful rival to Nashville's WSM for the country audience. In 1949, Ola Belle married Bud Reed (himself a noted country singer), and with Alex Campbell they formed the New River Boys and opened New River Ranch near Rising Sun, MD, one of the premier country music parks of the '50s. Around 1960, they closed New River Ranch and moved a short distance up U.S. Route 1, across the Pennsylvania border to Sunset Park near West Grove, where they performed regularly for another 26 years. As interest in old time and early country music revived during the '70s, Ola Belle and her family (now including son David Reed) found enthusiastic audiences for their brand of music at events like the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Brandywine Mountain Music Convention. Many of the songs she had written and performed on radio over the years also began to be recorded widely. Early in his career leading his own band, Del McCoury (a resident of nearby Gettysburg, and for many years a regular at Sunset Park) made "High on a Mountain," a bluegrass standard. Farther west, out in Minnesota, Stoney Lonesome (fronted by the Prairie Home Companion favorite, Kate MacKenzie) recorded Ola Belle's "I've Endured" in the late '80s, and the Ohio-based husband/wife duet singers Ann and Phil Case made her "The Springtime of Life" the title track of their widely acclaimed 1996 debut CD. In 1995, Ola Belle struck Nashville gold when Marty Stuart's rendition of "High on a Mountain" settled in for an extended stay on the country charts. In 1986, Ola Belle Reed received long overdue recognition for her contributions to American folk music and culture when she was named recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship. A year or so later, her career as a songwriter and performer was brought to an abrupt end when she suffered a severe stroke that left her an invalid. Still surrounded by loving family and friends (including brother Alex), though, she continued to live in Rising Sun, enjoying the occasions when she heard her own songs still being played on country radio. In February, 1999, she and Bud celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

A Life of Music, Love and Inspiration

Ola Belle Reed was born Ola Wave Campbell on August 17, 1916, in Grassy Creek, Ashe County, North Carolina. She was one of thirteen children born to Arthur Harrison Campbell and Ella May Osborne Campbell. The Campbell family ancestors had moved to the New River Valley of Western North Carolina sometime around the 1760’s. Arthur Harrison was an educated man who spent his life as a school teacher. He also owned a general store and was a dedicated farmer during summer months on his farm. The Great Depression brought a huge economic burden on the large Campbell family, and they followed many Appalachian mountain people to Chester County, Pennsylvania and then on to Cecil County, Maryland, where there was fertile farmland and it seemed easier to secure jobs. Music was an integral part of the cultural heritage on both sides of Ola Belle’s family. Her grandfather Alexander Bolivar Campbell was a early Primitive Baptist preacher and an accomplished fiddle player. Her father played fiddle, banjo, guitar, and organ and formed a string band, The New River Boys and Girls with his brother Oliver Dockery , known as “Doc” and sister Ellen in 1910. An uncle, on her mother’s side, Herb Osborne, sang mining songs made popular in the coalmines of West Virginia. Her grandmother and mother sang ballads and topical songs in the traditional Appalachian style. In 1936, Ola Belle began performing professionally as a member of the North Carolina Ridge Runners, one of the first hillbilly bands of the Delaware-Maryland area. She played old-time banjo and guitar and sang for the Appalachian area audiences from 1936 to 1948. By the mid-1930s, scores of music parks and picnic grounds had been established throughout the region, each with a sizable audience and concession money to pay and feed the house band. "Back home in the summertime we had carnivals - they were the main thing - and little parks," Ola Belle said. "They were so little that the few times the Ridge Runners played down there, we would be the only show there. I remember one time we came back on a Monday after playing one of these parks.... We played every half-hour all day till the park closed. Up here the parks were bigger and there were more of them, especially in Pennsylvania. There weren't big music parks like that back home." In 1945, Ola Belle was offered more than $100 per week, quite a good sum in those days, to join country music legend Roy Acuff‘s band and backup group. Ola Belle declined the offer. After Ola Belle’s brother, Alex, returned from World War II in which he served in the Army and was wounded during the invasion of Normandy Beach, he joined the North Carolina Ridge Runners. In 1948, he and Ola Belle became a musical team and formed their own country music band, named The New River Boys, a name derived from the group formed earlier by Ola Belle’s father. Alex Campbell, Ola Belle and The New River Boys broadcast over the radio on WASA in Havre De Grace, Maryland. The New River Boys consisted of Alex Campbell, who sang, played guitar and some fiddle, Ola Belle, who also sang and played banjo and guitar, Deacon Brumfield on the Dobro, Ted Lundy on the 5-string Banjo, John Jackson on the fiddle and Earl Wallace on the upright string bass. The group built a strong following and they were featured on many radio programs over WCOJ in Coatesville, Pennsylvania and WBMO in Baltimore, Maryland. Alex and Ola Belle wrote over 200 songs and played hundreds more traditional songs that were featured over many other radio stations in the United States. In addition to performing, the group sponsored many musical programs at a country music park called New River Ranch, near Rising Sun, Maryland. New River Ranch was one of the most active country music parks, bringing big-named Bluegrass and Country music stars to the area, along with featuring a vast amount of local talent. In 1960, the group transferred to Sunset Park, in West Grove, Pennsylvania, where the group built quite a reputation as one of the quintessential Country Music performance parks. The group performed there for 26 years, broadcasting their own Sunday radio program live from the park. In the mid-1960’s the group was receiving national exposure on radio station WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia. The group was heard throughout the entire eastern United States and even into Canada.In addition to all of the radio and personal appearances, Ola Belle and Alex operated Campbell’s Corner, a general store in Oxford, Pennsylvania which, in addition to general merchandise and groceries, sold Country and Gospel records and in the back of the store was a performance stage and a radio booth which Alex used to transmit his popular radio programs. Alex bought time from the large radio stations and broadcast remotely from the store. Alex was considered one of the best “pitchmen” in the radio industry. Alex and Ola Belle were on over 200 radio stations at one time and also made numerous appearances at local TV stations and musical festivals. Alex retired in 1984 but continued to keep himself busy transmitting his programs on radio station WGCB in Red Lion, Pennsylvania. He still spent much time at Sunset Park and in mail-order record sales.In 1949, Ola Belle married Ralph “Bud” Reed, who was also an accomplished local area musical performer.Ola Belle continued to perform music with her family, including her husband and son David, often at informal gatherings she organized for her neighbors and friends. "I remember one time we were having a gathering," she said. "Everyone was coming ... we bought a new linoleum rug for the kitchen ... and we played and they danced round and round. ... And I'll never forget, next morning - we never noticed it at the time - next morning, there was nothing left but black. They wore the whole top off." Through the years, Ola Belle wrote many, many songs about her Appalachian past and her commitment to family traditions, religious values, and social justice. In 1978, the University of Maryland awarded her with an honorary doctorate of letters for her contributions to the arts and culture of Maryland and the United States. She was also recognized for her historical and musical contributions by The Smithsonian Institute, The Library of Congress and The Country Music Association.In 1987, Ola Belle suffered a stroke and she was bed-ridden until her death on August 16, 2002. She passed away one day before her 86th birthday.In 1992, country music star Marty Stuart introduced his version of Ola Belle’s song “High On A Mountain” on his “This One‘s Gonna Hurt You“ album, which earned Stuart and Ola Belle a Gold Record. Ola Belle’s autobiographical song "I've Endured" perhaps best sums up her personal tenacity: "I've worked for the rich, I've lived with the poor; Lord, I've seen many a heartache, there'll be many more; I've lived, loved and sorrowed, been to success's door; I've endured, I've endured."

Ola Belle Reed - My Epitaph

Year: 1976
Label: Smithsonian Folkways

Banjo player and singer Ola Belle Reed created this album and its accompanying notes as an autobiography, a document that describes her childhood in the mountains, her experiences, and her opinions about modern life. Produced by Kevin Roth, one of Reed's protégés, this recording is based on a live interview conducted in 1976.

Buy it here.
Promo Discount Code: OlaBelleReed09

All in One Evening - Ola Belle and Bud Reed with Kevin Roth

Ola Belle and Bud Reed's Pennsylvania home was a haven for young musicians, a place where picking, singing, and good company soothed the sting of hard times. The Reeds, joined by Kevin Roth, recorded this album of traditional and original songs one evening in 1977.

Buy it here
Promo Discount Code: OlaBelleReed09

Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian Folkways

Year: 2002

Riding the wave of the renewed interest in traditional American music, Classic Mountain Songs From Smithsonian Folkways Recordings showcases a handful of the greatest mountain ballads as performed by some of the most influential folk singers and songwriters of the 20th century. This collection features many classic performances from a wide variety of regional instrumental and song styles. These diverse styles and songs from the mountain communities of North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee include old-time fiddle and banjo pieces, early bluegrass, and traditional ballads, with a special emphasis on Appalachian vocal traditions. Doc and Merle Watson, Roscoe Holcomb, Clarence Ashley, and Dock Boggs are just a few of the revered roots artists who appear on this stellar compilation. This album is essential for both old and new fans of American mountain music. Compiled and annotated by Jeff Place.

Buy it here.
Promo Discount Code: OlaBelleReed09

Jim Kweskin - 4 Albums

2009-07-07T23:17:00.015-06:00

"The Manson Family preached
peace and love and went around killing people.
We don't preach peace and love..."
-Jim Kweskin

By request, we have here some more Jim Kweskin albums from the 60s. Freaturing more prominently than on the Jug Band albums is banjo/harmonica player and acid fascist Mel Lyman - 'The American Avatar' who caused Kweskin to break up the Jug Band and join Mel's God cult in LA, losing a moustache, a heap of common sense, and all of his hipster-dignity in the process. Sigh... another hippy-trippy-cult-god-maniac-fallout of the 60s... But what else could you expect from someone who became a folk singer after a brick-mugging ended his pot-dealing carreer? This post chronicles Kweskin's slow descent into Lymanism, after which he kept out of the spotlight for several decades (excepting a children's album) until he re-emerged in 2003 with the Jim Kweskin Band featuring (and introducing) Samoa Wilson, a great young singer. Their music is like his old jug band but more refined and not quite as wild or fun. The albums in this post get steadily worse as the years progress - Relax Your Mind is a great album, America is well, a curiosity and is at least different, if not particularly gripping. And yes, the Mayne Smith featured on America is the same L. Mayne Smith who played on Fahey's Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death. None of the albums are as good as the jug band albums he did (several of which you can find on this blog), so if you haven't heard those, go listen.

There was an extensive article published by Rolling Stone and Mindfucker called The Lyman Family's Holy Siege of America, which also featured a portion called Whatever Happened to Jim Kweskin?. You can read it here. For those of you unaware of Mel's particular strain of notoriety, he can be easily summed up in one word: Acid Fascist. He would give people LSD and then when they were tripping he would tell them he was GOD. He called himself the American Avatar and he gathered a cult around himself and amassed a small fortune and twisted a lot of people's ideas around to his own ends and then misteriously disappeared sometime in the late 70s. Of course, like any guru, his combination of charisma and out-there ideas actually helped a lot of people to change something in their life, get a different perspective or whathaveyou. He was also a fantastic, one-of-a-kind harmonica player and a mediocre banjoist, and at one Newport Folk Festival he jumped on stage after the last act and played a 10-minute version of Rock of Ages on harmonica, and then broke into the Vanguard vaults, stole their master tapes for Newport 65 and spliced his performance onto the end, and then sent it to get pressed. Can you say... egomaniac? But great harmonica, really. He makes kweskin's version of the Cuckoo perhaps the most haunting one I've ever heard.

I am going to burn down the world
I am going to tear down everything that cannot stand alone
I am going to shove hope up your ass
I am going to turn ideals to shit

I am going to reduce everything that stands to rubble
and then I am going to burn the rubble
and then I am going to scatter the ashes
and then maybe someone will be able to see something as it really is
Watch Out

- Mel Lyman

Mel Lyman
Biography by Bryan Thomas

Mel Lyman was a folk musician, filmmaker, and cult leader in the '60s and '70s. Born in Northern California, he drifted across the country in the early '60s before ending up in the hills of North Carolina, where he discovered old timey music. By the time he had drifted into the folk music communities of Greenwich Village and Cambridge, MA, Lyman had developed his own style on the harp (holding a series of long, lingering, vibrato-heavy notes) and he was proficient on banjo as well. In 1963, Lyman joined the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and was a featured player on a handful of the group's early recordings for Vanguard. Shortly after the group appeared on the nationally-televised Steve Allen Show Lyman left the group (he was replaced by banjoist Bill Keith, who had just left Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys). Lyman focused, for a time, on his filmmaking and writing interests, authoring a rambling, incoherent book called The Autobiography of a World Savior.

At age 27, Lyman made an impromptu appearance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where he performed an unaccompanied ten-minute version of "Rock of Ages" for the audience (most of whom had already angrily left for their cars after Bob Dylan's famous electric set). After Newport, Lyman's Wednesday-night sessions at a Boston coffeehouse called The Orleans soon found him taking on the role of leading a commune-like cult who apparently hung on his every word. Lyman -- some say he was an "East Coast Charles Manson" (an unfortunate comparison but one that every commune faced in Manson's wake) -- and his "family" of 30 or 40 artists lived in Boston's mostly black ghetto community. Rock scribe Paul Williams, of Crawdaddy magazine, lived with them for a time. In his writings for the Avatar (a controversial underground bi-weekly newspaper distributed on the streets by Boston's hippie youth), Lyman claimed that music was a gift from God that had to be preserved and nurtured. Lyman eventually cut out the middleman and claimed that he himself was God.

In 1969, Kweskin and Lyman reunited in San Francisco to record Lyman's only solo album, American Avatar. American Avatar reportedly only sold 1,764 copies (1,000 of which were reportedly bought by Kweskin). Lyman apparently never recorded as a solo artist again, but one of his musical highlights is his slow version of "Old Black Joe," featuring cello accompaniment, which appears on 1971's Jim Kweskin's America (Featuring Mel Lyman). In 1978, it was reported that Lyman had passed away at age 40, though his followers claimed that he was, in fact, still "orbiting the earth."

oh and see virtually everything there is to know about Mel Lyman here.

Relax Your Mind - Liner notes by Mel Lyman

One night in New York last summer I came driving up to my Bowery loft and who should be parked out in front in his Volkswagen Bus but Jim Kweskin, with Marilyn Kweskin and Agatha. Jim had come up from Florida and we hadn't seen each other for months and for us that's a long time cause we play in the same band together and in fact we even live in the same house (I live in his attic) and so we were bubbling over with things to tell each other. The band had broken up for awhile to give us all a chance to kick around and see who we were and now we had found out a little more about that and it was so beautiful to be together again and we talked all night and jumped up and down and laughed and slapped each other on the backs m'goodness it was so rich to be sharing ourselves with each other like, "Hey man, dig what I found out about myself" and "Too much! Hey, listen to this, you won't believe it" and we had piled up so damn much good feeling to share that just gushing all over each other wasn't enough and Marilyn didn't need it cause she just squats on her chair and smiles and Agatha didn't need it cause she's a dog and everybody knows that dogs are happy so we decided we had to pour it on somebody to keep from busting and so hey man let's trot on down to Vanguard and get it on a record so it doesn't go to waste and so we got in touch with Fritz who plays the washtub bass, beautiful red topped striped shirt Fritz O'Rooney and called up all our friends and down we go the whole bunch of us to the horror of the recording industry but that doesn't matter cause we all feel so groovy that pretty soon everybody feels groovy can you believe it that even the engineers felt groovy hell engineers are people too and there were no studios available so we picked out a friendly little room at least it was friendly after we doused the lights and opened the windows and brought in all our friends and broke out the beer and wine and started playing music, yep, it became a real friendly little room. So we made this record. I think it might have been done unofficially but somehow (it's all in the stars) we got away with it. We threw a party at Vanguard Recording Society Industry in the middle of the night under the guise of conducting a recording session and not only did we create an LP amidst all the joy, we even got paid for it! When they handed me a check I almost laughed out loud but I didn't lose my cool. I simply gasped, checked myself and snapped into the yoga parakarya pretzel position for suppressing mirth, controlling excessive laughter and avoiding undue hysteria, dropped to the floor like a slushy snowball and groaned. Ain't life a gas!

So what I'm trying to say is that we made this record under very loose conditions and it was a real joy to have that kind of freedom in a recording studio, to be able to play music just like you play music instead of like this whole fantastic, schematic, methatic, preconceived and just a little too stern serious and safe scene called "Standard Recording Procedure" wants you to play music. It's not that they dictate what or how but the WHERE is so dreadful, a nightmare of sterility, white soundproof rooms big as barns and red lights flashing on and off and wires, everywhere there's WIRES, all over the floor, hanging from the ceiling, twined around your arms and legs and microphones and ear phones and head phones and telephones and rules and efficiency and a bunch of straight looking cats behind big plate glass windows surrounded by so many kinds of intricate machines that each one must require a specialist to operate it and hurriedly shouting orders and frantically twisting dials and jabbing buttons and a thunderous voice comes booming out of a big loudspeaker that takes up a whole wall and it commands, "Take One" and m'God you hardly know where you're at at all anymore, you can't be sure you're not one of those machines yourself and believe me that's a pretty uninspiring scene to try and make a little music out of, at least for me, and that's why making this album was such a joy, at least for me. Notice I say at least for me because even though I believe that what is true for me is true for everybody Jim has cautioned me that I must practice humility when dealing with the public, at least for me.

Goodbye now, we love you.

---Mel Lyman

Jim Kweskin - Relax Your Mind

Year: 1966
Label: Vanguard

Review by Ronnie D. Lankford Jr.

Released in 1966, Relax Your Mind finds Jim Kweskin taking a break from his jug band for a mellow solo effort. He's joined by harp player Mel Lyman and washtub bassist Fritz Richmond for what amounts to a stripped-down jug band on a dozen tracks. Two of the tracks, "I Got Mine" and a long version of "Buffalo Skinners," were recorded live at Club 47 in Cambridge. Even stripped down, the arrangements of traditional songs like "The Cuckoo" are quite lively when placed side by side with the one-singer/one-guitar approach preferred by some revivalists. Kweskin's guitar and Richmond's bass keep time and fill in the background while Lyman adds asides and flourishes to Mississippi John Hurt's "My Creole Belle" and Grandpa Jones' "Eight More Miles to Louisville." Richmond helps out on the vocal of "Guabi Guabi," an African folk song recorded a couple years earlier by Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and Marilyn Kweskin sings a fine lead on "I Ain't Never Been Satisfied." Overall, Relax Your Mind is a subdued recording, and lacks the irresponsible hijinks fans had come to expect from the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. Compared to other more traditional folk with barebones arrangements, however, Relax Your Mind is a lively affair. The album also shows that good folk recordings continued to be made after Dylan supposedly pulled the plug on the folk revival in 1965. The packaging of the 2003 reissue by Universe reprints the original liner notes and looks great.

Tracks
1 Three Songs - A Look at the Ragtime Era (Sister Kate's Night Out) - Atkins, Jaxon, Piron - 3:22
2 Hannah - Bouchillion - 4:08
3 Bye and Bye - Traditional - 3:39
4 The Cuckoo - Traditional - 4:04
5 I Ain't Never Been Satisfied - Kweskin, Kweskin, Traditional- 2:38
6 Eight More Miles to Louisville - Grandpa Jones - 3:01
7 I Got Mine - Traditional - 3:38
8 Buffalo Skinners - Traditional - 5:28
9 Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor - Traditional - 3:10
10 Guabi Guabi - Traditional - 3:12
11 My Creole Belle - Hurt - 4:41
12 Relax Your Mind - Leadbelly - 3:58

warble as you fly.
m4a (aac) 256kbps | w/ cover | 87mb

full liner notes & song notes (but not musical notes...) here

Jim Kweskin - Jump for Joy

Year: 1967
Label: Vanguard

Review by Richard Foss
Though Jim Kweskin stays with his beloved repertoire of material from the early 20th century, on this album his accompaniment is very different from the string and jug bands he is best known for. The Neo-Passé Jazz Band is self-consciously true to turn-of-the-century styles, with the saxes and clarinet prominent in the mix. On some tracks, like the sentimental version of "Melancholy Baby," the band plays with commendable subtlety and Kweskin delivers a straight jazz vocal that is surprisingly heartfelt. Elsewhere, the sound is upbeat and flavored with a distinct Dixieland swing. Kweskin and band sound great here, and nobody got this kind of mileage out of this material again until Robert Crumb formed the Cheap Suit Serenaders.

Tracks
1 Moving Day - Kweskin, Sterling ... - 3:22
2 Memphis Blues - Handy, Norton - 2:58
3 Kickin' the Gong Around - Arlen, Koehler - 3:19
4 You're Not the Only Oyster in the Stew - Burke, Spina - 2:57
5 He's in the Jailhouse Now - Anderson - 4:33
6 Melancholy Baby - Burnett, Norton - 3:20
7 There'll Be Some Changes Made - Higgins, Overstreet - 3:26
8 Medley: O Miss Hannah/That's My Weakness Now - Deppen, Green, Hollingsworth ... - 3:52
9 Jazzbo Brown - Gershwin, Gershwin, Heyward - 3:46
10 Staggerlee - 3:40
11 I Can't Give You Anything But Love - Fields, McHugh - 3:27
12 Louisiana - Johnson, Razaf, Schafer - 3:05

the other kind of banjo.
from vinyl | mp3 >192kbps | w/ cover | 70mb

Jim Kweskin - What Ever Happened to Those Good Old Days at Club 47

Year: 1968
Label: Vanguard

Review by Richard Foss

Jim Kweskin may not have been a groundbreaking instrumentalist or a spectacularly gifted singer, but he certainly was an entertainer who knew how to get every bit out of his repertoire of American traditional music. On this live album, the complete title of which is What Ever Happened to Those Good Old Days at Club 47 in Cambridge Mass. With Jim Kweskin & His Friends, Kweskin is backed only by his faithful sideman Fritz Richmond and by Maria Muldaur on one track. His autoharp may be slightly out of tune and his piano playing a bit shaky, but Kweskin grabs the audience's heart on the very first track and keeps it until the end of the album. The sound quality has its off moments too, but that doesn't matter either, because as long as Kweskin is bashing away on that old-time music, all's right with the world. If there was any doubt that Jim Kweskin was a great showman even with minimal accompaniment, this album would dispel it.

Tracks
1 Mississippi Mud - Barris, Cavanaugh - 2:53
2 Buddy Bolden's Blues - Morton - 3:15
3 Bioll Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home - Cannon, Traditional - 3:18
4 Ain't She Sweet - Ager, Yellen - 4:29
5 La Bomba - Traditional - 2:52
6 Good Morning Little Schoolgirl - Williamson - 4:09
7 I Had a Dream Last Night - Rodgers - 3:29
8 Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue - Henderson, Lewis, Young - 3:16
9 Ella Speed - Traditional - 2:36
10 Blues - Traditional - 2:45
11 The Sheik of Araby - Smith, Snyder, Wheeler - 2:49

your love belongs to me.
from vinyl | mp3 >256kbps vbr | 49mb

Richard D. Herbruck presents
Jim Kweskin's America
co-starring Mel Lyman and the Lyman Family

Year: 1971
Label: Reprise
Reissue: 2005
Label: Collectibles

liner notes:

When Jim first called me in New York to come out to San Francisco and help him produce an album of "American" music I was more than a little hesitant as I was currently engaged in trying to start the second "American" Revolution and didn't quite know if the two projects were reconcilable. Having just recently closed my now defunct "History of Rhythm and Blues" series with KPFK in Los Angeles I was more than a little wary of entering upon a new musical enterprise but he assured me that there would be no outside interference and I was free to follow my own whims and impulses as time and space allowed and so I dismissed any further creeping uncertainties and cast my fate to the wind. I embarked upon my new adventure by air and can even now recall how with great confidence and bravado I impressed upon Captain Pettigrew the importance of this record. We stood in the lounge of the 747 Jet excitedly discussing the merits of this or that kind of music and when I told him people were flying in from all over the country to participate in this album he was duly amazed. By this time I was quite overtaken by the spirit of this record we were about to create and I even ventured so far as to guarantee him it would be a success. I don't know who was flying the plane.

Jim's Road Manager, O.D. Long, met me at the airport and accompanied me to my Suite and early the next morning I entered Mr. Weston's studio for the first time. All the musicians had already arrived. Mel Lyman had flown in from Boston. Reed Wasson, the renowned Jazz Bassist, had left his job as legal advisor to the Tehachapee Indians in upper New Mexico and flown in by private plane. Etta Green had abandoned her post with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra to come out and attempt to imitate country fiddle on her cello. Mayne Smith had come down from Alaska to play the dobro. Many more were assembled and as we milled around making small talk and getting acquainted we somehow felt we were on the verge of some great historic gathering. I, myself, was almost in tears when Jim asked me to play the tuba on "Stealing" as there are so few who really can comprehend the virtues of that great instrument. But that was only the beginning.

From the very opening moments there was an aura of excitement in the air, this was no ordinary recording session, the Muses were with us! The music flowed easily and the studio reverberated with a sound that we knew we were only partly responsible for. When I delivered the stirring testimonial in "Okie from Muskogee" the words seemed to enter and pass through me from some far off distant place, I scarcely knew what I said. Mel crouched over his harmonica and seemed to shake all over, Reed towered and swayed as though on the strings of some gigantic puppeteer. The women drifted in and out like remnants of a celestial choir and Jim was clearly in another world. Etta later testified she had never reached more inspiring heights and even Phil, the recording engineer, could not restrain himself from occasionally bursting into song. All in all it was a magnificent experience, one to never be duplicated. As the last day of the session drew to a close all the musicians magically left their instruments and gathered around a microphone to join voices in a glowing tribute to the beloved Stephen Foster.

And then we were done. the spirit of this once great country of ours had come and left its mark as minute little tracings in a plastic disc and the second American Revolution was underway.
sincerely, Richard Herbruck

The Band
Jim Kweskin (Cancer) - Guitar, Vocals
Mel Lyman (Aries) - Harmonica, Vocals
Etta Green (Pisces) - Cello, Vocals
Mayne Smith (Pisces) - Dobro, Guitar, Percussion, Vocals
Reed Wasson (Gemini) - Guitar (Bass)
Richard Herbruck (Gemini) - Narrator, Producer
Marilyn Kweskin (Gemini) - Vocals

Tracks
1. Back in the Saddle (Ray Whitley - Gene Autry) (2:46)
2. Sugar Babe (Mance Lipscomb) (3:00)
3. Okie from Muskogee (Merle Haggard - Roy Burris) (3:50)
4. 99 Year Blues (Julius Daniels (Arr. by The Lyman Family)) (3:43)
5. Ramblin' Round Your City (Woody Guthrie - Huddie Ledbetter) (5:42)
6. Amelia Earhart's Last Flight (David D. McEnery) (4:57)
7. Stealin' (The Memphis Jug Band) (4:27)
8. Old Rugged Cross (Rev. George Bennard) (7:50)
9. Dark as a Dungeon (Merle Travis) (6:33)
10. Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster (Arr. by The Lyman Family)) (6:59)

he likes living right and being free...
mp3 >256kbps vbr | w/o cover | 85mb

My soul was born in Cancer and it was born into the great river of the American Soul, still flowing in deep strains of hope and conquest. That soul was the Freedom that the earliest Americans dreamed and fought for which was the freedom to find God in themselves and follow Him, and it was finally born on earth as the spirit of a nation which would live in men, in Cancer . . . the sign of the birth of God in Man.

Throughout the life of this country that soul has been shared and carried by great men who lived to bring it to the PEOPLE. It has appeared in all ways but it has been most greatly loved and rejoiced in through its music. Those who sang it best sprang right from that soul and spent their lives singing it out. At every turning point in the life of America a Cancer has stood up to sing new soul as it flowed into the old and transformed it. Stephen Foster, George M. Cohan, Louis Armstrong, Woody Guthrie, Jessie Benton were all born as America was reborn and each was a prophet who did not speak of history but sung purely from the heart that creates it . . . and people who could truely hear them have felt history before it happened.
I am here once again to sing that song for you. And as this album was born in a burst of spirit and recorded simply in three days as it was sung . . . a new life for the world is bursting forth from the Heart of America.
The soul that is born in Cancer must always find its completion in Aries, when God and man become one. You can read the story of it in Mirror at the End of the Road by Mel Lyman. It is the story of his life from the moment it doubts itself and receives its first intimations of immortality to the time it becomes God as it grows from Cancer to Aries. You can hear that story on this album if you will step aside and let your soul listen.

I am singing America to you and it is Mel Lyman. He is the new soul of the world.

- Jim Kweskin

oh, and hey - if any of you have the following albums, I'd love to hear them:
Mel Lyman & the Lyman Family - American Avatar
Mel Lyman & the Lyman Family - Birth
Jim Kweskin - Side by Side
Jim Kweskin Lives Again (or any Kweskin album on the Mountain Railroad label)
Jim Kweskin - Relax Yourself

thanks!

Norman Blake & Red Rector

2009-07-06T18:14:00.010-06:00

There was an intimation that someone around here liked Norman Blake... which is almost as good as a request if the file is already uploaded and just awaiting posting...

I won't write any long, indulgent intros. Instead, I pirate two interviews for the guitar or mandolin enthusiast, below:

Norman Blake: Flatpicking Legend

Norman Blake quit school at age 16 to play mandolin in a band, and music has been the focus of his life ever since. Born March 10, 1938 in Chattanooga, TN, Norman grew up in Sulphur Springs and Rising Fawn, GA (both towns have found themselves part of the titles of later albums). His first band, The Dixie Drifters, played the Tennessee Barndance on WNOX Radio in Knoxville, TN. Later, they went to WDOD Radio, and from there to WROM-TV in Rome, GA where they stayed until 1956. Norman then worked with banjoist Bob Johnson as The Lonesome Travellers. They joined with Walter Forbes in making two records for RCA. In 1959, Norman left those groups to go with Hylo Brown and the Timberliners, although he continued as a duet with Bob Johnson in making several guest appearances on WSM's Grand Ole Opry.

At that time, Norman was drafted and stationed in the Panama Canal as a radio operator. There he formed the Fort Kobbe Mountaineers, a bluegrass band in which Norman played the fiddle and mandolin. They were voted Best Instrumental Group of the Caribbean Command, with Norman voted Best Instrumentalist.

Upon returning to the United States, Norman taught guitar to as many as 150 students weekly, and played the fiddle in a country and western dance band three and four nights a week. He also made frequent trips to Nashville to play sessions and, for a time, played as a member of June Carter's road group.

In 1969, Norman moved to Nashville to do the Johnny Cash Summer TV show, in which he played the guitar and dobro as a member of Cash's group. Along with country and western sessions, Norman recorded with Bob Dylan on The Nashville Skyline album. He was a member of Kris Kristofferson's first road group, playing guitar and dobro, and did a seasonal tour with Joan Baez, playing mandolin, guitar, and dobro; Norman recorded with both groups. He left Kristofferson to join and record with John Hartford's Aeroplane Band. After that band dissolved, Norman toured with John Hartford as his accompanist for 1 1/2 years, during which time he recorded his first solo album, Home in Sulphur Springs. He also received a gold record for his participation on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's legendary, Will the Circle be Unbroken album. After a nine-month tour with the Red, White and Blue(grass), he left to go back on his own where he has been ever since.

In the ensuing years, Norman and his wife Nancy Blake have toured extensively, playing to larger and more dedicated audiences. Again, Frets Magazine Readers Poll Awards voted Norman first place, this time in the category of Best Multi-Instrumentalist of 1986. Since 1989, the Blake's have received four Grammy nominations in the "Best Traditional Folk Recording of the Year" catagory for their projects, Blind Dog, their Shanachie debut Just Gimme Somethin' I'm Used To, and Shanachie releases While Passing Along This Way and The Hobo's Last Ride.

A San Francisco Examiner music critic wrote, "What Blake does is important, of course - but the glory of his string sounds, the Tennessee-Georgia twangy drawl of his vocals and the awesome blend of the Blake's instruments produces an American music of incomparable purity and integrity."

Last year in Maryville, Tennesse, at the first Steve Kaufman Flatpicking Camp, Norman Blake began his Saturday afternoon workshop by saying, "I'm here to teach you how to play slow." For many of the nearly two hundred camp attendees, including myself, it was exactly what we needed to hear. After spending a full week being blown away by teachers and fellow campers who could pick at lightning speeds, fingers dancing all over the fingerboard, it gave our deflated self-confidence a boost to hear a man of Norman's stature say that he likes to play slow and, for the most part, likes to stay on the first five frets. When Norman said that, a lot of us breathed a sigh of relief and decided that we would not burn our guitars when we got home.

All Norman Blake fans know that when he chooses to Norman can certainly play very fast, he can play all over the neck, and he can play fiddle tunes and bluegrass with the best of them. Additionally, most who are familiar with Blake's work know that he has spent the majority of his career playing Martin guitars. In an interview conducted at the 1997 Merlefest event, Norman Blake talks about why he now prefers to play the slower traditional old-time numbers and why his current guitar of choice is his 1929 Gibson Nick Lucas special.

At Steve Kaufman's camp you said that all you ever wanted to do was play like the "hillbilly's on the radio." Was that how you first became interested in playing music?

That is basically it. That and old records. We had 78 rpm records and wind up machines at home and I had heard Roy Acuff records first. The first music I was ever really conscious of was Roy Acuff and the Smokey Mountain Boys. I also heard the Monroe Brothers on record and of course the Skillet Lickers, the Carter Family, the Blue Sky Boys, the Delmore Brothers, and the Chuck Wagon Gang were all influential.

My Grandmother was a good musician. She played the piano, the organ and a little mandolin. She taught me my first guitar thing, "The Spanish Fandango," in open G tuning. She could play that. I also had a cousin named Earl Wallraven who was a fiddler and old time banjo player. I would go to his house about a mile down the railroad track and he would play the fiddle and teach me to second him. They called it "second" back then, playing "second to the fiddle." I did that and he would tell me when I wasn't making the right chords or changing in the right places. He would crack me over the knuckles with the fiddle bow or something.

How old were you when you started?

I was about eleven.

When you listened to the old records and the radio shows, were you drawn to the sound of the guitar or were you more interested in the music in general?

Just the general over-all thing I think. I wasn't drawn to it just for the guitar. You heard the fiddle and the dobro. I was really drawn hard to the dobro, but I didn't know what one was at that point. Old Oswald was playing it on Acuff records. The whole idiom just tickled my fancy.

When did you start to learn how to play leads on the guitar?

Well the first thing was that "Fandango," but of course it was a finger style thing. It wasn't like the written version because that is in 6/8 rhythm, but this was the open G straight time thing that you hear people play. When I got over the initial bare finger playing, I didn't flatpick. I played with one finger pick and a thumb pick and then gradually added a second finger pick. I then took up mandolin shortly after that and played that with a flatpick. At that point, in my mind, you didn't mix the two. The mandolin was played with a flatpick and the guitar with a thumb and finger pick.

Most of the old time accompanists in the old time bands just played with the thumb and finger deal behind the fiddle. So, I got into that and of course with that you learn how to make a lot of bass runs. Then you start to hear people like the Carter Family where she (Mother Maybelle) played the bass line run for the melody, so I learned that way. I learned the bass runs first and then the Carter Family got me playing the bass string lead with thumb and finger.

Later down the line I'd been through the Army in '61 through '63 down in the Panama Canal zone and I would pick up the guitar and I might play it with a flatpick, but still in my mind that was not the way that you did it. In the early sixties, I would give a few guitar lessons, and people kept talking about this fella named Doc Watson. I had never heard him and someone brought me a Doc Watson record. I listened to that and said, "Lord a'mercy, I could do something like that." I just didn't think that it was something you did. It was sort of like a novelty that you would play the guitar that way.

We had one fella that I knew early on by the name of Eddy Smith, up on Sand Mountain, who was a local player, who flatpicked like that. We sort of marveled at him, but we didn't try to imitate him that much. He could do the Riley Puckett style, but he had some flatpick rolls, sort of like cross rolls, that he did. I also remember Don Reno playing the "Country Boy Rock and Roll" and flatpicking the gospels on the guitar and stuff. I generally got into it that way. But when I heard Doc, I was sort of blown away by that. In those days I looked at it like mandolin style on the guitar. So I just gradually started doing it and kept on doing it.

I read somewhere that you still like to fingerpick when you play at home.

I fingerplay a whole lot. I got back into that, but I don't do it with picks anymore. I've got to where I like to do it without any picks because I can get so much more, lick- wise, without those picks. I just recorded a project on the Shanachie label that has fingerstyle on the 6 string banjo and on a National guitar. Its called "Chattanooga Sugarbabe," and should be out this summer. I am currently starting to perform fingerstyle more on that banjo. I like to do it on light strings. I like real slinky trebles. I have gradually gotten more into that.

How much of the fingerpicking carries over into flatpicking?

In my case a lot of it does because a big influence on me back about 1970 was Tut Taylor playing the dobro with a flatpick. I got into those kind of rolls when I was playing with him a lot. I think I play so many rolls now that my style has slowed down. I used to be able to burn it up speed wise with a thumb and finger pick. I could drive any banjo player crazy with a thumb and finger pick in the early days. I could play good bluegrass backup with a thumb and finger. I have lost that art now because I just haven't kept at it. My style has sort of broadened out, and the term I use is that I have gotten more "arrpegiated," because I have gotten to where I play more and more rolls with my flatpick and that has smoothed out and slowed down my style quite a bit. I think the fingerstyle and those flatpick rolls kind of go hand in hand.

I read somewhere that when you first started going out and playing on your own that you would play "hot licks" because that is what the audience expected. Earlier today you said that you used to play the Martin guitar because that is what people expected. Now it seems that you are getting into doing what you like to do.

Yeah, I'm doing what I like to do. It is easy to get me burned out on something that is real current. When enough people get into it, I kind of run the other way. I think I've done that a little bit with big twelve fret guitars, or D guitars period. People burned me out a long time ago. I heard so much D-28 hype in bluegrass that I got tired of it and I started playing twelve fret guitars. Now the twelve fret guitar has become well established, and I am glad to see that and I think that I have had a large factor in that because I performed on them so much.

Now I'm going full circle back around because I started playing the Gibson once again. They were the first guitars I had when I was a kid. Also, the Martin thing has gotten to be such a ritzy, high dollar, sophisticated club. I don't knock it. I think it is great. But it is more to my liking to branch off and kind of get away from that. I don't like to get typed into one thing totally.

What is the guitar you are playing today?

It is a 1929 12 fret Nick Lucas special.

What is it that you like about that guitar?

I like that it has a shorter, punchy tone that is good for old time music. It has a deep tone, but it has a real short, gutsy, loud, spit-it-out kind of sound. It doesn't ring or sustain forever. I kind of equate, in my own idiosyncratic mind, lots of sustain in guitars with a more modern sound. In other words, if you get a guitar that rings and you can go out and get a hot dog and come back before it stops ringing, it starts to get a little modern sounding. It can also start to get a little generic sounding because they can all start to sound the same. It is like the A model Gibson mandolins, there is only about one in a hundred that is really a cut above the other ninety-nine. That is about the same thing with large guitars if you are not careful. There is about one in a hundred that you can pick out and say has character.

I feel like old time music has such character that I want to play it on an instrument that has that same character. To my ear, if I do old time music, I want to hear something that sounds more that way. Maybe that is all it is. It seems that sustain makes the music sound more modern and more generic.

I also like Gibsons because they have a short scale. I've gotten to where I don't like the Martin 25.4 scale. With the shorter scale it is a little easier playing anchored in a chord as much as I do. I anchor down and play in a chord. When you are holding down something and moving in a chord it is easier because you don't have as far to go. The strings are also looser and I like the sloppier feel.

I never have cared for instruments with long extended necks. They have never appealed to me. I don't play that way. I usually play in about a five fret range. Visually, and the way it sits in your lap, I like twelve fret, shorter, chunkier built instruments. The Gibson fits that build. I was getting closer to it playing my big twelve fret guitars too. I like them better than most fourteen fret guitars. However, I do have a '39 D-18 that I like about as well as anything I've ever had.

You mentioned earlier that you like to use a thicker pick when you are at home than when you are on the road because the thinner pick sounds better through a microphone, it is the same with guitars?

I used to do that. I would play the smaller guitars when I was at home and then when I got a gig I'd grab the big Martin and away I'd go. I decided that I didn't want to make that transition. I'd play one at home and then I'd have to go get used to one that I'd play on stage. I kind of quit that. I figured that the one that I would like at home I would kind of like anywhere.

As far as the thick picks go, a thick pick can sound real good when you are kind of sitting around, you can get into that big fat tone, but it can sound a little muddy on a mic because you can pick up bass. A thin pick, when it is on a mic, gives you a little more cut and articulation. When it is just sitting under your ear and you haven't got that bigness of a sound system, then a thicker one can sound better.

Does the Nick Lucas have bar frets on it?

I had bar frets on the Martins because they were staccato and I liked them because they had height. Now we have so many frets that are all kinds of heights that I went away from that. Also, it was so hard to get people to work on them that could do a good job. Not only was it hard to find a guy who wanted to do the job, but rarely could they do it. A bar fret job, when it is done right, is really great. But more often than not, they weren't that great and then they can be

really hard to play on. For what I was gaining out of them, I was also losing as much.

What kind of strings do you use?

I use GHS Dynamite Boomers. I use them in individual gauges. I have not used standard sets in years. I use whatever suits the particular guitar. What's on that Nick Lucas guitar is .012, .016, .024, .034, .044, .060. I rarely use anything heavier than a .025 third. I would never use a .026, which is standard medium. I hardly ever use a .017 second string. Sometimes I use a .011 on the first string, but never a .013. I never use anything lighter than a .058 on the bass of any guitar. I hardl

y ever use anything heavier than a .034 on the fourth or .044 on the fifth. That is the basic parameters I stay in. I like the big string on top but I have never liked real tense, tight trebles on an instrument. I like the high end to be pretty loose.

Can you talk about the pick that you like to use?

I take a standard Fender heavy and I take the point off and then I take one of the rounded back corners and I make it a little straighter where it comes to some kind of a not too sharp point. I bevel them on both sides too. I might leave one of the back corners li

ke it came. That will give me the big woody, meaty sound if I want it. Then you have got the point, which you have shortened. So the whole thing becomes a basic triangular pick, just smaller. I used to sharpen my picks more than I do now. I used to be into getting a lot more of a trebly sound out of it and I don't like that quite as much as I used to. I tend to go for a bit more of a rounder thing with it now. I find that suits me better now for the tone I try to produce.

But, as we talked about earlier, at home you might play a heavier pick?

Sitting around the house I might play an extra heavy instead of a heavy.

Doesn't the bevel you put on the pick make it seem a bit lighter than a heavy or extra heavy, as the case may be?

Right, and it also depends upon the degree of bevel. If you have an extra heavy pick and you bevel it enough, then you could still get a good bit of snap and articulation out of it. But if it doesn't have enough bevel, it can be muddy. Therefore, on the opposite extreme, if you take a standard heavy, you don't bevel it as much because it isn't as thick to start with and you still get a brighter sound, but with less bevel.

Earlier you said that it is easy to get you burned out on something that is real current. Has the fact that there are many young guitarists out there burning it up and playing everything at 90 miles an hour been a factor in your preference to play things slower these days?

I am certainly more comfortable with it slow. I think it all boils down to the fact that I have played more and more cross rolls over the years and that just slows you down. When I was playing my fastest, I wasn't doing all that. I was just playing single note style. I call it linear style, just stretched out playing linear notes. But when you start playing rolls with a flatpick it will slow your style down because you are putting in more. With the rolls you are putting in more at a slower speed, the other way you are putting in less at a faster speed. The guys that can play the fastest, I think, are putting in less notes and the fingerings have to be different.

I feel that Tony Rice has a set of fingerings that are indicative strictly of his style. I don't even savvy those fingerings enough to know what is going on. I see what he is doing, but it is way out past me. Sam Bush and Tony and those guys of that particular time frame, they developed a thing all their own. It is a whole style that is like a new jazz style really. You can't hardly relate that back in some ways to some of the older things. They just developed their own thing. They have spent a lot of time on that and they do fingerings that really suit those things that they are doing. That way they can get a lot of things that are seemingly impossible to some of us mere mortals (laughs).

I've seen that you have been out playing some with Tony lately.

Yeah, we've been gigging a little bit.

Is the set you do with him different from the kind of set you did today with Nancy and James?

Yes and no. It sounds different because of him. It is going to sound different because he is Tony and he sounds like Tony. He is probably playing slower to play with me. I just sing some songs. Sometimes I sing the same songs that I sang today. We play some instrumentals like "Salt Creek" and "Cattle in the Cane" and some of the standard things. But for most of it I just go out and sing some songs. He is not singing right now, so we don't try to duplicate what we have recorded.

Its great, I just go out and sing and say that I have a great lead guitar player. We have a lot of fun. He and I both like a good song. We always said that if we never got together on any other ground, that was enough right there. He has said that what we also have in common is that we both like tone. We both are conscious of making a certain kind of tone and dynamics. Speed wise, I don't hold him any candles there.

How do you go about working up a solo to a fiddle tune?

I could come at it from a lot of angles. It would depend upon the tune partly. A lot of fiddle tunes I learned out of fiddle tune books on the mandolin because I can read better for the mandolin than I can for the guitar, plus it is all written for fiddle, so the mandolin is the one. I might learn it on the mandolin out of the book and then gradually, just by ear, it translates over to the guitar. It usually gets changed because I think that some things that sound good on mandolins, fiddles, and banjos are not guitaristic. Some people say a "note is a note" or a "tune is a tune," but I think there are certain things that sound good on a guitar that makes guitar music what it is and fiddle music different.

But I might start a new tune by learning it out of a book and learn it that way on the mandolin and it might come over to the guitar. If I learn it by ear starting on the guitar I am usually looking for a place where I can get the most out of it just playing it by myself. I usually approach everything on the level of performing it at least by myself, so I am looking for where I can get the most rolls, the most power, volume and tone. I try to get the most happening with just me. This means that I would be playing it out of a C or G position trying to get the most open strings and adjacent drone strings. So I would go at it from that angle if I was just starting it on guitar.

Would the break change a bit if you were playing in a band situation?

It might. It might be that you just don't need as much or you don't need to establish the same kind of rhythm. The more people that are around, the more you tend to leave out because you can clutter it up too bad sometimes. There is no point to going into everything you can do if there are other musicians.

During the workshop at Kaufman's camp you said that you still try to play two or three hours everyday, but you also said that you used to practice more. I've heard stories about you sitting and practicing all day long. What do you do when you practice?

I might play one tune for a week. I might play different tunes all the time or I might not play any tunes, I might just sing songs, or I might just doodle around. Some days I just say that I am "doing maintenance," I am just moving my fingers. I'm not learning a thing. I might go a month and not learn a thing except just keep my fingers in trim, keep them moving to where I could go up on stage and play. Or I might spend a month working hard to learn a set of tunes. I have no set regime. It is probably to my disadvantage really. I mean, a lot of people have much be

tter practice habits. I don't have good practice habits. I purely play because I like to play and sometimes that means just fooling with it.

- from Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, reprinted here

RED RECTOR

Red Rector was a much loved and highly respected musician, one of the most distinctive stylists of bluegrass and country mandolin. His playing was powerful, sophisticated, neat, often amusing and above all heartfelt. Very sadly, Red is longer with us, having died in 1990 when he was only 60.

In 1982 the old Bluegrass And Old Time Mandolin newsletter was pleased to be able to publish an interview with Red Rector. The interview took place in late 1981 when Red and banjo player Don Stover were staying in England with John Atkins, long time musician and supporter of bluegrass and acoustic music in this country. John, and his two associates in Breakdown Productions, Mike Craig and Dave Hatfield, were responsible for bringing Red and Don over for a successful UK tour. During this time John managed to fit in the interview with Red, and has now kindly given permission for it to be published on the Web.

Interview with Red Rector

John Atkins: When you started playing mandolin, Red, who did you listen to first of all?

Red Rector: Oh, Bill.

JA: You listened to Monroe?

RR: Oh, yeah!

JA: That was Bill before you listened to, say, the Blue Sky Boys or the Morris Brothers, or people like that?

RR: Must have been. The first mandolin I heard was Bill, Bill and Charlie (Monroe), that New River Train. I did hear the Morris Brothers, when I was going to grade school. Zeke played mandolin some.

JA: When you started playing, as a result of Bill, what was the first mandolin you ever bought?

RR: A Kay.

JA: How did you learn how to tune it, and things like that?

RR: Well, I played for quite a while before I learned to tune! I guess I finally learned to tune by tuning the E string to the guitar open E, but I played for two or three years before I learned to tune. I was a terrible tuner!

JA: Did you find that Bill's style of mandolin playing was so good as to put you off playing that way, or did you really work on copying Bill's style?

RR: Yeah, when I first started, that's the way I wanted to sound, exactly, the first three or four years that I played.

JA: That was Bill playing with Charlie Monroe?

RR: Yes.

JA: Can you remember anything that you learned from Bill and Charlie?

RR: No, I just learned to like the mandolin. But when I started to listen to Bill on the Grand Old Opry later, that's when I really started trying to play just like him. That's when Clyde Moody was with him, he had his Blue Grass Boys, he was playing those blues things: True Life Blues, Tennessee Blues, Honky Tonk Swing - I learned to play that exactly - I thought it was exactly like it, anyway!

JA: Do you still play that? Or Tennessee Blues?

RR: No. I can't remember it. I remember it (Tennessee Blues) was in A.

JA: Was it Johnny Wright who told you that you really should quit playing like Monroe?

RR: Well, when I went with Johnny and Jack in Raleigh (NC), early in 1947, or late 46 I guess it was, I was 16 years old, and they began to work with me to get me to try to change the way I was playing. I was playing note for note like Bill then. John explained, 'Look, there's only one Bill, and if you're ever going to gain any name for yourself as a mandolin player, you've got to get a style of your own.' But I wouldn't listen to him, I thought, if you don't plav like Bill, you don't play mandolin. So they began to tell me about a boy that used to play with them in West Virginia named Paul Buskirk. 'He has his own style, and he can play mandolin!' The way I heard him was when they went on the Grand Old Opry, and I was so scared to go on the Grand Old Opry that I didn't go with them. The thought of going on that stage petrified me! So they got Paul Buskirk, and I tuned in one night, and heard him on the Grand Old Opry, and thought, 'Man alive! I never heard nothing like that in my life!' - the way that guy played the mandolin. So I went down to the Opry to pick my mandolin up - I'd sent it on ahead with them, 'cause I'd fully intended to go on with them when they started on the Opry. The more I'd thought about it, the more frightened I'd felt about going, so I didn't go! I had a chance to meet Paul Buskirk. We went backstage - Bill Monroe got us in - the crowd was gathered around the dressing room, Buskirk was sitting there in a jam session, and everyone was gathered around watching him play. Chubby Wise, I remember, and it seems like Eddy Arnold was standing there watching him - enough people to let you know that somebody was picking that everyone wanted to hear! So I had a chance to meet Paul that night, and listen to him and talk to him some, so it was then that I started trying to develop a style. I started playing a little bit like Paul, maybe, on the low strings. There was another boy named Ernest Ferguson I thought played real pretty mandolin, the guy playing with the Bailes Brothers. Then I got a job with Charlie Monroe, and went to Knoxville on The Mid-Day Merrygoround, and Homer and Jethro happened to be there at that time. When I heard Jethro, and I'd already heard Buskirk, I said, 'Well, I've heard the two greatest in the world!' So somewhere between then and a year later, I came up with a little sound that, if I have anything that is different, that's when it started. By the time I was 18, I was playing my own style.

JA: Of course, Bill Monroe gave you some pretty solid advice, didn't he?

RR: He came over - I was 15 when we were on a little local radio station at Asheville, WWNC, and he played the civic auditorium there, along with Carl Story and his group, the Rambling Mountaineers. We were called The Blue Ridge Hillbillies at the time: Red Smiley was playing guitar and Jimmy Lunsford on the fiddle and a fellow called Snowball that managed the thing. He was an old Nashville showman, a comedian. I forget who else was in the group, maybe the Sauceman Brothers were with us. So we went over to the auditorium, and that was the first time I'd been around Bill, and I was scared to death to even walk in the place! I didn't own the mandolin I was playing - an F5 mandolin that belonged to Red Smiley. I was sitting, trying to tune it or something, when Bill walked over and asked what it sold for new. I said, 'I don't know, it's not mine. It belongs to the redheaded boy that plays the guitar, over there. I think he paid $250 for it.' Bill said, 'Is that right? Can I look at it?' He took it and played it for a few minutes - and tuned it (laughs) - and then he asked me to play a little tune. I tried to play something. He said, 'Well, you got good fast fingers, but you're playing with a stiff wrist.' I looked down, and I really was playing with a stiff wrist, stiff as a board. So that's when I started trying to develop my wrist.

JA: You've mentioned all these guys that you liked, Buskirk, Ernest Ferguson, and Jethro, and how you evolved your own style. Did you actually copy what they did? How did you work on your own style?

RR: Well, I tried to listen, and maybe incorporate ideas from different players, and try to get a few of my own things in. I guess it came together with a combination of things like that.

JA: You play mostly away from the first position. Is that deliberate, to get a different sound?

RR: Oh, yeah.

JA: When did you start doing that?

RR: I guess when I was with Carl Story.

JA: When you play tunes like Blackberry Blossom live, you play at about 6,000 miles an hour!

RR: Maybe a little faster!

JA: What sort advice would you give to anybody wanting to play at that speed?

RR: Well, you have to do it with your wrist - too much work for the arm.

JA: Do you think in terms of trying to keep your fingers close together?

RR: Mine are naturally close because they're short, but you'd almost have to do that. I don't advise anybody to play at breakneck speed. Well, maybe one tune on the show is good for the show, but if you're going to make a good recording........

JA: On your records that you've done so far, you've tended to play a lot more slowly than you would otherwise do. Why is that?

RR: I think it's a better feel for the studio musicians, and then a lot of times you don't have time to work things out the way you would like to. When you go into the studio you have so many hours to record, so you pick a pace that suits everybody best, and go from there.

JA: Do I take it from that, that you're not ecstatically delighted with your records that you've made so far?

RR: I've made some that I was happy with, and I've made some that I wish I hadn't made! I guess everybody's like that.

JA: But there's not one that you can look back on and say, 'That's it! That's the one!'?

RR: I don't think so, no. I've made some that I would have to say that I was sort of proud of, not for what I do, but for what the other guys do that are on it. But I don't think that there's any one that I ever made, that I didn't think that there was something that I could have done maybe better.

JA: You use an A model mandolin. You've tried an F model ....

RR: I've played a lot, and I don't have anything against them. The A just seems to suit my style of playing.

JA: Have you tried any of the other mandolins (other than Gibson) - the newer makes?

RR: Yeah, I've played some that I've liked.... Norman Blake has an F5 that I like to play, and he's also got a real good A model that I like!

JA: What sort of advice would you give to someone who was just starting out on mandolin?

RR: Well, the biggest thing is, make sure you want to play! Practise as long as it's fun. If you can play an hour and have a ball, great! You're learning something. If you play 30 minutes, and the last 30 minutes you're looking at the clock and saying, 'Man, I can't wait until I can quit practising,' then you're not learning a durn thing! As long as it's fun, practise.

JA: I think there are a lot of people with the mistaken impression that geniuses are born that way. In some cases they are, but I've never known yet a genius who doesn't need to practise. Often the difference between Jethro and somebody who's nowhere near as good is not only a genius, (Jethro obviously has some gift!) but it's also hours and hours of practice. Would you agree with that?

RR: Yeah, that and a love of the thing. If you love the music enough, that creates desire, and I think desire creates the ability that you might not have had basically. I think that a good musician has the basic ability, just like a real good athlete, has that gift of special coordination, maybe, that some people don't have. But you're right about practice, though; the gift is no good unless you do something with it. How many mediocre musicians do you know who could be great if they applied themselves to the natural ability that they might have?

JA: You are known as a bluegrass mandolin player. Do you play other forms of music? Jethro, for example, would be hurt if somebody called him a bluegrass mandolin player! (laughter from both) Jethro is a jazz mandolin player...

RR: Yeah, he's known for jazz, but he likes to sit around and pick hoedown tunes, you know. I enjoy playing other kinds of music. I love to play these old Irish tunes, like When I Grow Too Old To Dream - not that that's an Irish tune! But tunes in that category. Lara's Theme - I do that on the shows a lot....

JA: My advice, when I used to teach, was that whatever you play, whether it be banjo, mandolin or guitar, think of it as a musical instrument. So if you want to play the guitar, play the guitar. Don't say, 'I'm gonna play bluegrass guitar, and that's the end to it!' Would you go along with that advice?

RR: Yeah, absolutely. Now there is, in playing bluegrass music, a special technique. There are some real fine guitar players that couldn't back you up on John Henry or something, because they haven't heard it before, and maybe their ear don't hear that rhythm. So there is a technique, and the same with playing bluegrass mandolin. I don't think of myself as a bluegrass mandolin player in the strictest sense, but I guess I play more bluegrass shows than I do anything else, and I'm booked more on bluegrass festivals, so that's the category that I would be in.

JA: But I would think of you as a mandolin player that plays bluegrass music - you play other forms of music, obviously. Nobody in bluegrass plays Miss Jameson's Favourite, as you do, (a Celtic tune) - yet!

RR: So, practise, and get with someone that you enjoy playing with. You can always learn from other people, jam sessions, and don't get so doggone independent that you'll only listen to one style. Listen to different styles, 'cause that's the way it's going now.

JA: What about playing more than one instrument? Most people, it seems, come on to mandolin as a second instrument. There are very, very few people who play mandolin only - you could probably count them on the fingers of one hand, couldn't you? The real mandolin players.....

RR: A heck of a lot of mandolin players are fiddle players who double on mandolin. Byron Berline plays good mandolin. He's a fiddler, and I think Jethro and me are probably the only two mandolin players that can't play a fiddle! I can't use a bow...

JA: Monroe could be a third?

RR: Ah, he plays some. He can plav some old tunes, not on a par with Kenny Baker or anyone like that, but he can saw out a tune.

JA: But you play guitar, yourself. Do you think that playing a guitar is any use to you as a mandolin player, or do you think it limits you in any way?

RR: Well, it don't help me! I don't play guitar that much any more. I use one a little, occasionally.

JA: So your advice to a mandolin player would be to play the mandolin?

RR: Yeah, unfortunately there are only a few Mark O'Connors that can play them all. For most people, play the instrument you love - that's the one you'll learn to play. I like all of them, but the mandolin is my first love!

Red Rector's mandolin style is characterised by very clean but powerful picking, and a really clear tone from his Gibson A4. Red is a consummate artist, with a particular ear for melody, and a good taste which relies more on playing what sounds right than on impressing his listeners with flashy chromatics and off-beat ideas. Not that there isn't a place for the latter, it's just that Red doesn't need to use them most of the time, though sometimes he sticks in a wild little run (usually in triplets, at the speed of light!) to ginger it up! I've always thought of Red as the 'gentleman' of the bluegrass mandolin world - never one to seek the limelight, but preferring to act as a support musician of the highest order. Luckily the mandolin world is quite aware of Red's talent!

- from http://www.users.waitrose.com/~john.baldry/mando/rector.html
Norman Blake & Red Rector
County 755 (1976)

Tracks:
01. The Girl I Left Behind Me
02. Denver Belle
03. Lorena
04. The Old Spinning Wheel
05. Mississippi Sawyer
06. Red Wing
07. Cricket On The Hearth
08. Limehouse Blues
09. The Green Leaves Of Summer
10. Freight Train
11. Darling Nellie Across The Sea
12. Darlin' Honey

the moon shines tonight.
from vinyl | mp3 vbr | w/ cover | 47mb

* out of print

thanks to kike again!

"Dakota" Dave Hull & Sean Blackburn - Vol. 1 & Rollin' Along

2009-07-06T10:09:00.008-06:00

Porco Rosso just posted a couple of great country-meets-jazz albums over at Guitar and the Wind. He talks about the history of the various attempts to fuse the genres, beginning with Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills. I thought I'd contribute to the musical discussion a bit, so here's an album I've been meaning to post for a while. This album is sorta acoustic western swing, with bits of bluegrass and full on string- or dixieland jazz, and it's all really fantastic music. Dave is one of the best acoustic guitarists around, and the supporting musicians are top-notch too. Pretty much every track is memorable.

Hailed by everyone from Dave Van Ronk to Doc Watson, from the Washington Post to downbeat, Dakota Dave Hull’s guitar style spans a wide musical geography to create an infectious, uniquely personal blend of jazz, ragtime, folk, blues, Western swing, and vintage pop. Dakota Dave is a restlessly curious, adventurous traveler along the broad highway of America’s music. In his playing the masters speak, but in a vocabulary that is Dave’s alone: alternatively mirthful and moving, always melodic.

A gifted composer as well as a strikingly original interpreter of older tunes, Dakota Dave calls what he does "classic American guitar." Folk legend Van Ronk called Dave "one of the best guitarists in the world."

Most of all, Dakota Dave’s music is great fun. As Douglas Greene (Ranger Doug of Riders in the Sky) puts it, "There is an imp within Dave Hull that always expresses itself on the fretboard; a witty, intelligent yet respectful imp who frolics in his music, an imp Dakota Dave neither fights nor lets take control, but simply absorbs into the heart of his style."

On stage or in the recording studio Dave has performed with Utah Phillips, Doc Watson, Robin and Linda Williams, Dave Van Ronk, John Renbourn, Paul Geremia, Spider John Koerner, Cam Waters, Sally Rogers, Butch Thompson, Peter Ostroushko, Garrison Keillor, and Norman Blake, among others. His albums include three with early performing partner Sean Blackburn and five solo efforts (the acclaimed Hull’s Victory and Reunion Rag, both on Flying Fish) with four more, New Shirt, Sheridan Square Rag, The Loyalty Waltz and Time Machine on Arabica Records. Airship, a duo album with singer/guitarist/fiddler Pop Wagner has been raising some eyebrows, too. His three albums with guitar and mandolin ace Kari Larson (also on Arabica) have become legendary.

At the urging of Van Ronk, among others, Dave released his first album of solo fingerstyle guitar tunes in 2002. He followed it up with another two years later and should have a third before too long. Watch for a live album, too.

"Hull is something of a guitar god in his native midwest, where he's been dazzling audiences for over 30 years with his lush finger-picking and quicksilver flat-picking. He is also a sly raconteur with an encyclopedic knowledge of vintage American music."
—Scott Alarik, Boston Globe, March 2004

"There's a million good things I could say about Dave Hull but I'll narrow it down to two: He's an excellent picker, both flatpick and fingerstyle, he collects some fine instruments, and we've been at a lot of good places to eat together."
—Norman Blake

"Dakota Dave brings a modesty and tenderness to the old classics he plays - qualities that are rare among guitarists of his stature and experience."
—Sarah Craig, Manager, Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs, NY, March 2004

"Hey Dave, thanks for sending me your Loyalty Waltz album. I just put it on to use as background music for something I was reading. Damn you, I never read a thing. Listened to the whole album straight through. Nice album, my good man. Keep on."
—Geoff Muldaur

"Dakota" Dave Hull & Sean Blackburn - Vol. 1 & Rollin' Along

unfortunately, I can't find any information whatsoever about this album; some tracks look to be overlapping with 1980's River of Swing, but not all (see below)

and based on that album, I'm guessing some of the musicians on this one are:
Dakota Dave Hull, vocals, guitars
Sean Blackburn, vocals, guitars
Butch Thompson, clarinet, piano
Peter Ostroushko, vocals, mandolins, fiddle
Molly Mason, vocals, bass
James Mason, fiddle
Mike Cass, dobro, pedal steel
and some horn players, banjo, harmonica
official websites:
Dakota Dave Hull: http://www.dakotadavehull.com/
Sean Blackburn: http://www.seanblackburn.com/

anyway, tracklist is as follows:
1 Old Fashioned Love
2 Blues for Dixie
3 Hillbilly Swing
4 Jingle in my Jeans
5 When You Go
6 Beaumont Rag
7 Fan It
8 Palomino Pal
9 I'll Keep Lovin' You
10 Dixie Cannonball
11 Miss the Mississippi
12 There'll be Some Changes Made
13 Boomtown
14 Walkin' in the Shadow
15 Ya Gotta Have a Moustache
16 Deep Water
17 What's the Use
18 I Don't Wanna Set the World On Fire
19 The Wicked Wind of Fargo
20 River of Swing
21 Searchin the Desert for the Blues
22 Rollin' Along

part 1 | part 2
mp3 192kbps | w/ images but no cover

* out of print
(but you can buy a bunch of Dave's awesome solo guitar records, on his own label, at his website. and you should. I'm going to!)

edit: Porco Rosso did some sleuthing and came up with this info:
Tracks 1-8 are from the album 'Ace Pickin' And Sweet Harmony' (Train On The Island TI-2, 1977)
Tracks 9-15: 'North By Southwest' (Biscuit City 1324, 1978)
Tracks 16-22: 'River of Swing' (Flying Fish Records FF-236, 1980)
All pretty obscure except for the Flying Fish album.

thanks to the original uploader (kike?), from the blues club

Eino Tulikari - Kantele

2009-07-04T12:50:00.009-06:00

Here's an odd treat shared by the venerable Lemmy Caution. I pass it along to you, dear readers, because it is the closest-sounding thing I've ever heard to the mysterious instrument of Washington Phillips. This music is heavenly, ancient, stunningly beautiful, crystaline and stately. I would even call it celestial, because it suggests a lilting dance that takes place in the upper reaches of the great blue firmament's invisible constellations, between its starry denizens and sparkling darkness.

Eino Tulikari (1905-1977) was born in the village Halsua in the Pohjanmaa region. He was the most accomplished player of our national instrument, the kantele, in his time. He started studying it when he was five or six, and took part in a competition when he was ten. Before the competition, the jury announced that the winner shall play for the dances that were to be held later in the evening. Eino would have won the competition, but since he wasn't old enough to be allowed to lead the dances, his big brother Oskari, who also took part in the competition, was declared winner.

Tulikari's home region, the Perhonjoki valley, was a flourishing music center. In addition to Eino and his three brothers , the kantele was also mastered by neighbours Matti and Ilmari Karvonen, and Vesteri Tuominiemi played the violin.

Eino Tulikari studied in the Helsinki Music Institute, but after a year he decided to find a more secure way of making a living, so he moved to Jyväskylä and became a teacher in 1931.

As a teacher, Tulikari kept playing as his hobby, and in 1975, two years before his death, he cut an album for the National Music Institute. Here's that album remastered for CD, with four 1956 recordings for national broadcasting company YLE added. He is recognized as one of the old masters, and in fact this recording was the first issued by the Finnish Folk Music Institute in Kaustinen, so his influence is obvious.

Kantele
From Wikipedia

A kantele (pronounced [ˈkɑntele] in Finnish) or kannel ([ˈkɑnːel] in Estonian) is a traditional plucked string instrument of the zither family native to Finland, Estonia and Karelia. It is related to the Russian gusli, the Latvian kokle and the Lithuanian kanklės. Together these instruments make up the family known as Baltic Psalteries.

The oldest forms of kantele have 5 or 6 horsehair strings and a wooden body carved from one piece; more modern instruments have metal strings and often a body made from several pieces. Modern concert kanteles can have up to 40 strings. Modern instruments with 15 or fewer strings are generally more closely modelled on traditional shapes than the concert kantele, and form a separate category of instrument known as small kantele. The playing positions of concert kantele and small kantele are reversed, i.e., to the player of a small kantele the longest low pitched strings are farthest away from his body, whilst to a concert kantele this side of the instrument is nearest, and the short high pitched strings farthest away. The instruments have different though related repertoires.

Robert Stigell's Väinämöinen (1888) decorating the Vanha Ylioppilastalo (Old Studenthouse) in Helsinki holds humankind's first kantele made of the giant pike's jawbone as told in Kalevala.

The kantele has a distinctive bell-like sound. The Finnish kantele generally has a diatonic tuning though small kantele with between 5 and 15 strings are often tuned to a gapped mode missing a seventh and with the lowest pitched strings tuned to a fourth below the tonic as a drone. The Estonian kannel has a variety of traditional tunings. Concert versions have a switch mechanism (similar to semitone levers on a modern folk harp) for making sharps and flats. Players hold the kantele in their laps or on a small table. There are two main techniques to play, either plucking the strings with their fingers or strumming unstopped strings (sometimes with a matchstick).

There have been strong developments for the kantele in Finland lately. Education for playing the instrument starts in schools and music institutes up to conservatories and the Sibelius Academy, the only music university in Finland. Even some artistic doctoral studies are being made at the Academy with traditional, western classical and electronic music. In Estonia, studying the kannel has made a resurgence after some years of decline. A Finnish luthiery, Koistinen, has developed also an electric kantele, which employs pick-ups similar to those on electric guitars. It has gained popularity amongst Finnish heavy metal composers, such as Amorphis.

In Finland's national epic, Kalevala, the mage Väinämöinen makes the first kantele from the jawbone of a giant pike and a few hairs from Hiisi's stallion. The music it makes draws all the forest creatures near to wonder at its beauty. Later, after losing and greatly grieving over his kantele, Väinämöinen makes another one from a birch, strung with the hair of a willing maiden, and its magic proves equally profound. It is the gift the eternal sage leaves behind when he departs Kaleva at the advent of Christianity.

The following is a summary of Poems No. 39-44 from the Finnish national epic Kalevala, which explain the mythological birth of kantele:

Poems 39-41
Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen set out to steal the Sampo from Pohjola. In the course of the journey, their boat runs aground on the shoulders of a giant pike. Väinämöinen kills the pike and fashions a kantele from its jawbone. No one else is able to play the instrument, but Väinämöinen holds all living things spellbound with his playing.

Poems 42-43
Väinämöinen puts the people of Pohjola to sleep with his kantele playing and the Sampo is taken to the travellers' boat and rowed away. The people of Pohjola awaken and Louhi, the mistress of Pohjola, sends obstacles in the path of the raiders to hinder their escape. The seafarers survive, but the kantele falls into the sea. Louhi sets off in pursuit and transforms herself into a giant bird of prey. In the ensuing battle the Sampo is smashed and falls into the sea. Some of the fragments remain in the sea, but others wash ashore and bring Finland good fortune and prosperity. Louhi is left with only the worthless lid of the Sampo and an impoverished land.

Poem 44
In vain, Väinämöinen seeks the kantele which fell into the sea. He makes a new kantele from birchwood and his playing once again delights the whole of creation.

- from http://www.kaiku.com/kantele.html

Eino Tulikari - Kantele (Traditional Finnish Kantele Music)

Tracks:
1. Kantelemarssi (Kantele March)
2. Valssi Halsualta (Waltz From Halsua)
3. Pirunpolkka (Devil's Polka)
4. Niemen-Kallen jenkka (Kalle Niemi's Jenka)
5. Oskarin valssi (Oskari's Waltz)
6. Masurkka (Mazurka)
7. Tulikarin sottiisi
8. Kulkurin valssi (Vagabond's Waltz)
9. Hevosmiesten marssi (March of the Horsemen)
10. Voi jos ilta joutuisi (Oh, If the Evening Would Come Soon)
11. Alotusmarssi (Starting March)
12. Hääpolska (Wedding Polska)
13. Koko maailman valssi (Waltz of the Whole World)
14. Polkka
15. Syyskuun ilta (September Evening)
16. Polkkasikermä (Polka Medley)
17. Tofferin Viljamin marssi
18. Polkansiruja (Shards of Polka)
19. Purppurimarssi
20. Valssi Purpurista
21. Vanha marssi n:o 1 (Old March Nr. 1)
22. Vanha valssi (Old Waltz)
23. Niemen Kallen jenkka

jawbone jamboree.
320kbs mp3, full scans

thanks to Lemmy Caution & da origina uppa

see also this Kantele page & dissertation

I've got a mission for you

2009-07-04T12:41:00.002-06:00

Hello.

Firstly I would like to thank you for your blog, you have introduced me to some fine music I couldn't possible have heard any other way. Its a great service to all them musicians and songs that could easily have faded away under the umpteen fads that have come and gone over the ages.

I have a recording of Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintock singing a song called Paddy Clancy. He only sings a fragment of the song. I'm trying to track down the lyrics or another version but to no avail, I'm thinking it either has a different name or this is the only record left of the song. He explains where it came from in the mp3. The tune sounds so familiar I am convinced I have heard it somewhere before. With your ears and knowledge you might know it. I'm sure your busy enough with life and educating the masses through cyber space but if you have any leads it would put my mind to rest.

- Niall
Galway, Ireland.

here's the song:

(download here)
do any of you readers have an answer?

The Dough Rollers

2009-07-01T20:27:00.004-06:00

Hello Pirate, First off, let me just say what huge fans we are of your blog, Wrath of the Grapevine. You have a great taste in and knowledge of music and you do an incredible job sharing these things. I saw recently that you put up a post from a new blues band called the black oil brothers. Anyway that brings me to the point of this note. We wanted to send you a track from our album and see if you liked it and would maybe want to post it on your blog. We are three piece, sometimes 4 piece acoustic blues/gospel/ragtime/country whathaveyou band out of New York City, called The Dough Rollers, however we are all in Los Angeles playing a residency for the summer. If you like our music please let us know and maybe we could send you some more songs. This one we're sending you is Operator Blues. You can also hear more tunes at www.myspace.com/malcolmandjack. Like I said, if you're into it drop us a line back, if not, let us know anyway. Thanks for your time. Cheers and thanks for all the great music, Jack Byrne and Malcolm Ford

Thanks guys! New weird America, for sure. I like how comfortably you cross genres, from fingerpicking country blues to jugband to old-time to delta blues and back! And the raw, ragged quality of your delivery certainly suits the music and stays true to the old styles.

Here's some songs:
Drunkard's Hiccoughs
I Heard the Voice of a Porkchop
I Got A Letter from My Darlin
Cool Drink of Water

Obray Ramsey - Blue Ridge Banjo

2009-06-30T20:22:00.004-06:00

Obray Ramsey. I don't think they make names like that anymore. Or if they do (Riley Baugus?), they're reserved for old mountain-dwelling banjo-plunkers like this one. His banjo-playing perfectly matches his singing style; he hits a high note and then immediately drops down (sometimes triply so) so there is always a yearning, mealancholy undercurrent to the sprightly and bubbling brook of his banjo and his sparklingly clear voice. Not quite as fearsome as Dock Boggs or Roscoe Holcomb, or as lonesome as Ralph Stanley, but really enjoyable.

Biography by Eugene Chadbourne

Obray Ramsey is the banjo-picking cousin of old-time music instrumentalist Byard Ray, and the two worked regularly as a duo until they were "discovered" playing at an Asheville folk festival during the folk music revival of the '60s. From that point on, the two men's musical career took a strangely twisted path. Late-night television mongers who may have made it all the way through the strange psychedelic rock western Zachariah, may wonder who the two old-time musicians are that show up in one of this epic's many strange musical wonders, and the answer would be Ray and Ramsey. The same viewer may also wonder why they have become attached to their seat with cement, the only condition under which an intelligent human being would endure the length of the aforementioned film. In 1962, producer John Simon invited the duo to New York City, or "thawt New Yawk," as it is known south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The players were swept into experimental recording projects with a strange combination of players, although perhaps something a bit more threatening than a broom was needed to get these old-timers to pick alongside players such as avant garde classical guitarist Sam Brown, studio pro and funkmeister Chuck Rainey, rhythm and blues session drummer Herb Lovelle, sarcastic pianist Dave Frishberg, and even a black gospel group, the Wondrous Joy Clouds. File Under Rock was the name of the first album edited together from these sessions, the players collectively given the ad hoc group was given the name White Lightnin', at that time a slang term for a type of LSD as well as the traditional name for home-brewed liquor from the mountains. A second album entitled Fresh Air was also released, notable for a pleasant Bob Dylan cover version featuring the old-time musicians performing with the collegiate folkies Judy Collins and Eric Anderson, resulting in a memorable meeting of the old and new in folk music.

Ramsey has also recorded on his own, including an album of folk music for Prestige International. He is considered one of the finest banjoists for accompanying singing and has been compared favorably with Doc Boggs. In the late '50s, he was a member of fiddler Tommy Hunter's Carolina String Band with the leader's sister Nan Hunter and her husband George Fisher. The archival type Deadheads might have his name on the tip of their tongue (along with lord knows what else) via Grateful Dead's cover version of Ramsey's song "Cold Rain and Snow," one of many traditional Appalachian numbers this band used to jam out on. Ramsey and his music is also credited with having a large influence on the writer Manly Wade Wellman, a creator of science fiction, adventure, and mystery stories who once beat out William Faulkner in a writing contest. Through a friendship with folklorist Vance Randolf, Wellman met Ramsey during one of several collecting and recording trips in hillbilly territory. Ramsay is also a member of an elite club of musicians that have had songs written about them, in this case the ditty "Ballad of Obray Ramsey," recorded by Matthew's Southern Comfort on their 1970 album Second Spring. Ramsey also gave some music lessons to Mel Lyman, a musician who would eventually join the Jim Kweskin Jug Band as a replacement member and go on to supposedly form his own mind control cult in the Bay Area. Despite basically being a farmer and banjo picker, Ramsey just couldn't seem to avoid contacts with weird '60s stuff.

---

note: the following LP is untainted by all that '60s weirdness... It was his first album, and it's pure old mountain music, just Obray and his banjer.

Obray Ramsey - Blue Ridge Banjo

Label: Washington (WLP 707)
Year: 1957

From the back cover:

In recent years, we have heard all to often about the 'dying' of folk culture in the Southern mountains. Many of the collectors who ventured into this area to record the songlore of the region in the 1930s and '40s, shed sorry tears for the passing of a beautiful and rich tradition, each proclaiming his own collection to be the "last leaves" of this once-proud heritage. So, fewer and fewer adventuresome souls have involved themselves in recording the still-living tradition of the area. Those who have, however, have been amply rewarded by finding that, even though mountain life has been completely revolutionized in the past few decades, tradition dies hard, and numerous singers may still be heard and recorded. To be sure, there are new sounds and new songs, but this material is, in many ways, as vibrant and vital as it was in the days of Cecil Sharp's pioneering collecting forays.

Obray Ramsey, whose sprightly banjo songs and instrumentals make up this LP, is living proof that this tradition still exists. And there are many more young, middle-aged and old folksingers like him, who have retained the best songs of their hardy mountain ancestors, perhaps changing some of them to suit their own artistic and performing abilities, but still retaining the best elements of old-style singing and playing.

Ramsey was born on the banks of the three Laurels at the edge of the Smokey Mountains in western North Carolina. His father's people came from the highlands of Scotland, and his mother's ancestors were Cherokee Indians. Most of his songs were learned from his mother and grandmother, both fine singers with extensive repertoires. For most of his life he has sung his songs unaccompanied, though he had learned to play the guitar when still a young boy. After he married and settled down as a successful farmer near Marshall, North Carolina, he met Bascom Lamar Lunsford, folksinger, collector, and organizer of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival held annually in Asheville, North Carolina. Lunsford recognized his fine singing talents and encouraged him to take up the 5-string banjo, which he believed would be perfectly suited to Obray's style of singing. To show his faith in this belief, Lunsford gave Ramsey his first banjo in 1953. Now, Obray Ramsey is one of the finest banjo-pickers in the Southern Mountains. His style is a perfect compromise between old picking styles and currently popular modern styles.
- Kenneth S. Goldstein

Tracks:
1. The Rambling Boy
2. Keep on the Sunny Side
3. Polly Put the Kettle On
4. Little Margaret
5. I Am a Pilgrim
6. Cripple Creek
7. Down By the Sea Shore
8. Song of the French Broad River
9. God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign
10. Shortenin' Bread
11. Wildwood Flower
12. My Lord, What a Morning
13. Lonesome Road Blues
14. Weeping Willow

twangy and transcendent.
my rip (vinyl, cleaned) | mp3 ~290kbps | w/ scans | 71mb

* definitely out of print. i don't think the label has even existed for a long time...

reccomended if you like: Buell Kazee

Rev. Gary Davis - Live at Gerde's Folk City

2009-06-26T23:09:00.011-06:00

Sussex has passed along this amazing set from Poke. It's hot off the presses, only 47 years old... and definitely worth the wait. Through the three discs of this set, spanning several nights of live performance, replete with in-between-song banter, you begin to really get to know Rev. Gary Davis. It's as though you've been coming to his living room and sitting around for a week. And the man behind the fingers comes alive.

What emerges is a totally singular presense. The only person you could really compare Rev. Gary Davis to is Joseph Spence. Both completely improvise their playing, full of idiosyncratic syncopated intricasies (shouting encouragement and cat-calls at his guitar), and do so at such a high level of skill and inventiveness that they are totally inimitable (those bass runs! AAh!). I mean, the Rev had 'peers' in his early days - people of the 'Piedmont school' like Blind Boy Fuller, or ragtime guitarists like Blind Blake. And he had students aplenty (among them many of the best blues players of the following generations - Van Ronk, Jorma, Grossman, Woody Mann, Ernie Hawkins, Roy Book Binder, etc...). But at the time of these recordings, he was peerless: unequalled as a guitar player in New York (or America?), and carrying with him one of the most diverse and distinctive collections of folk music which became standards in the repertoire largely because of Davis. And really, though students of his have long since eclipsed his technical abilities, none have become so great a musician as he, because they were always playing towards something, meeting a goal, getting A's on their cleanlines. But with the Rev, he was never looking outside of himself (an advantage of blindness). The music came from within him, and it was different every time, based on how he was feeling that day. He could play Candyman for 24 hours straight and never repeat himself. And then he might play it on the banjo or harmonica too! And when he play Death Don't Have No Mercy, well, that's death singing to you from behind the good Rev.'s guitar. And when he sings Candyman, he's, well, a lonely housewife from 1904... or something.

And sure, he'd call out 'Praise the Lord' in between tunes. But one gets the feeling it's a New Orleansian sort of Lord he's paying homage to, a Lord who works at a candy stand and chases foxes and tears the building down with his ferocious bass runs!

Even the amazonians approve:
Three discs 53,49,61 minutes each approximately. The sound is good-much better than hoped for when taken from an old reel-to-reel tape recorder almost fifty years ago. Both the vocals and the instruments are clearly defined. The overall sound is immediate and warm, as if you're sitting near the front of the venue. The packaging is a tri-fold cardboard affair with the discs slipped into their respective holders. The notes are short - Grossman talks about the era and Davis.

These tracks were recorded by one of Davis' students (and a guitar player of some repute) Stefan Grossman. Along with the songs, Davis talks once in a while to the audience between some of the tracks. This can be an irritant or will become an integral part of the concert setting,depending on your outlook. To my ears they give a better idea of sitting in that audience on those nights, enjoying a one-of-a-kind experience, from a highly individualistic (and blind since birth) man. Included here are sing-alongs on the last two tracks on disc one,the group "New World Singers" (Gil Turner, Bob Cohen, Happy Traum) accompany Davis. At one point Davis announces that he gives guitar lessons (that a number of better known guitarists took him up on) to the audience, humbly telling the people where his "hut" was located.

Included on these discs are songs he had not yet recorded along with more well known tracks that anyone familiar with Davis will recognize. His many albums (VINTAGE RECORDINGS 1935-1949, HARLEM STREET SINGER, SAY NO TO THE DEVIL, THE GUITAR AND BANJO OF REVEREND GARY DAVIS to name a few) are all filled with gems of both guitar and (sometimes) banjo tunes,along with his harmonica playing, and, of course, his weathered, lived in voice. This set is no different-his guitar is all over this set. This is a very relaxed Gary Davis,feeling at ease entertaining the audience,who listened appreciatively to his many songs,guitar style,and voice. Additionally Davis played the harmonica in his highly rhythmic style,which is a treat to hear.

For anyone who likes Davis (who played well up until his death in 1972) his style of playing (a style that many better known guitarists,including Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna to name just one,were enthralled with),or that era when older bluesmen were being rediscovered and recorded,for the "blues/folk boom" of the sixties-this is an excellent addition to your musical library. If you're not familiar with Rev. Davis, (who was ordained a minister in 1937) this is a good place to start. For this is music made by an unpretentious, warm, old-fashioned man who loved to make music. It's as simple as that.

This is not a cheesy repackaging of previous material or a desperate release of bootlegged tapes that should be left in someone's drawer. Stefan Grossman's tapes may be old, but they are golden. I've been a Gary Davis devotee for decades, and over the years have bought most everything available first on vinyl and then on disc, but this is still worth having. The sense of his playing for an attentive audience early on in the days of the Great American Folk Revival makes these three discs all the more special. And there is plenty of material we haven't heard before. The playing and singing are spectacular as always, and the chatting up the audience is all the more fun. Packaging is minimal, and there is no encyclopedic booklet or pictures/posters, but you'll still get your money's worth.

Rev. Gary Davis - Live at Gerde's Folk City
February, 1962
Recorded & Produced by Stefan Grossman

3 CD Collection
Year: 2009
Label: Shanachie: Guitar Artistry

It’s hard for me to believe. Almost 50 years has passed since I was sitting by the stage at Gerde’s Folk City in New York City with my two track Tandberg tape machine recording my teacher, Rev. Gary Davis’ performances. It was the week of February 3rd to 10th, 1962. Rev. Davis was booked along with the New World Singers (Gil Turner, Happy Traum and Bob Cohen) at the famous bar in Greenwich Village. During the week’s engagement all the new and old folk singers of the Village came by to watch, listen and pay their respects - from Dave Van Ronk to a newly arrived Bob Dylan.

When the gig at Gerde's Folk City came up I was excited, as here was a chance to record performances of Rev. Davis for a full week. I had been going down to Gerde’s for some time and Mike Porco, the owner, knew my face and would let me in for free as long as I sat at the bar (even though I was underaged!). I was also friends with Manny Greenhill of Folklore Productions. He managed Rev. Davis and was encouraging me to record Rev. Davis whenever I could. Manny wanted me to get as many songs and instrumentals recorded so that they could be published and protected. So I had the green light from all concerned and Mike allowed me to leave my Tandberg in the basement after each night’s performances.

Rev. Davis was very much part of these recordings. He wanted to play tunes that he had not yet recorded. Each set was filled with songs I had never heard.
- Stefan Grossman

Track Listing

Disc One:
1. You Got To Move
2. Intro to Come Down And See Me Sometime
3. Come Down And See Me Sometime
4. Wouldn't Say Quit
5. Oh Lord
6. Announcing Guitar lessons
7. People That Use to See, Can't See No More
8. There’s Destruction In This Land
9. Intro to Soon My Work Will Soon Be Over
10. Soon My Work Will Soon Be Over
11. Intro to Oh Glory, How Happy I Am
12. Oh Glory, How Happy I Am

Disc Two:
1. I Want To Be Saved
2. Just A Closer Walk With Thee
3. Death Don't Have No Mercy
4. Lord I Won't Go Back In Sin
5. Candyman
6. Buck Dance
7. Samson & Delilah
8. Working On The Building
9. I'll Fly Away
10. Sun Goin’ Down
11. Fox Chase

Disc Three:
1. God's Gonna Separate
2. Lord Search My Heart
3. Jesus Met The Woman At The Well
4. Say No To The Devil
5. I Am A Pilgrim
6. All Night Long
7. Trying To Get To Heaven
8. Thank You Jesus
9. Twelve Sticks
10. Intro to Tesse
11. Tesse
12. Lord They Tell Me
13. Right Or Wrong

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4
mp3 vbr >256kbps | w/ cover | 4 parts

Thanks to Poke and Sussex for providing this amazing set!

Pat Cloud - Higher Power

2009-06-26T16:46:00.005-06:00

Another progressive out-of-print banjo album; it's not really bluegrass at all, it's entirely jazz, but played 3-finger style rather than dixieland style.

Tony Trischka says:
Pat Cloud is an elusive figure. Though some people know of him only by rumor, he is, in fact, alive, well, and playing locally in southern California. Indeed, he is one of the most strikingly original banjo players around. He combines bebop jazz lines with fiddle tunes, Django Reinhardt with Earl Scruggs, and places the entire mixture in a melodic flow that just won't quit.

Aside from being a mind-boggling player, Pat is very articulate about what he's doing, as the following interview demonstrated:

Tony: How did you get started?
Pat: I got into banjo because there was one on my wall at my stepfather's house. I picked it up and played it witha pick for about three months with three strings on her until somebody told me to get two more strings and use fingers. I was listening to Flatt and Scruggs records. I learned all of the Foggy Mountain Banjo album, started listening to fiddle tunes, I went to a lot of fiddler's conventions, a lot of things from Byron Berline. Started listening to old 78s of ragtime piano, swing, Bix Beiderbeck, Coleman Hawkins, Django Reinhardt, Benny Goodman, the boppers, and then wherever it's at today.
Tony: How did you get into doing scales and jazz chord substitutions?
Pat: I just wanted to play banjo differently because I was getting bored by playing the same. I was not getting bored by the style. I like the music a lot, but you like different things to play. Music sort of overlaps and is adaptable in context.
Tony: Why haven't people played jazz on the banjo yet? Do you think there are limitations of the banjo that prevent people from doing that?
Pat: It doesn't have eight octaves like the guitar or piano.
Tony: What would you suggest playing to get into some of the stuff you're doing?
Pat: Oh, learn all your major scales and learn all your minor scales. That includes harmonic, melodic, and natural. Every chord change can be painted by a scale. In bluegrass, I'll say one or two scales, in jazz, three or four.
Tony: You do so much practicing - two and three hours a day.
Pat: That's not true. I don't practice enough, actually. I'm lucky if I get away with four. I don't think it's easy to do at once. You have to work up to it. You have to really feel it's worth it. If you don't feel your practicing is going to do any good, you aren't inspired. It's also a matter of getting over the trauma of sounding rotten. As Richard Greene once said, "You just have to play and sound rotten until you get the hang of it; not to be afraid and traumatic, and fall on your face a bunch of times."
Tony: Do you have any other thoughts on breaking out of old patterns on the banjo?
Pat: We all have finger habits, and getting your hand in tune with your ear is the big trip. You hear a note way up there, you should try to hit it. Putting it on the spot where you want it. A lot of busy work. I'm not nearly as dedicated as I plan to become.

Pat Cloud - Higher Power

Year: 1983
Label: Flying Fish

Tracks:
01. Higher Power (07:01)
02. At The Banjo Cafe (05:39)
03. Mynah Blues (07:12)
04. Blackwolf (03:54)
05. San Felipe (06:17)
06. In A Mellotone (09:31)

Musicians:
Pat Cloud, banjo
Harry Orlove, guitar
Jim Cox, piano
Greg Cohen, bass
James Hobson, drums
Dave Stone, bass
Barry Solomon, guitar
Bob Applebaum, mandolin
Jim Garafalo, bass
Del Blake, drums, percussion

eat your heart out alison brown.
mp3 ~320kbps vbr | w/ cover | 91mb

RIP Ali Akbar Khan - Pre-Dawn to Sunrise Ragas

2009-06-25T21:41:00.010-06:00

Ali Akbar Khan, the foremost virtuoso of the lutelike sarod, whose dazzling technique and gift for melodic invention, often on display in concert with his brother-in-law Ravi Shankar, helped popularize North Indian classical music in the West, died on Thursday at his home in San Anselmo, Calif. He was 87.

The cause was kidney failure, said a spokesman for the Ali Akbar College of Music.

Mr. Khan, who was named a national treasure by the Indian government in 1989, carried on the musical traditions of his father, Allauddin Khan, whose ashram in East Bengal produced some of India’s most celebrated musicians, notably Mr. Shankar, the flutist Pannalal Ghosh and the sitarist Nikhil Banerjee.

Unlike his father, a volatile and uneven performer, Mr. Khan maintained an austere demeanor onstage while coaxing passages of extraordinary intensity from his sarod, an instrument with 25 strings, 10 plucked with a piece of coconut shell while the remainder resonate sympathetically.

“He was not as flashy as Ravi Shankar, but he had the ability to play a single note, or a simple passage of notes, and draw out such amazing depth,” said John Schaefer, the host of “New Sounds” and “Soundcheck” on WNYC-FM in New York. “That’s why he was able to get a world of emotion and color out of ‘Malasri,’ which is often called a three-note raga. That, for me, stands as the calling card of the genius of Ali Khan.”

The violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who brought Mr. Khan to the United States in 1955, called him “an absolute genius” and “the greatest musician in the world.”

In 1971, Mr. Khan performed at Madison Square Garden with Mr. Shankar, Alla Rakha and Kamala Chakravarty on a bill with Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and other rock stars at the Concert for Bangladesh, a benefit organized by George Harrison and Mr. Shankar. The album and film of the two performances gave added exposure to Mr. Khan and North Indian music.

Mr. Khan, whose name is often preceded by the honorific Ustad, or master, was born in Shibpur, a small village in Bengal (now Bangladesh). He grew up in Maihar, where his father was the principal musician in the court of the maharajah. He began vocal training at 3 and, after studying the surbahar, sitar and tabla, focused on the sarod.

His father was a stern, sometimes brutal taskmaster, rousing his young son at dawn for several hours of practice before breakfast and continuing well into the evening of what were often 18-hour days. Allauddin Khan had elevated the status of instrumental music, previously regarded as inferior to vocal performance, by synthesizing various regional styles into a modern concert style. His son absorbed his encyclopedic knowledge of North Indian music and eventually outstripped him as an instrumentalist.

Mr. Khan’s younger sister, Annapurna Devi, who later married Mr. Shankar, developed into an equally accomplished master of the surbahar, but custom prevented her from performing in public.

At 13, Mr. Khan performed for a large audience for the first time, at a music conference in the holy city of Allahabad. By his early 20s he was music director of All-India Radio in Lucknow, broadcasting as a solo artist and composing for the radio’s orchestra.

He said his father, who lived to be more than 100 and also taught Shankar, was "very strict. He never played with me, he never laughed, never smiled. He was a tiger. I wanted love from him. . . . The motive was that if you show that, too much love, then I was spoiled. At that time I was very angry, but now I am grateful."

“My father’s main purpose was to hear me play while he was living in Maihar, because I was always being broadcast,” Mr. Khan told Peter Lavezzoli, the author of “The Dawn of Indian Music in the West.” “If I played anything wrong, he would come the next day to Lucknow, straight from the train station, tell me to get my sarod and listen to me play and correct me.”

For part of a series of 78s that he recorded in Lucknow for HMV in 1945, he composed and performed the three-minute Raga Chandranandan (“Moonstruck”), a blend of four evening ragas, which became a national hit and a signature piece for Mr. Khan. He later recorded a 22-minute version for the album “Master Musician of India” on the Connoisseur label.

After a few years Mr. Khan left Lucknow to become the court musician for the maharajah of Jodhpur. He performed, often for hours at a time; gave lessons; and composed for the court orchestra. The post vanished after the maharajah died in a plane crash in 1948, and before long the chaos surrounding independence and partition put an end to the court system, which was already in decline.

Defying his father, Mr. Khan moved to Bombay and began writing scores for films, including Chetan Anand’s “Aandhiyan” (1952), Satyajit Ray’s “Devi” (1960) and Tapan Sinha’s “Hungry Stones” (1960). His father, a friend of the director of “Hungry Stones,” went to see the film and said: “My goodness, who composed the music? He is great.” On being informed that it was his son, the elder Khan sent a telegram of forgiveness.

Although without question an innovator, Khan is perhaps most revered for his unwillingness to compromise his music, which was based on traditional Hindustani ragas, a system of melodic templates in ascending and descending scales. Unusually, he was known to play whole concerts of the alaap (the introductory section of most ragas, played in free rhythm with only a drone accompaniment), known to be most testing for a musician.

By this time the younger Khan had grown frustrated with the limitations of film work and was eager to return to classical music, though he later composed the scores for “The Householder” (1963), the first Ismail Merchant-James Ivory feature film, and Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Little Buddha” (1993). His collaboration with Ray, in particular, had been less than satisfactory. “Ray was not a connoisseur of Indian classical music,” he told The Times of India in 2008.

Intent on exposing Westerners to Asian music, Menuhin brought Mr. Khan to New York in 1955 for a performance at the Museum of Modern Art, where Mr. Khan made what is believed to be the first long-playing record of Indian classical music in the United States, “Music of India: Morning and Evening Ragas,” for Angel. He scored another first when he performed on Alistair Cooke’s television program “Omnibus.”

Western interest in Indian music soared after Harrison took up the sitar and Mr. Shankar began touring Europe and the United States. In 1967 Mr. Khan, who had founded a music school in Calcutta in 1956, started the Ali Akbar College of Music, now in San Rafael, Calif., with a satellite school in Basel, Switzerland. “Two or three generations of really fine Indian players — meaning performers of Indian classical music — have come out of that school,” Mr. Schaefer said.

Mr. Khan is survived by his wife, Mary; seven sons, including Aashish, a renowned sarod player; and four daughters. In 1989 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honor, and in 1991 he became the first Indian musician to receive a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.”

He once wrote of the sarod, "If you practice for ten years, you may begin to please yourself, after 20 years you may become a performer and please the audience, after 30 years you may please even your guru, but you must practice for many more years before you finally become a true artist -- then you may please even God."

"For us, as a family, music is like food. When you need it you don't have to explain why, because it is basic to life."-Ali Akbar Khan

The classical music of North India is an uplifting and extraordinary music, dating back thousands of years. Ali Akbar Khan is one of today's most accomplished Indian classical musicians. Considered a "National Living Treasure" in India, he is admired by both Eastern and Western musicians for his brilliant compositions and his mastery of the sarode (a beautiful, 25-stringed Indian instrument). Concert violinist the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin called Ali Akbar Khan, "An absolute genius...the greatest musician in the world," and many have considered him the "Indian Johann Sebastian Bach."

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan's family traces its gharana (ancestral tradition) to Mian Tansen, a 16th century musical genius and court musician of Emperor Akbar. Ali Akbar Khan's father, the late Padma Vibhusan Acharya Dr. Allauddin Khan, was acknowledged as the greatest figure in North Indian music in this century.

Born in 1922 in East Bengal (Bangladesh), Ali Akbar Khan (Khansahib) began his studies in music at the age of three. He studied vocal music from his father and drums from his uncle, Fakir Aftabuddin. His father also trained him on several other instruments, but decided finally that he must concentrate on the sarode and on vocal. For over twenty years, he trained and practiced 18 hours a day. After that, his father continued to teach Khansahib until he was over 100 years old, and left behind such a wealth of material that Khansahib feels he is still learning new things from it. Since his father's death in 1972, Khansahib has continued his father's tradition, that of the Sri Baba Allauddin Seni Gharana of Maihar and Rampur, India.

Ali Akbar Khan gave his first public performance in Allahabad at age thirteen. In his early twenties, he made his first recording in Lucknow for the HMV label, and the next year, he became the court musician to the Maharaja of Jodhpur. He worked there for seven years until the Maharaja's untimely death. The state of Jodhpur bestowed upon him his first title, that of Ustad, or Master Musician. Many years later, he received the title of Hathi Saropao and Dowari Tajeem at the Jodhpur Palace's Golden Jubilee Celebraton in 1993.

At the request of Lord Menuhin, Ali Akbar Khan first visited the United States in 1955 and performed an unprecedented concert at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He also made the first Western LP recording of Indian classical music, and the first television performance of Indian music, on Allistair Cooke's Omnibus, sowing the seed for the wave of popularity of Indian music in the 1960's.

Khansahib founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta, India, in 1956. Later, recognizing the extraordinary interest and abilities of his Western students, he began teaching in America in 1965. In 1967, he founded the Ali Akbar College of Music, which moved to Marin County, California, the following year. He currently maintains a teaching schedule of 6 classes a week for 9months of the year. Khansahib also opened a branch of his college in Basel, Switzerland, run by his disciple Ken Zuckerman, where he teaches yearly during his world tour. Ali Akbar Khan continues to tour extensively in Asia, Europe, The Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and the United States.

Khansahib has composed and recorded music for films throughout his career. He composed extensively in India beginning with "Aandhiyan" by Chetan Anand (1953) and went on to create music for "House Holder" by Ivory/Merchant (their first film), "Khudita Pashan" (or "Hungry Stone") for which he won the "Best Musician of the Year" award, "Devi" by Satyajit Ray, and, in America, "Little Buddha" by Bernardo Bertolucci.

1997 was a landmark year for Ali Akbar Khan. In February, he was the second recipient to receive the Asian Paints Shiromani Award - Hall of Fame, following filmmaker Satyajit Ray. He celebrated his 75th birthday in April and AACM's 30th anniversary in June. In August, the Indian Embassy requested Khansahib to perform at the United Nations in New York and at Kennedy Center in Washington DC; both performances were in celebration of the 50th year of India's Independence. In September, Ali Akbar Khan was chosen to receive the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. It was presented by Mrs. Hillary Clinton at a ceremony in the White House.

When Ali Akbar Khan first received the title of Ustad as a relatively young man, his father merely laughed. But later, when the patriarch was a centenarian, he told his son one day that he was very proud of him: "I am so pleased with your work in music that I will do something which is very rare. As your Guru and father, I am giving you a title, Swara Samrat (Emperor of Melody)." Khansahib feels most fortunate to have received this blessing from his father, mother, and uncle.

Ali Akbar Khan - Pre-Dawn to Sunrise Ragas

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan - Sarod
Pandit Mahapurush Misra - Tabla

Year: 1967

Tracks:
01 Raga Bairagi
02 Raga Aheer Bhairow

crepuscular.
mp3 192kbps | w/ cover | 57mb

*out of print

And get some more at Allegory of Allergies and WeLove-Music and A Closet of Curiosities and Bravo Juju and Magic Purple Sunshine.

Alam Khan (son of Ali Akbar Khan):

"I will leave you with this:
Last evening 6/17/09 while surrounded by his students and family here at our home, Baba said to us, "bring the harmonium."
We all were surprised, to say the least, and concerned that he should rest. He kept requesting us so I went into the next room to bring the harmonium. One of his youngest disciples whom he has been teaching since childhood began to play Sa upon his request. Soon after, Baba began to sing to us all in Rag Durga. He proceeded to teach us for the next 30 minutes and all in the room were singing and weeping. It was truly a moment in my life I will never forget and was so moving I felt as though I was living in a story one might hear of the great legends of olden times. Even while "on his deathbed" (or chair, in his case) and not being able to lift his head, our father and guru wanted to still teach us and share with us this beautiful music. God bless him... God bless him."

Ramón Montoya - Recital de guitarra flamenca

2009-06-24T20:57:00.006-06:00

There was some interest aroused by Sabicas as to the roots of Flamenco guitar. Thanks to Miguel, we can go straight to the source

"He may be considered the creator of the flamenco concert guitar, because in spite of the decent but few predecessors that existed, he was responsible for the incorporation and improvement of all the mechanisms that are known at present". - José Blas Vega.

wikinfo:
Ramón Montoya (November 2, 1880, Madrid, Spain – June 20, 1949, Madrid, Spain), Flamenco guitarist and composer.

Born into a family of Gitano (Romani) cattle traders, Ramón Montoya used earnings from working in the trade to buy his first guitar. He began playing in the cafés de cante before he was twenty years of age.

He formed a partnership with the flamenco cantaor (singer) Antonio Chacón since 1912 that lasted for more than a decade. These two were largely responsible for establishing the form of the various traditional flamenco cantes that are recognized today.

In traditional flamenco, the guitar was relegated to a supporting role. Cante (singing) and baile (dance) were the main performers whom the guitarist supported. Montoya was one of the first to challenge this role. His strong playing often overpowered the singer whom he accompanied. He eventually took the next logical step and began to play as a solo or lead performer in a concert setting. His performances are widely credited by flamenco historians as establishing the flamenco guitar in this role.

He was the single most influential flamenco guitarist of the 20th century. His innovations made possible the solo careers of such later greats as Sabicas, Paco de Lucía and Tomatito.

Uncle of Carlos Montoya.

Ramón Montoya is one of the timeless masters of the flamenco guitar. He has been an authentic teacher for guitarists like Paco de Lucía, Niño Ricardo and Sabicas, and he continues to serve that function for young tocaores of the present generation. All of the palos (forms) that he played still bear his imprint and the numerous features that he introduced and were unknown before him are still in use today, fifty years after his death.

He showed his skill at accompanying dancing and singing very precociously, a skill that allowed him to work with Juan Breva, Niño de Marchena, Salud Rodríguez, Antonio de Bilbao, La Macarrona and La Niña de los Peines in the café cantantes in Madrid, where he played for many years. Nonetheless, the person with whom he formed the best artistic partnership was Antonio Chacón, “the master of all the flamenco cantes”, in the words of Montoya himself, who he performed with for fifteen years.

Another great contribution made by Ramón Montoya to the flamenco guitar was that of introducing guitar concerts. Until that moment, guitarists had only made few and not very significant attempts to play the guitar as an instrument for solo concerts, without accompanying singing or dancing. It was in this facet that Montoya travelled around Europe and America, as a solo artist.

Ramón Montoya - Recital de guitarra flamenca
Primera Epoca Anos 1910-20

Year: 2003
Label: Fods Records

Tracks:
1. Soleares
2. Seguiriyas
3. Bulerias
4. Tangos
5. Farrucas
6. Guajiras
7. Malagueñas
8. Mineras
9. Rondeñas
10. Granaínas
11. Fandangos
12. Alegrías

scratchy and beautiful.
mp3 320kbps | w/ scans | 93mb

thanks miguel!

you want more? head over to Flamanco a Palo Seco, the mother of all flamenco blogs.

Louis Armstrong - Hot Fives & Hot Sevens

2009-06-24T15:40:00.013-06:00

Your musical education and collection would be incomplete until you listen to these recordings. In fact, your life will be sorely lacking if you do not fully indulge in these pieces of polyphonic euphoria. As an amazonian customer said, "This is some of the most joyous music in the history of mankind, a freewheeling evocation of a lost world bursting at the seams with thrill and rebellion and sweat and booze and love and melody, with horns swirling and speaking and singing over and around each other while pianos twinkle drunkenly beneath."

Particularly impressive to me is the barely controlled chaos that runs on the cusp of everything, light the entire show explode if everybody's playing wasn't so incredibly tight and right and one the mark. This music proves that anarchy can work if everybody's just a genius, sweating and playing their jaws off and having fun. It's like, freedom, man. And lots of reefer, you can be sure.

Biography by William Ruhlmann

Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music's history. As a trumpet virtuoso, his playing, beginning with the 1920s studio recordings made with his Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, charted a future for jazz in highly imaginative, emotionally charged improvisation. For this, he is revered by jazz fans. But Armstrong also became an enduring figure in popular music, due to his distinctively phrased bass singing and engaging personality, which were on display in a series of vocal recordings and film roles.

Armstrong had a difficult childhood. William Armstrong, his father, was a factory worker who abandoned the family soon after the boy's birth. Armstrong was brought up by his mother, Mary (Albert) Armstrong, and his maternal grandmother. He showed an early interest in music, and a junk dealer for whom he worked as a grade-school student helped him buy a cornet, which he taught himself to play. He dropped out of school at 11 to join an informal group, but on December 31, 1912, he fired a gun during a New Year's Eve celebration, for which he was sent to reform school. He studied music there and played cornet and bugle in the school band, eventually becoming its leader. He was released on June 16, 1914, and did manual labor while trying to establish himself as a musician. He was taken under the wing of cornetist Joe "King" Oliver, and when Oliver moved to Chicago in June 1918, he replaced him in the Kid Ory Band. He moved to the Fate Marable band in the spring of 1919, staying with Marable until the fall of 1921.

Armstrong moved to Chicago to join Oliver's band in August 1922 and made his first recordings as a member of the group in the spring of 1923. He married Lillian Harden, the pianist in the Oliver band, on February 5, 1924. (She was the second of his four wives.) On her encouragement, he left Oliver and joined Fletcher Henderson's band in New York, staying for a year and then going back to Chicago in November 1925 to join the Dreamland Syncopators, his wife's group. During this period, he switched from cornet to trumpet.

Armstrong had gained sufficient individual notice to make his recording debut as a leader on November 12, 1925. Contracted to OKeh Records, he began to make a series of recordings with studio-only groups called the Hot Fives or the Hot Sevens. For live dates, he appeared with the orchestras led by Erskine Tate and Carroll Dickerson. The Hot Fives' recording of "Muskrat Ramble" gave Armstrong a Top Ten hit in July 1926, the band for the track featuring Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Lillian Harden Armstrong on piano, and Johnny St. Cyr on banjo.

By February 1927, Armstrong was well-enough known to front his own group, Louis Armstrong & His Stompers, at the Sunset Café in Chicago. (Armstrong did not function as a bandleader in the usual sense, but instead typically lent his name to established groups.) In April, he reached the charts with his first vocal recording, "Big Butter and Egg Man," a duet with May Alix. He took a position as star soloist in Carroll Dickerson's band at the Savoy Ballroom in Chicago in March 1928, later taking over as the band's frontman. "Hotter than That" was in the Top Ten in May 1928, followed in September by "West End Blues," which later became one of the first recordings named to the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Armstrong returned to New York with his band for an engagement at Connie's Inn in Harlem in May 1929. He also began appearing in the orchestra of Hot Chocolates, a Broadway revue, given a featured spot singing "Ain't Misbehavin'." In September, his recording of the song entered the charts, becoming a Top Ten hit.

The Music of the Hot Five and the Hot Seven is considered by most critics to be among the finest recordings in Jazz history. On November 12th, 1925 Louis Armstrong made his first records that bore his name as bandleader. The songs on the Okeh 78 rpm record were "My Heart", and Cornet Chop Suey. The band was made up mostly of musicians from King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. The first version of the band featured Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny St. Cyr on banjo and Louis's wife, Lil Hardin-Armstrong on piano. These were informal settings that all concerned remember as a good time. Louis picked all the musicians that he wanted to play on the sessions and the record company generally left them alone to do what they wanted. The song "Heebie Jeebies" is generally the first recorded example of scat singing, although there are several examples on records that predate this recording. On the December of 1927 sides Lonnie Johnson joins the band for three tracks, "I'm Not Rough", "Hotter Than That", and "Savoy Blues". Earl Hines plays piano on all of the 1928 sessions, and the beautiful celeste parts on "Basin Street Blues".

West End Blues: Song Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

King Oliver's "West End Blues" is one of the keystones of jazz and, therefore, American popular music, but even more than that, Louis Armstrong's 1928 version, cut with his Hot Five, is a towering achievement. Not only is it the version that cemented the tune in popular consciousness, it helped define what jazz could be. Armstrong started his professional career in King Oliver's band, and he never lost sight of what he learned from Oliver, which, after all, was at the foundation of his very style. Nevertheless, Armstrong's reading of "West End Blues" still must have come as quite a shock, since it begins with a multi-layered, complex solo introduction from "Satchmo" that essentially set the standard for jazz musicians. Not just for trumpeters, either, although many strived to emulate what he achieved here. No, the lyrical phrases that Armstrong played were so wildly influential, fiercely musical, and technically devastating that it remains a hallmark for jazz musicians of all stripes. That's because it's not just a dazzling display of technique, although that's certainly part of it. It's because he applies his technique in tremendously innovative ways -- long phrases give way to furious bursts of notes, invigorating syncopations, startling high notes, and, ultimately, the slow melodic shuffle of Oliver's basic tune. Oliver's song itself is a classic New Orleans jazz piece, but it's become impossible to separate it from Armstrong's astonishing opening solo -- a solo that has defined the song as much as the melody itself.

Louis Armstrong - Hot Fives & Hot Sevens

Year: 1998/1999
Label: JSP

Amazon.com review
Between 1925 and 1929, Louis Armstrong created one of the first great bodies of work in jazz. While he worked regularly as a soloist with big bands, he began his career as a leader with the first all-star studio group in jazz, the Hot Five. The other four musicians were Armstrong's wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, on piano; Johnny Dodds on clarinet; Kid Ory on trombone; and Johnny St. Cyr on banjo. The music's first great soloist, Armstrong was reshaping jazz by sheer improvisational magic, gradually diminishing the role of the traditional New Orleans ensemble with the clarion brilliance of his trumpet. Possessing an uncanny blend of exuberance and creativity, he combined virtuosic declarations with a talent for the subtlest shifts in phrasing and melodic variation, creating rich emotional statements that could hint at loss in the midst of joy or the promise of better things in the most sorrowful blues. The band expands here, to the Hot Seven and larger ensembles, and it gains soloists who applied Armstrong's lessons to their own instruments--musicians such as pianist Earl Hines and trombonist Jack Teagarden--but all come under the imprint of Armstrong's flowering genius, as both trumpeter and singer.

It's almost impossible to overrate this material. It may be the most influential music in jazz history, establishing standards for originality and sustained invention that have rarely been matched. The JSP set is a superb reissue of Armstrong's essential work. The remastering is by John R.T. Davies, widely acknowledged as the dean of engineers in the field of early jazz, and the resultant sound is simply the best this work has ever enjoyed. There are alternate takes of the later material on Columbia Legacy (including Louis in New York and St. Louis Blues), so collectors will want both. But this recording is superior listening, at a price that also makes it an ideal introduction to one of the few titans of jazz. --Stuart Broomer

and a customer said:
This four disc set is indispensable to any serious jazz collection. It includes all Armstrong's classic Hot Five performances with Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, Johnny St. Cyr and Lil Armstrong, his Hot Seven recordings, and his magnificent partnership with Earl Hines. This is some of the most important and influential jazz every recorded, marking the way ahead away from New Orleans style polyphony to the future dominance of the soloist. The last of these discs is the least essential, as Armstrong returned to commercial big band recordings, where he is often head and shoulders above both his colleagues and his material.

There is so much to savour on these discs: Louis is superlative throughout this set - hear "Cornet Chop Suey" "Potato Head Blues" and "West End Blues", in particular. Johnny Dodds is superb, incredibly impassioned on "Got No Blues" and elsewhere. The Hot Five swings like crazy on tunes like "Once in a While", and listen to "Skip the Gutter", "Muggles" and "Weatherbird" to hear one of the finest partnerships in jazz history, Armstrong and Hines. Hear also Lonnie Johnson's marvellous guitar playing at the end of the second disc. Louis' singing is heard regularly (and his slide - whistle playing once).

These CDs are also highly recommendable because of the quality of the remastering. The sound quality on the first disc in particular is better than in any other issue of these works, putting larger companies to shame.

Louis Armstrong - Hot Fives & Sevens, Vol. 1

Recording Date: Nov 12, 1925-Nov 27, 1926

Review by Stephen Cook
With superior transfers by British music engineer John R.T. Davies, this JSP reissue of the first 25 sides by Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Hot Sevens is a first-choice disc for newcomers, while also being a very worthwhile purchase for the discriminating fan. Columbia's more high-profile, yet poorly remastered early Armstrong releases are muddy and limp sounding in comparison. Studio discrepancies aside, these records represent one of highest achievements in jazz and all of music for that matter. Armstrong's brash and advanced trumpet playing transformed jazz from the somewhat stilted ensemble polyphony of New Orleans to the fluid art of the improvising soloist, paving the way for the advances of swing and bebop and sparking the equally bold conceptions of future jazz luminaries Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker. And although these Chicago recordings (1925-1926) do not include later milestones like "West End Blues" and "Weather Bird," there's plenty here in the way of Armstrong's innovations: his stop-time solo on "Cornet Chop Suey" and the early scat singing on "Heebie Jeebies." And beyond textbook considerations, there's Armstrong's infectious spoken commentary and vocals on "Gut Bucket Blues" and "Big Butter and Egg Man From the West," not to mention his joyous trumpet exclamations on "Yes, I'm in the Barrel" and "Muskrat Rumble." Topped off with fine contributions by Hot Five regulars clarinetist Johnny Dodds, trombonist Kid Ory, pianist and wife at the time Lil Armstrong, and banjo player Johnny St. Cyr, this Armstrong release is not to be missed. Essential music for any record collection.

Tracks
1 My Heart - Armstrong - 2:27
2 Yes! I'm in the Barrel - Armstrong - 2:40
3 Gut Bucket Blues - Armstrong - 2:45
4 Come Back Sweet Papa - Barbarin, Russell - 2:32
5 Georgia Grind - Williams - 2:36
6 Heebie Jeebies - Atkins, Stothart - 2:56
7 Cornet Chop Suey - Armstrong - 3:19
8 Oriental Strut - Saint Cyr - 3:03
9 You're Next - Armstrong - 3:17
10 Muskrat Ramble - Gilbert, Ory - 2:34
11 Don't Forget to Mess Around - Armstrong, Barbarin - 3:04
12 I'm Gonna Gitcha - Hardin - 2:46
13 Droppin' Shucks - Hardin - 2:54
14 Who' Sit - 2:47
15 He Likes It Slow - Edwards - 2:44
16 The King of the Zulus - Armstrong - 3:07
17 Big Fat Ma and Skinny Pa - Jones - 3:02
18 Lonesome Blues - Hardin - 3:05
19 Sweet Little Papa - Ory - 2:47
20 Jazz Lips - Hardin - 3:03
21 Skid-Dat-De-Dat - Hardin - 3:07
22 Big Butter and Egg Man - Armstrong, Venable - 3:01
23 Sunset Cafe Stomp - Armstrong, Venable - 2:47
24 You Made Me Love You - Armstrong, Venable - 2:54
25 Irish Black Bottom - Armstrong, Venable - 2:37

the black sheep moans.
mp3 >256 vbr | w/ cover | 126mb

Louis Armstrong - Hot Fives & Hot Sevens, Vol. 2

Recording Date: May 9, 1927-Dec 13, 1929

Review by arwulf arwulf
For affordability and sound quality, JSP outshines Columbia and most other labels with its high protein four-disc Hot Fives & Sevens collection. Volume two of this set documents an especially fine segment of the Louis Armstrong story with 21 classic sides waxed in Chicago between May and December 1927. These are some of the best records Louis Armstrong ever made. They also rate among the most important jazz recordings of all time. "Willie the Weeper," for example, defines the artist, the genre and the entire human condition. Armstrong's Hot Seven swelled to ten pieces at the sessions held from May 9-14; pianist Earl Hines came aboard for these exciting dates and Carroll Dickerson acted as bandleader. All of the essential Armstrong components are here in concentrated form; "Alligator Crawl" and "Potato Head Blues" are unparalleled masterworks, and "That's When I'll Come Back to You" is a distillation of the great Afro-American vaudeville tradition. Here Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong align themselves with Butterbeans & Susie and their contemporaries Coot Grant and Kid Wilson. During the autumn of 1927 Louis Armstrong pared his ensemble back down to the original quintet. Highlights from this period include "Ory's Creole Trombone" (first recorded by Kid Ory in 1922) and Lil Armstrong's magnum opus "Struttin' with Some Barbecue." The sessions which took place on December 10 and 13 featured guitarist Lonnie Johnson, an exceptionally fine improviser who brought yet another level of artistic eloquence to this already sublimely endowed jazz band.

Tracks
1 Willie the Weeper - Bloom, Melrose, Rymal - 3:10
2 Wild Man Blues - Armstrong, Morton - 3:13
3 Chicago Breakdown - Morton - 3:21
4 Alligator Crawl - Davis, Razaf, Waller - 3:04
5 Potato Head Blues - Armstrong - 2:58
6 Melancholy - Bloom, Melrose - 3:05
7 Weary Blues - Matthews - 3:01
8 Twelfth Street Rag - Bowman - 3:06
9 Keyhole Blues - Wilson - 3:29
10 S.O.L. Blues - Armstrong - 2:55
11 Gully Low Blues - Armstrong - 3:18
12 That's When I'll Come Back to You - Biggs - 2:58
13 Put 'Em Down Blues - Bennett - 3:17
14 Ory's Creole Trombone - Ory - 3:07
15 The Last Time - Ewing, Martin - 3:32
16 Struttin' with Some Barbecue - Hardin, Raye - 3:06
17 Got No Blues - Hardin - 3:26
18 Once in a While - Butler - 3:19
19 I'm Not Rough - Armstrong, Hardin - 3:05
20 Hotter Than That - Armstrong, Hardin - 3:05
21 Savoy Blues - Ory - 3:28

i'm not smooth either.
mp3 >256 vbr | w/ cover | 119mb

Louis Armstrong - Hot Fives & Sevens, Vol. 3

Recording Date: Jun 27, 1928-Mar 5, 1929

Review by arwulf arwulf
From the popping of Zutty Singleton's cymbals and Earl Hines' sparkling piano riffs on "Fireworks" to Kaiser Marshall's brushwork behind Lonnie Johnson's guitar solo on "Knockin' a Jug," Volume 3 of JSP's Louis Armstrong Hot Fives & Sevens contains 22 classic jazz sides that include some of the very best recordings that Louis Armstrong ever made. The perky humor of "A Monday Date," the beautiful vocal harmonies on "Squeeze Me," the intimate duet "Weather Bird," and the undiluted majesty of the "West End Blues" make this an excellent choice that could suffice (for a while at least) if one were to own only one Louis Armstrong compilation. Get the whole four-CD set and you'll find yourself holding one of the cornerstones of the jazz tradition.

Tracks
1 Fireworks - Williams, Williams - 3:09
2 Skip the Gutter - Williams - 3:10
3 A Monday Date - Hines, Robin - 3:15
4 Don't Jive Me - Hardin - 2:50
5 West End Blues - King Oliver, Williams - 3:21
6 Sugar Foot Strut - Pierce - 3:23
7 Two Deuces - Hardin - 2:58
8 Squeeze Me - Waller, Williams - 3:26
9 Knee Drops - Hardin - 3:28
10 Symphonic Raps - Abrahams, B. - 3:15
11 Savoyager's Stomp - Armstrong, Hines - 3:13
12 No (No, Papa, No) - Spivey - 2:54
13 Basin Street Blues - Williams - 3:16
14 No One Else But You - Redman - 3:24
15 Beau Koo Jack - Armstrong, Hill, Melrose - 3:01
16 Save It, Pretty Mama - Davis, Denniker, Redman - 3:19
17 Weather Bird - Armstrong - 2:42
18 Muggles - Armstrong, Hines - 2:52
19 Hear Me Talkin' to Ya? - Armstrong, Redman - 3:17
20 St. James Infirmary - Primrose, Traditional - 3:14
21 Tight Like This - Armstrong, Curl - 3:12
22 Knockin' a Jug - Armstrong, Condon - 3:15

squeezin' me in the knees
mp3 >256 vbr | w/ cover | 121mb

Louis Armstrong - Hot Fives & Sevens, Vol. 4

Recording Date: Mar 5, 1929-Apr 5, 1930

Review by arwulf arwulf
The fourth and last volume in JSP's Louis Armstrong Hot Fives & Sevens set diligently follows the Armstrong discography from March 5, 1929 through April 5, 1930, with a couple of alternate takes tacked onto the end like marzipan truffles. Decidedly different from the preceding volumes, this disc mostly features ensembles of nine and ten players, with even the Savoy Ballroom Five weighing in as a ten-piece big band. These marvelous Okeh sides paved the way for the smoother dance and swing band sounds of the 1930s. Armstrong handles five melodies composed by his pal Fats Waller, sings a duet with Hoagy Carmichael on "Rockin' Chair" and ushers in the Great Depression with charming renditions of "When You're Smiling" and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love."

Tracks
1 I Can't Give You Anything But Love - Fields, McHugh - 3:26
2 Mahogany Hall Stomp - Williams - 3:18
3 Ain't Misbehavin' - Brooks, Razaf, Waller - 3:16
4 Black and Blue - Brooks, Razaf, Waller - 3:03
5 That Rhythm Man - Brooks, Razaf, Waller - 3:05
6 Sweet Savannah Sue - Brooks, Razaf, Waller - 3:09
8 Some of These Days - Brooks - 3:07
9 When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You) - Fisher, Goodwin, Shay - 2:53
10 When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You) - Fisher, Goodwin, Shay - 3:25
11 After You've Gone - Creamer, Layton - 3:17
12 I Ain't Got Nobody - Graham, Peyton, Williams - 2:41
13 Dallas Blues - Garrett, Wand - 3:11
14 St. Louis Blues - Handy - 2:58
15 Rockin' Chair - Carmichael - 3:17
16 Song of the Islands - King - 3:32
17 Bessie Couldn't Help It - Bayha, Richmond, Warner - 3:24
18 Blue Turning Grey over You - Razaf, Waller - 3:31
19 Dear Old Southland - Creamer, Layton - 3:21
20 Rockin' Chair - Carmichael - 3:16
21 I Can't Give You Anything But Love - Fields, McHugh - 3:27

savin' my love for you.
mp3 >256 vbr | w/ cover & full scans of box set | 125mb

Note: this set was made in England, remastered from 78s which were in the public domain. And no, Columbia doesn't need to milk any more royalties out of this dead genius. So enjoy the freebie! And don't say I never gave you nuthin...

Sabicas - Recital de Guitarra Flamenca, Vols. 1-3

2009-06-20T11:11:00.005-06:00

Thanks to the generous contributions of Miguel, we present you with 3 more discs of Sabicas! These are his vintage recordings, and they are superb. I'm pretty sure the discs were only released in Spain, so you can grab them without guilt!

Sabicas - Recital de guitarra flamenca. Vol. 1
Grabaciones de 1930-1940.

1993 Fonografica Del Sur 7019

The first volume of a compilation that covers the historical evolution of the guitar master. It includes recordings from the early period, between 1930 and 1940, a period during which the Spanish Civil War sent Sabicas into exile, and which represented a point of inflection for both his artistic and personal trajectories. In these years he travelled all over South America with the bailaora Carmen Amaya. His speed and clean execution surprised every audience. The technique of his right hand was supplemented by the meter and depth of flamenco.

Tracks:
1. Granaína
2. Farruca
3. Soleares
4. Garrotín
5. Rondeñas
6. Seguirillas
7. Tarantas
8. Alegrías
9. Malagueñas
10. Fandangos

Sabicas - Recital de guitarra flamenca. Vol. 2
Grabaciones de 1930-1940.

1993 Fonografica Del Sur 7037

The second volume of this compilation, which summarises the decade during which Sabicas experienced a radical change. His work accompanying the best cantaores of the time helped him to conceive a more personal form of guitar playing, with an unmistakeable technique. The freedom that he sought through his exile found its expression in the guitar.

Tracks:
1. Capricho Andaluz
2. Zapateado
3. Caleta y el limonar
4. Mosaico tropical
5. Bulerías
6. Noche de Arabia
7. Piropo a la bulería
8. Malagueña
9. Alegrías
10. Sevillanas

Sabicas - Recital de guitarra flamenca. Vol. 3
Grabaciones de 1930-1940.

1993 Fonografica Del Sur 7038

Sabicas introduced and developed most of the techniques used nowadays in modern flamenco guitar.

Tracks:
1. Bodas de Luis Alonso
2. Fantasía Inca
3. Malagueña
4. Guajira
5. Farruca
6. Zardas
7. Gran jota
8. Milonga
9. Danza mora
10. Aires del norte
11. Capricho español

3 CD's in one folder: grab the grabaciones
mp3 320 kbps | "booklet" scans | 251mb

thanks Miguel!

Jimmy Gaudreau - The Gaudreau Mandolin Album

2009-06-18T23:02:00.007-06:00

Biography by Eugene Chadbourne

For a guy who picked up mandolin quite casually, thinking of himself as a guitarist for the longest time, Jimmy Gaudreau has accomplished giant things with the little instrument. Although many of his credentials point quite rightly to an interest in progressive bluegrass, he has also trilled his way in and out of many classic traditional bluegrass outfits, including one of the very best, the Country Gentlemen.

In the '60s, Gaudreau was just another teenager trying to learn to play rock guitar. When he became interested in the mandolin, he continued to play with many of the same fingering techniques as he had learned on the guitar. He was never particularly interested in learning the so-called "right" way of doing anything on the instrument, let alone following the course of many budding bluegrass novices and begin memorizing by rote all the standard moves of players such as Bill Monroe and Jethro Burns. An individual and unique stylist from his very first appearances with the Country Gentlemen in the late '60s, Gaudreau is in fact credited with inventing the humorous concept of "the bluegrass police." This term is a derisive description of listeners who think everything can only be done a certain way, whatever they happen to think that is. Gaudreau's allegiance to his own heart and mind has won him a proud place in some fantastic bluegrass outfits over more than three decades of picking. He has also become an advocate for electric mandolin, to no one's surprise considering his generation and outlook, and has also performed on the modern five-string version of that instrument. He joined the Country Gentlemen in 1969 and although it was early in his career, it was a move that attracted quite a bit of attention to him as he was replacing the well-loved mandolinist John Duffey. This group, under the leadership of Charlie Waller, continued to perform in early 2000, and since 1981 Gaudreau has rejoined as mandolinist off and on.

His activities in between these two stints with that band include alliances with bands that have made bluegrass history. For 11 years, he was a member of the Tony Rice Unit, recording several superb albums. Another progressive bluegrass outfit that was just as much well-loved was J.D. Crowe & the New South, bringing him together with the late, much missed, and influential bluegrass and country singer Keith Whitley, as well as with hot pickers Bobby Slone and Steve Bryant. One of the best recordings of this group in action was entitled Live in Japan and was released in 1982 on the Rounder label. From 1979 through 1981, Gaudreau was a member of Spectrum with banjoist Béla Fleck, bassist Mark Schatz, and other players. With a name more like a fusion jazz group than a bluegrass band, this group's music was enough to make the bluegrass police call the real police. Throughout he kept up collaborations with more traditional players, such as the First Generation project which brought him together with hardball banjo picker Don Stover.

The '90s continued as a time of new formations, sometimes involving old faces. An existing trio, featuring Dobro player Mike Auldridge, bassist T. Michael Coleman, and guitarist Larry Moondi Klein, called itself Chesapeake but was a much more casual, on and off again type of band until the mandolinist was brought in as a fourth member. The ensuing sparks have led to a dynamic career for this ensemble, which has stolen the show at many bluegrass festivals. Out of the Chesapeake experience has come a co-operative trio with Auldridge, Gaudreau, and guitarist Richard Bennett. This trio hasn't bothered with a name at all other than the players simply using their own. This group has released two CDs, the most recent entitled Blue Lonesome Wind, a 2001 release on the Rebel label. In 1994, Gaudreau put on a producer's hat to create Young Mando Monsters, a get together involving four ambitious, feisty pickers, including Ronnie McCoury and Alan Bibey. In terms of recordings, there is no shortage of material by any of the various bands this player has been part of, but one album that is often picked as his most accomplished is entitled The Mandolin Album and was released on Puritan records.

Jimmy Gaudreau - The Gaudreau Mandolin Album

Year: 1978
Label: Puritan Records

Review by Eugene Chadbourne

Small as its fingerboard is and played most often by trilling with a pick at high speed, the mandolin is a natural for playing fast as well as having a particularly lovely tone and an ability to ring out and fill in the spaces around other instruments. These features have helped make it a standard item in a bluegrass band, but when the instrument takes the lead in the hands of a player as accomplished as this man is, then listeners are entering a whole new world. From the title, one can assume mandolinist Jimmy Gaudreau is trying to make some kind of all-encompassing statement about what he is able to do on his instrument. It is an ambitious effort, including material that could and definitely has sunk many a lesser player. Just about everything comes off beautifully; in fact, one would have to be trying to pick a fight with mandolinists in order to make much criticism of any of the proceedings here, which include everything from straight-ahead bluegrass to Bach to the "New Camptown Races," which is given a treatment so refreshing that the artist has a perfect right to claim it as his own. Banjoist J.D. Crowe, no slouch in any setting, gets pretty inspired here. There is also tasty use of percussion, unusual for this type of session.

Liner notes:
"I will dispense with the usual polite and mushy comments often found on album liners and get to the point. In my opinion, Jimmy Gaudreau is one of the finest mandolin players in the business today. He has adapted several unique licks to the mandolin that can be called his own. In watching him perform anyone can tell that a lot of heavy concentration and thought go into his playing. I belieive that most mandolin players should find some licks they would like to learn, that is, if they can handle them!"
- John Duffey

When it was announced in 1969 that Jimmy Gaudreau would replace John Duffey in the Country Gentlemen, thousands of bluegrass fans hollered, "Who?" That an unknown (a Yankee from Rhode Island, yet!) would be hired to replace a key member of the world's most beloved bluegrass band was unthinkable!

There was little reason to worry. Not only did Jimmy's tenor blend perfectly with Charlie Waller and Eddie Adcock, but his quick, sprightly mandolin style excited audiences everywhere. Since his debut with the Gentlemen, Jimmy has brought his unique sound to the original II Generation, his own Country Store, and most recently to the hottest band in bluegrass - J.D. Crowe and the New South.

It took Jimmy five years to put together an album the way he wanted it. From the wilds of Maine he brought in his teacher, Fred Pike. Guitarist Glenn Lawson was available, and New Southerners J.D. Crowe and Bobby Slone were recruited to help out here and there. The result produced a little jazz, a bit of modern country and rock and roll, a classical virtuoso piece, and a lot of solid, hard-core bluegrass!

Tracks
1 Alabama Jubilee
2 Patrick's Hornpipe
3 Fireball
4 A Maiden's Prayer
5 Blackberry Rag
6 Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
7 New Camptown Races
8 Last Date
9 Swarmin'
10 Eight More Miles to Louisville
11 Edsel's Tailpipe
12 Memphis Mandolin

you oughta see deacon jones.
from vinyl | mp3 224kbps | w/ covers | 48mb

*out of print*
for yotte

updates

2009-06-17T21:22:00.002-06:00

Thanks to the generous efforts of friends & readers, we now have the missing tracks and booklet for Sabicas - Grandes Figures du Flamenco, and lots more info on D.W. Griffiths (his name is Dave)

oh, and in case you didn't notice, there are a couple more Black Oil Brothers tracks up now too

keep up the teamwork, everybody! this ain't a one-man ship

Bola Sete - 2 Albums

2009-06-16T22:41:00.009-06:00

"Bola Sete is as significant as Jimi Hendrix and Segovia, in the sense of having wisdom, knowledge, soul and passion."
- Carlos Santana

Now that you've heard Sabicas, it's time we introduce yet another nylon-string-playing Fahey-influence. I'll leave the writing to others on this one, since it's getting late and this is my second posting tonight. I've posted 2 albums, one which is more traditional and one which is more exploratory.

The following is a quote from an article John Fahey wrote about Bola Sete in 1976: "Few living people have had such an enormous influence on my life, my music, my soul, my religion -- you name it -- as has Bola Sete. I first saw him playing -- solo -- in early 1972 at David Allen's Boarding House in San Francisco. That night, I was high on drugs as I had been for several years, and -- as also had been the case for years -- I felt that I was one isolated example of an experimental species that God had forgotten about (I was wrong here). I felt I had been -- and was still -- walking and talking among shadows: 'People' who had no depth, who were not related to themselves, did not know anything about themselves -- endless, phony, shadow-people. And I was one of them. Bola played for about 45 minutes and grimaced and grunted through the whole set. Something was wrong. He couldn't 'get it out.' I knew how he felt, and I understood. Something was wrong. I was intrigued by his obvious frustration having felt that way myself almost all my life. The performance had been mediocre so far. However, the audience gave him a long ovation, and he reluctantly got up and started to play an encore, still looking frustrated, impotent, mad, seething. I knew that feeling well. But then suddenly he got hot. He got so cooking, he played song after song for another 45 minutes, forgetting (or not caring) that he was doing an encore, playing many of the same songs he had just played. My first impression that night, as I told a friend at the time, was this: Here is a man who has lived through hell and somehow miraculously got out of it. I went back to the Boarding House several times that week. I found that Bola's sets have an interesting 'plot.' They all begin and end with songs whose emotional contour is pretty, happy, light, peaceful, or ecstatic. But after the first two or three songs, the terrain gets rougher and darker, heavier and weirder. By the middle of his set, Bola is giving you pictures of hell, memories of perdition, demonic music. But then Bola gradually lightens up the spectrum of feeling and leads you out of the cave and into the sunlight, and life is paradise. Only now, one is so changed that one is temporarily aware that life really is paradise after all, the world is an ocean, etc. It is like a breath from the 19th Century or before; a breeze from times when people had passion and significance and were not mere shadows. It is as though something has finally changed. I talked to Bola's wife (I was too shaken to speak to him at the time). 'How does he keep from going crazy,' I asked her, 'when he has so much energy and tension? You can hear it in his music -- a lot of passion and tension. How did he get out of hell?' ('How can I get out of hell?' That's what I really wanted to know.) His music is so good it's eerie -- eerie because it comes from a different time, a different place, when men felt different things that we can no longer love or experience except as an echo or phantom in the best of art works. Most of Bola's music is eclectic and nongeneric. Take a song like 'Black Mommy.' Now, if you didn't know anything about Bola . . . what musical tradition, period, or era would you guess this song came from? Tasmania? Easter Island? Next door? It comes from everywhere and nowhere. The subconscious really is universal. Bola Sete's music is the best reminder of this that I have ever heard. He is a man of great spirit and great depth. Bola plays percussively, vertically, with a very heavy and insistent thumb. His playing is very masculine (the word is an anachronisism). He plays erratically and restlessly like Boll Weavil Jackson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, or Bill Monroe. But he also has inner peace and breadth . . . rhythm and dynamics are constantly changing. Bola's playing gives the impression (and like my playing it is a false impression) of being very improvisatory. His songs, on the other hand, tend to be very short and terse (unlike mine), without undue repetition. But like me, he tries to recreate each song each time he plays it, which is in effect to destroy it. . . . The only elements of a song, which change from one performance to the next, are the number of repetitions of each idea. The order of the ideas stays pretty much the same. But the speed and intensity at which they are played may vary; if Bola doesn't like the room he is playing in, or the people he is playing for, he tends to play lousy. I do the same. We both play the way we feel, but within a rigid structure. We play that way because we have to -- we can't do anything else. God help us."

-- John Fahey, "Bola Sete, The Nature of Infinity, And John Fahey," Guitar Player, February 1976.

Guitarist Djalma De Andrade, better known as Bola Sete (1923-1987) (or "Seven Ball," a reference to Brazilian billiards) was both an early exponent of Brazilian music in the United States, and a pioneer of solo acoustic guitar work. Well before the bossa nova boom hit stateside, Sete was living in California, introducing dynamic Latin styles into the various small jazz combos he sat in with. Later his style became more introspective and expressive, mirroring the shift in the acoustic guitar repertoire brought about by players such as John Fahey and William Ackerman.

Biography by Alvaro Neder

The words Bola Sete are Portuguese for the seventh ball in the billiard game, which is the only black one. He got his nickname after being the only black man in a small group. From an early age, he was habitual at the Bohemian circles of Praça Tiradentes, Rio, where musicians met. At 17, he joined composer Henricão's group, which was going to Marília for an eight-month season. Returning to Rio, he played at every available venue in Campinas SP and Niterói RJ. In 1945, Rio's Rádio Transmissora instituted a violão (acoustic guitar) contest, in which he was the winner. He continued to play through Minas Gerais and Rio. At last, he was hired contractually by Rádio Transmissora and he worked in the famous Trem da Alegria show for three years at the João Caetano Theater with Lamartine Babo, Iara Sales, and Héber de Bôscoli.

At the end of the '40s, he formed his own group, Bola Sete e seu Conjunto. In that time, Dolores Durán, who went on to be a famous singer and composer, was a crooner at the Béguin nightclub and once invited, became the group's singer at the Drink and Vogue nightclubs. In 1952, he went to Italy and played in several clubs and hotels until 1954. In that year, he returned to Brazil and formed an orchestra, with which he toured through Argentina, Uruguay, and Spain. In 1955, he toured again, this time through Lima, Peru, and Santiago do Chile. In 1959, he moved to the U.S. and in 1962, was hired directly by the general manager of Sheraton Hotels to play in the several units of that chain. In 1960, the label Sinter, which had already recorded several cuts with him, released the LP Bola Sete. He had also recorded for Odeon, which released at the same time Bola Sete e Quatro Trombones with his own compositions and Gershwin standards. In 1962, he appeared at the historic Bossa Nova Festival at Carnegie Hall in New York. He also played at the Village Gate and Vanguard. In the same year, Odeon Brasil released O Extraordinário Bola Sete and Fantasy released Bossa Nova. He was then playing at New York's Park Sheraton and later in the same year, he moved to San Francisco to play at the Sheraton Palace. Dizzy Gillespie was staying there and listened to him every night. When Gillespie's pianist, Lalo Schifrin, came to the hotel, he met Sete, with whom he had become acquainted and played with when the Brazilian toured Argentina. Invited by Gillespie, Sete played with him at the Ninth Annual Monterey Jazz Festival with great success. Following tours and a recorded album with Gillespie, Sete moved again to San Francisco and joined Vince Guaraldi's trio. This two-year association, profitable for both artists, consolidated the already expressive popularity of Sete in the U.S. They recorded together 1963's Vince Guaraldi, Bola Sete & Friends (Fantasy). Then he formed his own trio with Brazilian musicians Tião Neto (bass) and Chico Batera (drums), with which he performed at the 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival, again with great success. From November 11 to 13, 1966, Sete was featured at the Fillmore Auditorium. His releases in the U.S. include 1964's Tour de Force and From All Sides (with Vince Guaraldi), 1965's The Solo Guitar of Bola Sete and The Incomparable Bola Sete, 1966's Live at El Matador (with Vince Guaraldi) and Autentico, 1967's At the Monterey Jazz Festival, 1969's Shebaba (all through Fantasy), 1976's Working on a Groovy Thing (Paramount), 1981's Ocean and Ocean II (Lost Lake), and 1985's Jungle Suite (Dancing Cat). In 1969, he appeared at the Mexico Brazilian and American Music Festival, together with Eumir Deodato, Milton Nascimento, and Airto Moreira.

The Bola Sete Trios - Tour De Force

Label: Fantasy
Year: 1962/63 (2001 reissue)

Review by Richie Unterberger
Sete led a trio on this mid-1963 date, backed by Fred Schrieber on bass and John Rae on drums. It tilts a little to the mellower, more sentimental side than more driving sessions such as the one he did the previous year for Bossa Nova. It's still quality by-the-fire jazz bossa nova music, Sete's playing a lesson in both skill and discreet economy. While he wrote three of the ten songs, his repertoire of cover selections is fairly wide ranging, taking in "Moon River," Dizzy Gillespie's "Tour de Force," and, as a special highlight, his version of Isaac Albeinz's "Asturias," the mournful flamenco-influenced song familiar to any student of Spanish-style guitar. There's also a samba that Luiz Bonfa had a hand in writing ("Sambe de Orfeu"), and as one of the niftier detours from the usual, a solo interpretation of J.S. Bach's "Bourree." The 2001 CD reissue on Fantasy also includes the entirety of his late-1962 session Bossa Nova, which is an excellent midpoint between bossa nova and mainstream American jazz.

Recently repackaged on a single CD, these two early albums by guitarist Djalma de Andrade (aka Bola Sete) are nothing short of dazzling. While he clearly shared a rhythmic and melodic affinity with his Brazilian contemporaries, Sete was somewhat miscast as a member of the bossa crowd -- already living and working in California at the time of the Getz-Gilberto breakthrough, Bola Sete had already developed his own style, much bouncier and more overtly aligned with the West Coast jazz scene. In his quieter moments, he could easily touch on the cool reserve of the bossa scene, but he also swung with abandon, and reveled in a good, strong backbeat. Both of these albums are recorded in a trio setting, with compact accompaniment -- bass, drums and percussion -- allowing the sprightly and impressive guitar work to come through loud and clear. Highly recommended.

Tracks
1. Up the Creek
2. My Different World
3. Dilemma
4. Sweet Thing
5. If You Return
6. Samba Do Perroquet
7. Manha de Carnaval
8. Brazilian Bossa Galore
9. You're the Reason
10. Wagging Along
11. Ash Wednesday
12. Without You
13. Baccara
14. Moon River
15. Mambeando
16. Ceu E Mar
17. Asturias
18. Samba de Orfeu
19. Sad Note
20. Tour de Force
21. A Noite Do Meu Bern
22. Bouree

forceful.
mp3 >192kbps vbr | w/ cover | 95mb

Bola Sete - Shambhala Moon

Year: 2001
Label: Samba Moon Records

Bola Sete's solo guitar suite containing the music of hidden and magical places.

When Bola Sete's widow Anne issued "Ocean Memories", a series of solo recordings made in 1972, it marked the first time his sophisticated solo guitar music had been on CD. "Shambhala Moon" was recorded ten years later and issued originally on the Dancing Cat label. This re-issue on CD is the only known recording of Sete playing solo with a steel-string guitar.The two suites that make up this recording are, frankly, on another level entirely than virtually anything else the guitarist issued in his lifetime. His fusion of Brazilian, classical, flamenco, jazz, and numerous folk styles was unprecedented and remains unmatched.Here, while sitting in a full lotus position, Sete moves through an astonishing array of techniques and nuances of expression that make the sound of the guitar literally float, suspended outside the time-space continuum. His aren't seemingly flashy techniques, but most guitarists wouldn't even attempt them. Often utilizing bossa nova and samba chord progressions to initiate an improvisation on a theme, he will slide through cascading minor keys (as on "Morning Rises Through the Mist") to find a place to embellish them by augmentation, suspension, and even diminishment, distilling a pattern to its essence before stretching it back out again, ending in an otherworldly counterpoint to his original premise. No cut offers a greater example of this than the title piece, which Sete begins as a nocturne in E minor in the Spanish style before stretching it to A minor. Once he establishes a rhythmic and syntactic pattern on the sixth, he constructs a bridge to an augmented ninth and folds in everything he's played thus far, before tearing it back down to a skeletal whisper of a theme. For guitar students and fans or not, "Shambhala Moon" is quite simply among the most inspired examples of passionate and technically brilliant guitar playing in the recorded history of the instrument.
- Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Literally a meditative album, this was recorded as Sete was deeply into yoga and TM... It's similar in style to the Ocean album, though without the more strident, forceful moments. Explorative solo acoustic guitar work, with curlicued variations on flamenco and classical styles -- this was one of the earlier Dancing Cat releases, and is less mellow than than its contemporary albums... Consistently probing and active, Sete's guitar work compels the listener's attention without seeming jarring or overwrought. The Shambhala Moon reissue adds one extra track to the original 1985 release, Jungle Suite. Worth checking out.

Tracks
1 The Sun Pours Through the Darkness Gently, Gently
2 Moonbeams, Moonlight, Midnight Magic
3 Morning Rises Through the Mist
4 Night Shadows
5 Sorcerers, Spirits, Devas, and Delights
6 Shambhala Moon
7 Many Shades of Green
8 Devas' Lament

the land of everlasting life.
mp3 >224kbps vbr | w/ cover | 67mb

oh, and if you want to hear more of this incredible dude, check out albums at Loronix and Annäherungen.

Munir Bashir - 2 Albums

2009-06-16T21:46:00.006-06:00

You know, it's no accident that guitar music happened so much in Spain. It evolved from the Lutes/Ouds that were brought by the Moors into the south of Spain. And they didn't just bring the instruments, they brought culture and ideas and an Arabic sort of soul. So now that you've heard Sabicas, take another listen to Munir Bashir and see if you can hear how flamenco evolved from Arabic music. Interestingly Munir & Sabicas occupy very similar positions in their respective musics: masters of tradition and inimitable innovators who have influenced literally everyone to come since them.

Really, if you can just ignore the differences in scales, the musics are very similar. Like, listen to the flamenco handclaps and then listen to the percussion behind Munir's oud. Or the way they'll play a flurry of notes and then just stop dead, leaving their musical cloud to dangle on the brink. And this points to the mystery - the hole! - which is at the heart of these musics, and let me tell you - it sure as hell didn't come out of any European church / court music. It came from people who can never name God, so who must constantly make reference to his unfathomable presence through the patterns of emptiness and splendor that is this mosaic of sound.

Now, some musicological details from the booklet of the album below:

MUNIR BACHIR - OUD SOLOS

The form taken in Iraq by the sawt of hidjaz is the maqam which is the most perfect and noblest form the scholarly music of that country can offer. The maqam is performed by one singer (the qari) and three musicians who play respectively the santur - a cithara derived from the Greek psaltery, the djoza - a vielle resting on a pike and the tabla or dûnbak - a double drum. To constitute the djalghi baghdadi of nawbah another kind of drum is added: a riq - the drumhead of which is stretched on a wooden frame, - The principal part characteristic of the maqam is a poem written in one of the sixteen varieties of classical metres either in literary Arabic or in spoken language. In the latter case the poem is called zûhairi.

The maqam, the tradition of which has lasted in Iraq for nearly four centuries, has been transmitted orally by the Iraqi masters in an uninterrupted chain between past and present. The singer improvises melodic passages making freely use of different rhythms while passing progressively from one part of the chosen mode to another. Displaying all his virtuosity and flexibility of voice he reaches the acme of the maqam; then leaves it imperceptibly and comes to the final note of the mode after having embroidered musical phrases, all of them proofs of his talent and spirit of invention.

The maqam starts with the tahrir often preceded by an instrumental introduction called badûa and composed on a well-defined rhythm; the singer accompanies the badûa passing alternately from high-pitched notes to low-pitched ones. The tahrir is made of one or more songs, the texts of which may be extended by one or two Arabic, Persian or Turkish interjections added by the singer when the texts of the songs prove too short with regard to the improvised melody. The maqam ends with the taslim or taslom which is a text set to a falling melodic passage ending with the final note of the scale of that maqam. Between the tahrir and the taslim there is a series of melodic passages of variable length which are performed alternately by the singer and the musicians and which develop in turn the different parts of the scale.

The artists who interpret the maqam-s are considered to be authorities on the matter of repertory; they know all about it and are famous for the specific way everyone renders such a maqam. Some of them are famous for the passages they have added to certain maqam-s, others for the composing of whole maqam-s with a view of enriching the already rich repertory.

A concert made up of maqam-s only is called a fasl. In such a fasl the maqam-s are always played in the same order and the fasl is named after the first maqam of the series. The Iraqi repertory offers five fasl-s: bayati - hidjaz - rast - naûa and hûsseïni. At the end of every maqam the orchestra plays a pesté which is a piece of music composed in the same mode as the maqam. This device allows the singer to rest before the beginning of the next maqam. In former times it was usual to play several fasl-s in a musical evening.

Among the masters of the maqam who have carried on its musical tradition, generation after generation, and whose names are still known nowadays, we will mention: Mûlla Hassan Babûdidji (1782-1840) and his pupil Rahmallah Shiltag who taught a whole generation of artists, the most famous of whom were Ahmed Zaidan and Mûlla Osman Almûssili. Many artists of the following generation have Ahmed Zaidan to thank for their musical talent and their fame, for instance Rachid Kandardji (deceased in 1963) and Abbas Chaikhali. Among the artists of the next generation we will quote the great master Mohamed Elkabbandji who was born in 1901 and considered as the greatest of his time for the register of his voice as well as for the precision of his interpretation of the traditional maqam. Endowed with a very good memory, he had memorized a great number of poems, which allowed him to sing what was fit in all circumstances. He was the one who was sent to Cairo in 1932 as an Iraqi representative to the Congress of Arab Music.

Is the text of the maqam secular, it belongs to the classical repertory but if the text is religious the maqam belongs to the Sufi music which has also its famous performers among whom are Elhadj Jalal Elhafnaûi and Charif Mohieddine Haidar. The latter was the dean of the Baghdad Art Academy and taught a great number of lutanists his method. Among these we will quote: the names of Jamil Bachir (deceased in 1977) and his brother Munir Bachir presently secretary-general of the Arabic Academy of Music. Simon Jargy, a professor at the University of Geneva, considers Munir Bachir as one of the greatest soloists of ud and one of the greatest musicians of the Arab world. Born in the northern Iraq, Munir Bachir belongs to a family of very gifted musicians who have passed on from father to son the noble art of playing the lute.

"He was but five years old, S. Jargy writes, when (together with his brother who also became a well-known lutanist) he was taught the first rudiments of lute playing by his father who had become impregnated with the purest oriental and Arab musical traditions of Baghdad, the old capital of the Abbassid Caliphs. Knowing all the subtleties of Arab music and mastering all the secrets of ud playing, Munir Bachir has rapidly become a great artist and an unrivalled virtuoso, giving back to this instrument the importance it had at the time of the Thousand and One Nights. After World War II, he founded an academy of music in Baghdad with a view of teaching ud playing to talented young people. Then he was appointed as a professor at the Art Academy where he succeeded his master Mohieddine Haïdar. He became also head of the musical programme for the Iraqi broadcasting Co. Wanting to widen his knowledge, Munir Bachir went to Budapest where he studied traditional folk song and music. In 1965 he obtained a doctor's degree in Budapest and was appointed there as an assistant lecturer at the Academy of Science in the department of folk art. At the same time he gave a series of recitals in Hungary patronized by the famous composer Zoltan Kodaly who was one of his admirers and who encouraged him to acquaint people with the authentic Arabic music. Subsequently he gave concerts in the Near and Far Eastern countries". Touring Europe he first came to Geneva where this concert was recorded, parts of which are presented here.

To complete the timing of this compact disc we have resorted to the most prestigious lutanist of the thirties, Mohammed Elkassabgi, who was also one of the first composers of the great singer Um Kalsum. Mohammed Elkassabgi's improvisations: a taksim bayati, a taksim saba, a taksim hidjaz kar and a rhythmic piece, dalaa elhawanem (Ladies' coquetry) have been chosen to let music lovers compare the individual skills of each of these two talented artists separated by more than a quarter of a century. It will also enable us to stress on the one hand the mastery and the inventiveness of the classical school which Mohammed Elkassabgi belongs to, and on the other hand the virtuosity of the younger generation of artists, one of whom is Munir Bachir.

- A. Hachlef, Translated by M.Stoffel. September 1988

Mohamed el-Qasabgi (محمد القصبجي; pronounced [in the Egyptian dialect] el-Asabgi) (1892 - March, 1966) as an Egyptian musician and composer, and is regarded as one of the five leading composers of Egypt in the 20th century. Most of his credits went to Umm Kulthum, Asmahan, and Layla Murad who sang most of his great works and scores. Until today, most critics classify Mohamed El Qasabgi as the master of the oud due to his great abilities and skills which he had during his time.

In most of his tunes, there is a real sensation of the pure Oriental spirit, mixed with European musical techniques and taste. This was mostly seen in songs like Ya Toyour, Raa' El Habeeb, Ana Albi Daleeli.

In the above mentioned songs and many others, he was widely recognized by most musicians and critics at that time as the leader of development of Oriental music and mixing it with newest musical techniques, such as influenced brought in from Western classical traditions of his time.

Munir Bashir - Solo de Luth-Oud: Recital [Oud Solos Live]

Year: 1988
Label: Club du Disque Arabe - AAA03

Tracks:
1 Mounir Bachir - Maqam Nahawend
2 Mounir Bachir - Maqam Rast
3 Mounir Bachir - Maqam Kourdi
4 Mounir Bachir - La Voix de L'Orient
5 Mounir Bachir - Le Oud Fou
6 Mounir Bachir - Hayra
7 Mounir Bachir - Hayra (2)
8 Mounir Bachir - L'Orient En Andalousie
9 Mohamed Elkassabg - Taqsim Bayati
10 Mohamed Elkassabg - Taqsim Saba
11 Mohamed Elkassabg - Taqsim Hidjaz
12 Mohamed Elkassabg - Dalaâ ElHawanem

taqsim vs. maqam.
m4a 128kbps | w/ scans | 55mb

thanks to the unbeatable Lemmy Caution!

Munir Bashir - Dialogue Between Oud & Rhythms

Year: 2001
Label: Voix del l'Orient

This one builds to a pretty amazing percussive climax in the second half of track 1. Also, you get to hear very Sandy Bull-ish oud-delay, which for some reason is less cheesey than most kinds of delay/echo effects.

Tracks:
1 Dialogue Between Oud & Rhythms 22:45
2 Layal (Arabic Dance) 11:18
3 Babylonian Nights 11:45

Munir Bashir, oud
Sami Abdel Ahad, percussion

layala?
mp3 256kbps | w/ cover | 83mb

Sabicas

2009-06-09T22:05:00.012-06:00

More death music! More Fahey-influences. More guitar-magic. More mystery. Real mysteries. Not just like, how in Yahweh's chthonic name did he do that!?! But also insights into the mysteries that lay beyond death and the multifarious bardos. This is endarkenment music. But it's fun... Seriously though, Sabicas blows the pants off any other flamenco guitarist I've heard. Hey may not be as fast as Carlos Montoya or as crystalline as Paco de Lucia, but he has that special folly that comes through his music as borderline insanity, where you get the feeling that he's leaning as far over the cliff as he can, just because he knows he can't fly. He is bound to this harsh mortal samsara, and he carries death with him in his guitar case. But by Jove, you listen to this man and fly you will. Land you may never...

"The music Sabicas plays creates a world of love, rhythm, and death. It is not a world in which the intellect is of much use, for the music seeks to communicate deep emotions, the darkest feelings one tries to avoid. Flamenco in the hands of the great gypsies is a constant striving to express this duality. No guitarist of the 20th century has expressed this better or more profoundly than Sabicas."

- Cynthia Gooding, from her liner notes to Sabicas - The Greatest Flamenco Guitarist (Rhino Handmade)

Sabicas is known the world over as one of the premier guitarists of the 20th Century, admired by flamenco and classical players alike. His pitch is said to be perfect, his dexterity approaching light speed. He lived the fascinating life of a true Spanish gypsy. According to their tradition, the gypsy has but two sides to his nature: the pleasure he must seek in this life balanced with a constant awareness of death. Love is central -- without it, death is preferable to life. These simple yet profound aspects of gypsy life are the bedrock of this most intense and visceral musical form.

Spaniards believe that all forms of flamenco derive from seguiriyas, the "deepest" songs; and soleares, the "lesser" songs. The former ponder the endless sorrow of humankind, while the latter tap into its joys and fleeting pleasures. Many of the selections on this CD are identified accordingly ("Soleares," "Seguiriya," "Solera Gitana," "Solea Por Bulerias"). As for the rest, Spanish speakers will discern by their titles the balance between these primary emotions. But perhaps the most fun will be had by non-Spanish-speaking aficionados, their clues coming solely from the music itself.

He represented a breaking point for the flamenco guitar and he revealed flamenco to the whole world, via America. He was absolutely innovative, and revolutionised guitar playing with his speed and polished execution with a right hand technique that is unmistakeable and unrepeatable. His influence has been unquestionable for the new generations of guitarists, passing through the work of Paco de Lucía and Serranito.

He was born between Sanfermines (Pamplona's world-famous feast) and gypsies, in the city that Hemingway made popular with his pen, and his parents bought him his first guitar when he was four years old, when he was just strong enough to lift it. Two years later, he was already making his debut on a stage. In his beginnings, he was a fanatic follower of Ramón Montoya. Nonetheless, his work accompanying the most important cantaores of the time helped him to conceive a far more personal style of playing.

During the Civil War (1936) he went into exile to South America with Carmen Amaya and, together, they embarked on several tours. Sabicas grew fond of those lands, and settled in New York, where he played concerts as a solo artist. He became open minded, to the point where he made the first attempt at fusion with Joe Beck, Rock encounter (1966). He also struck up an important relationship with jazz masters like Charles Mingus, Ben E. King, Gill Evans, Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis. He even played for President Roosevelt in the White House and was treated as just another artist by the record labels, which distributed his records all over the world.

He did not return to Spain until 1967. Twenty years later, his country of birth gave him a national tribute for the first time, in the Teatro Real in Madrid. Earlier, in 1982, Pamplona had dedicated its feast, the Sanfermines, to him. He recorded with Enrique Morente a year before he died.
- from http://www.esflamenco.com/bio/en10036.html

He was already a legend in life. He was proud of having done for the guitar what nobody had done before: to tour the whole world with it, make it fashionable and get a bit of classical from it. "The flamenco guitar had never been played outside Spain - the author explained in 1984 - and not everyone, a very little. Then, since my records came out in the last thirty years, people became fond of the flamenco guitar anywhere in the world". He did not consider himself a follower of any guitar school, of any influence. "I have never had teachers. A proof of this is that I have a brother for whom I have never been able to set a single variation. I do not know how to teach, so I do not give lessons, because I was never taught by anyone. I do not know where to start. I do not know music". He acted in films. The mastery of Sabicas has brought the greatest praise. Thus, Howard Klein: "His art has no superfluous attitudes. It does not make one feel he is playing, but rather the music just flows spontaneously". Or Brook Zern: "Sabicas has everything necessary: a mysterious technical precision, astonishing speed, a perfect tone and absolute understanding of flamenco, of its structure and if its intonation. Moreover, he has a great ability to invent".

Grandes Figures du Flamenco, Vol. 14 - Sabicas

Year: 1992/1998
Label: Le Chant du Monde

"The mundillo, critics and recording companies, have always used the term virtuoso when speaking of him. And it is true that the first thing that strikes one on hearing him is his prodigious technique, which is truly unprecedented, and of which the analysts said that before Sabicas there were things that seemed impossible to do on the guitar, after him there is no longer anything ! It is unnecessary to emphasise what the present generation of Paco de Lucia, Habichuela, Serranito and the young Tomatito owes to Sabicas. But in addition to his incredible agility he possessed a musical creativity that was admirable. Sabicas was not only a guitarist, he was a composer - a rare thing in a Gypsy. He could neither read nor write music : one day he said that the notes on a stave looked like "little birds on electric wires", but thanks to his mastery of the instrument and to his prodigious memory, he was capable of playing his compositions, pieces lasting several minutes, practically note for note over and over again, like his Castillo moro and his Noches de Malaga. Moreover, on listening to his Garrotin or his six Sevillanas one will be struck by the superb inventiveness - variations, ornaments, modulations and traditional flamenco forms, endow his creative imagination with an entirely personal quality."
- Mario Bois

Tracks
1 - Bronce gitano
2 - Ecos de la mina
3 - Taconeo gitano
4 - Campina andaluza
5 - Por los olivares
6 - Fragua gitana
7 - Ecos jerezanos
8 - De los Laureles
9 - Mi garrotin
10 - Joyas de la alhambra
11 - El castillo moro
12 - Seis sevillanas
13 - Punta y tacon
14 - Ay, mis ducas
15 - Brisas de la caleta
16 - Noches de Cadiz
17 - Y tus labios

*note* tracks 12 & 16 are missing. stupidly, there are files which claim to be them but are in fact just copies of other tracks on the disc. so i didn't notice before uploading. *sigh*

edit: here is the correct track 12 & 16, generously provided by bolingo

what a great figure.
mp3 vbr | w/ cover | 79mb

and the booklet scans, generously provided by miguel

Sabicas - Ole! La Guitarra de Sabicas

Year: 1999

Re-issue. Two albums recorded in 1972, now on one CD. With collaborations by brother/guitarist Diego Castellon, singer Adela la Chaqueta, and dancer Rosarito La Mejorana.

Every track list I've seen for this is different, but this is the tracks in the order of the upload:

1. -- Guadalquivir (Danza)
2. -- Alma Gaditana (Solea)
3. -- Compases Flamencos (Alegrias)
4. -- Zapateado Danza (Zapateado)
5. -- Pena la Plateria (Granainas)
6. -- Ensueno Arabe (Danza Arabe)
7. -- De Los Rizos de Tu Pelo (Colombiana)
8. -- Taconeo Gitano (Seguiriyas)
9. -- Torremolinos (Malaguena)
10. -- El Conquero (Fandangos de Huelva)
11. -- Variaciones de Alegrias (Alegrias)
12. -- Embrujo Sevillano (Bulerias)
13. -- Mi Solea (Soleares)
14. -- Campanitas (Farruca)
15. -- Piropo A Galicia (Gallegada)
16. -- Malaguena (Malaguena)
17. -- Ecos de Linares (Taranta)
18. -- Duquelas de Triana (Seguiriyas)
19. -- Viniendo Del Alba (Rondena)
20. -- Villancicos de Jerez (Villancico)

get it and find out.
mp3 192kbps | w/ cover | 99mb

VA - Flamenco Highlights from Spain

Year: 2002
Label: Laserlight

This is (or was) one of those bargain* albums that record companies throw together without any idea of what they're doing, and as you might expect, the outcome is some good news and some bad news.

First the bad news: eight of the tracks here -- the even-numbered ones -- are totally dispensable, seven of them being Sevillanas (which is only considered a flamenco style by courtesy) performed by two different but equally undistinguished ensembles; and the eighth a Fandango by a third. It's hard to know which is worse: the flute, the clatter of castanets, or the gooey harmonies.

The good news is that the other eight are guitar solos by Sabicas (1912-90), one of the greatest flamenco guitarists of all time. I say solos, but Track 3 is triple-tracked, with a beautiful stereo image; and (laughably considering the album title) it's a version of the old Trio Los Paraguayos harp favourite, "Bell Bird" ("Pájaro campano"). The others include a Guajira, Verdiales, Carcelera, Castellana, Farruca, Sevillanas, and an arrangement of Oyanguren's "Fantasía Inca", with an introduction that's not in the version he recorded for Elektra on Sabicas Vol. 2 (reissued on La Guitarra Flamenca).

Since all the Sabicas tracks were recorded in the USA then, and since none of the others could possibly be a flamenco highlight to any but a depraved perception, the number of Flamenco Highlights from Spain here is actually zero.

But buy this anyway, for the Sabicas tracks -- just program the others out.

- an amazon reviewer

Tracks:
1. Guajira/Cana de Azucar
2. No lo Beses en LA Boca
3. Ritmos del Paraguay
4. Luna por el Rocio
5. Verdiales/Puerto de Mala
6. Fandangos de Huelva
7. Carcelera/Reflejo Andalu
8. Carretas del Rocio
9. Castellana
10. Sevillanas de LA Loteria
11. Farruca/Con Salero y Gar
12. Junto a una Rosa Llonaba
13. Sevillanas
14. Gitanos Canasteros
15. Fantasia Inca
16. Sevilla Visite de Gala

ritmos y fantasias.
mp3 160kbps | w/ cover | 33mb

*note* I have saved you all the trouble deleting the schlocky flamenco and left uploaded just the Sabicas tracks, which are great. consider them bonus tracks to the other two albums.

and for more Sabicas gems, check out Flamenco Palo Seco

Jack Owens

2009-06-03T20:16:00.002-06:00

Bentonia Blues. Bentonia, MS 1993

A black cat stares out from the front porch of blues singer Jack Owens as he plays his dark and haunting blues with harmonica accompanist Bud Spires. Owens, whose canon of songs comes from the minor-keyed Bentonia tradition made famous by the delta legend Skip James, sings in his signature song, "It must have been the devil, changed that woman's mind/ I'd rather be the devil than to be that woman's friend." Songs in the Bentonia tradition are suffused with brooding images of the supernatural. Robert Johnson drew from this tradition in composing his most haunting blues, "Hellhound on my trail."
- photo from www.billsteber.com

Jack Owens (November 17, 1904 (?) - Yazoo City, Mississippi February 9, 1997) (born L. F. Nelson) was a Delta blues singer and guitarist from Bentonia, Mississippi, USA.

Never a professional recording artist, Owens farmed, bootlegged and ran a weekend juke joint in Bentonia for most of his life. He wasn't recorded until the blues revival of the sixties, being rediscovered by David Evans in 1966, who was led to him by either Skip James or Cornelius Bright. Evans recorded Owen's first LP Goin' Up the Country that same year and It Must Have Been the Devil (with Bud Spires) in 1970. He made other registrations (some by Alan Lomax) in the 1960s and '70s, and performed at several music festivals in the United States and Europe until his death in 1997.

Owens shared many elements of his guitar style and repertoire with fellow Bentonian Skip James, utilizing open D-minor tuning (DADFAD). He was often accompanied on harmonica by his friend Bud Spires.

-From: Wikipedia

Biography by Richie Unterberger

Like Skip James, Owens hails from Bentonia, MS. Owens is much less famous than James, but he's often compared to Skip due to his high, rich vocals and intricate guitar styles, which finds him using several tunings and occasional minor keys. His material, it must be noted, is not nearly as strong or tightly constructed as James', although it draws from some of the same sources. Noted folklorist and blues scholar David Evans made several recordings with Owens in the late '60s and early '70s.

Jack Owens On muddy Sava riverbank

from The Black Oil Brothers

2009-06-02T21:15:00.006-06:00

Greetings-

As fans of your site we wanted to send you an MP3 of the opening track off of our new album entitled Long Way From The Delta for you to enjoy, post, send to friends, etc. I'd love to send more, but I don't want to jam up your Inbox. If you would like more MP3s, please feel free to contact me and I'll send more.

If you'd like a hard copy of the entire album, possibly for a review/feature/mention on your site, I'd be happy to send that as well! We want to spread the music far and wide to those that appreciate what we're doing.

The Black Oil Brothers are a 3-piece acoustic delta country/blues/folk band out of Chicago, IL. We just returned from our first tour of the UK, and it was quite successful. So much so that we already have shows and radio interviews set up for our next tour (for twice as long) in 2010. We're regulars in Austin (during and not during SXSW), NYC, and this summer we'll also be hitting Nashville and LA in addition to regular shows in Chicago and throughout the Midwest.

Our official CD Release Show is Friday, June 26th @ Quenchers in Chicago. We'll be promoting the release in the next month with some radio spots, etc.

Thanks and enjoy.

Sincerely,

Tony Manno

THE BLACK OIL BROTHERS
www.theblackoilbrothers.com
www.myspace.com/theblackoilbrothers
www.sonicbids.com/theblackoilbrothers
www.reverbnation.com/theblackoilbrothers

It sounds great! Really, very superbly awesome! If you'd like to send more pieces (particularly if they display other facets/styles that you do), i'll happily add them to this post. Or upload them directly to a host like mediafire.com or divshare.com and send me the link, and I'll post it directly. Or send the cd if you'd like to, you guys sound quite promising.

Here is track 1, Going For Broke:

download [fixed]

and track 7, Not the Blues:

download

and track 8, Indeed, Sir:

download

also, on their website you can download their first EP - Steal from Thieves for free, and several other bonus tracks! Click here to get more of their music

Readers, take a listen and leave comments! Let these guys know what you think of their music! Do you want to hear more?

Skip James

2009-06-01T20:23:00.011-06:00

Well it's past due I filled a gaping hole in the Grapevine. That hole's name is Skip James. And boy, is he ever a hole. You lilsten to his music and it takes you down. Down where there is no light. Down to doomy Nehemaia land where people die and get buried and there's no second thoughts or looking back. No remorse, only bitter spite and scotch. And from this hole he sang and lived and into this hole he was laid down one day and now all we have are these cold plastic discs to remember him by. And we play them, back to from and discover the secret codes like DADFAD and Illinois, trying in vain to find the center of the labyrinth that is Skip James. But the center is a hole, and it will not hold. What's this music like? It's like all the suffering and pain and hatred and self-pity and unsolved mysteries of life in the world have gotten together and fallen down into the hole, and some crazy genius man put that hole in his guitar and started pushing strings around to coax all the suffering and mystery the hole. And he sent it into these bits of vinyl and tape and wheels that rolled around in place, orbiting around a hole. And then people shelled out their holy nickels to get these things back to their homey dwellings, so they could stick these bits of plastic and vinyl on their whory record players and listen to this cheap mysterious holy painful music, and try to feel the holes in themselves. You want to know about Skip James? He was a criminal and a genius and a crazy man and a sphinx and a church choir director and a pimp and a cyper and a jerk, but mostly he was a hole. And he's probably got hismself a nice hole in Hell or Valhalla or a pyramid somewhere in Gondwanaland, still cursing the doctors who cut off his Cherry Balls and the women he laid in the ground. Still sad and bitter and arrogant and everybody else in Hellvalla probably leaves him the hell alone because frankly I don't think even the devil understands him, and it's the unknown which is the root of fear. And what is more unknown than a big, gaping black hole in the form of some weird black man from Bentonia Mississippi who happened to be a genius guitar- and piano--player and left this world with some of the greatest unsolved mysteries ever committed to groove. I'm sorry, you cannot know Skip James, any more than you can divide by zero. Skip is the great zero in the blues. The beginning and the end. And if you listen to him, you will fall in the zero hole and you'll never come out. That will be the end of you, and the beginning of some hollow shell of a record-collector who's eyes drip blues and ooze with cancerous puss like James' mistreated manhood and your dreams will be filled with countertenor laments which make the green grass grow pale. But don't say I didn't warn you. This isn't music. This is a curse that laughs at 4/4 time and other marks of sanity. And this hole will eat your soul. And I'm giving it to you because I want you to suffer from leprosy of the ears and festering insanity of the heart and testicular cancer and open-D-Minor nightmares. HAR HAR HAR. Jerk.

The official wikistory (for those who can't handle the holes in mine):

Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James (June 9, 1902 – October 3, 1969) was an American delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter.

Biography:

Early years
James was born near Bentonia, Mississippi. His father was a converted bootlegger turned preacher. As a youth, James heard local musicians such as Henry Stuckey and brothers Charlie and Jesse Sims and began playing the organ in his teens. He worked on road construction and levee-building crews in his native Mississippi in the early 1920s, and wrote what is perhaps his earliest song, "Illinois Blues", about his experiences as a laborer. Later in the '20s he sharecropped and made bootleg whiskey in the Bentonia area. He began playing guitar in open D-minor tuning and developed a three-finger picking technique that he would use to great effect on his recordings. In addition, he began to practice piano-playing, drawing inspiration from the Mississippi blues pianist Little Brother Montgomery.

1920s and 1930s
In early 1931, James auditioned for Jackson, Mississippi record shop owner and talent scout H. C. Speir, who placed blues performers with a variety of record labels including Paramount Records. On the strength of this audition, James traveled to Grafton, Wisconsin to record for Paramount. James's 1931 work is considered idiosyncratic among pre-war blues recordings, and formed the basis of his reputation as a musician.

As is typical of his era, James recorded a variety of material — blues and spirituals, cover versions and original compositions — frequently blurring the lines between genres and sources. For example, "I'm So Glad" was derived from a 1927 song by Art Sizemore and George A. Little entitled "So Tired", which had been recorded in 1928 by both Gene Austin and Lonnie Johnson (the latter under the title "I'm So Tired of Livin' All Alone"). James changed the song's lyrics, transforming it with his virtuoso technique, moaning delivery, and keen sense of tone. Biographer Stephen Calt, echoing the opinion of several critics, considered the finished product totally original, "one of the most extraordinary examples of fingerpicking found in guitar music."

Several of the Grafton recordings, such as "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues", "Devil Got My Woman", "Jesus Is A Mighty Good Leader", and "22-20 Blues" (the basis for Robert Johnson's better-known "32-20 Blues"), have proven similarly influential. Very few original copies of James's Paramount 78s have survived.

The Great Depression struck just as James' recordings were hitting the market. Sales were poor as a result, and James gave up performing the blues to become the choir director in his father's church. James himself was later ordained as a minister in both the Baptist and Methodist denominations, but his involvement in religious activities was sketchy.

Disappearance, rediscovery, and legacy
For the next thirty years, James recorded nothing and drifted in and out of music. He was virtually unknown to listeners until about 1960. In 1964 blues enthusiasts John Fahey, Bill Barth and Henry Vestine found him in a hospital in Tunica, Mississippi. According to Calt, the "rediscovery" of both James and of Son House at virtually the same moment was the start of the "blues revival" in America. In July 1964 James, along with other rediscovered performers, appeared at the Newport Folk Festival. Several photographs by Dick Waterman captured this first performance in over 30 years. Throughout the remainder of the decade, he recorded for the Takoma, Melodeon, and Vanguard labels and played various engagements until his death in 1969.

Although James was not initially covered as frequently as other rediscovered musicians, the British rock band, Cream, recorded two versions of "I'm So Glad" (a studio version and a live version), providing James the only windfall of his career. Despite the band's well-known musicianship, Cream based their version on James's simplified 1960s recording, instead of the faster, more intricate 1931 original. Deep Purple covered "I'm So Glad" on their first album, Shades of Deep Purple. Singer Dion DiMucci released an album in November 2007 entitled Son of Skip James.

Since his death, James's music has become more available and prevalent than during his lifetime — his 1931 recordings, along with several rediscovery recordings and concerts, have found their way on to numerous compact discs, drifting in and out of print. His influence is still felt among contemporary bluesmen. James also left a mark on 21st-century Hollywood, as well, with Chris Thomas King's cover of "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" on O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and the 1931 "Devil Got My Woman" featured prominently in the plot and soundtrack of Ghost World. In recent times, British post-rock band Hope of the States released a song partially focused on the life of Skip James entitled "Nehemiah", which charted at number 30 in the UK Singles Chart. "He's a Mighty Good Leader" was also covered by Beck on his 1994 album One Foot in the Grave.

Personality
James was known to be an aloof and idiosyncratic artist. He seldom socialized with other bluesmen and fans. Like John Fahey, James loathed the so-called "folkie" scene of the 1960s. He held a high regard for his own work and was reluctant to share musical ideas with other performers. James epitomized the complicated personality typical of many bluesmen, living a hard and sometimes reckless life while holding austere religious beliefs. Though the lyrical content of some of his songs led to the characterization of James as a misogynist, he remained with his wife Lorenzo (niece of Mississippi John Hurt) until his death. He is buried with his wife at a private cemetery (Merion Memorial Park) just outside of Philadelphia in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

Musical style
James' sound was unique to the blues genre and although he influenced other blues musicians, such as Robert Johnson, few have been able to recreate his style. His high pitched voice seems otherworldly and frail, even in his early recordings. He is said to have had a 'preaching' style of singing and was known to also sing spirituals. James is regarded as a gifted and distinctive guitarist. He often used an open D-minor tuning (DADFAD) which gave his instrument a dark and desolate tone. James reportedly learned this tuning from his musical mentor, the unrecorded bluesman Henry Stuckey. Stuckey in turn was said to have acquired it from Bahamanian soldiers during the First World War. Robert Johnson also recorded in this "Bentonia" tuning (see below), his "Hell Hound On My Trail" being based on the James opus "Devil Got My Woman." James' classically-informed, finger-picking style was fast and clean, using the entire register of the guitar with heavy, hypnotic bass lines. James' style of playing had more in common with the Piedmont blues of the East Coast than with the Delta blues of his native Mississippi.

James' signature lick in open D-minor involves a fingered slide of the third string from the second to the fourth fret; a slide on the same string from the fourth back to the second fret; striking the fourth string open; then hammering the third string in the first fret. James used this simple but effective lick in many of his songs, especially "Devil Got My Woman."

"Bentonia School"
James has often been called one of the exponents of the Bentonia School of blues playing, which was later carried on by guitarist and singer Jack Owens. Calt, in his 1994 biography of James, I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues, maintains that there was indeed no style of blues that originated in Bentonia, and that this is simply a notion of later blues writers who overestimated the provinciality of Mississippi during the early 20th century, when railways linked small towns, and who failed to see that in the case of Owens, "the 'tradition' he bore primarily consisted of musical scraps from James' table." Whatever the truth is regarding the origins of James' style, or of the "Bentonia School," he certainly stands as one of the most original of all blues performers.

Biography by Cub Koda:
Among the earliest and most influential Delta bluesmen to record, Skip James was the best known proponent of the so-called Bentonia school of blues players, a genre strain invested with as much fanciful scholarly "research" as any. Coupling an oddball guitar tuning set against eerie, falsetto vocals, James's early recordings could make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Even more surprising was when blues scholars rediscovered him in the '60s and found his singing and playing skills intact. Influencing everyone from a young Robert Johnson (Skip's "Devil Got My Woman" became the basis of Johnson's "Hellhound on My Trail") to Eric Clapton (who recorded James's "I'm So Glad" on the first Cream album), Skip James's music, while from a commonly shared regional tradition, remains infused with his own unique personal spirit.

John Fahey's take:
"I didn't like him, and he didn't like me," Fahey said flatly, adding that he had footed the bill that enabled the destitute 62-year-old to check out of the hospital: "I bought Skip James for $200."

As I was to learn, this response was classic Fahey—contentious, cantankerous, and straight to the heart of the matter. No mincing of words, no romanticizing, and no apologies: The rage and tormented melancholy that made James so compelling on record wasn't so charming in person. "I expected to find something interesting and enlightening," Fahey later wrote. "But instead, all I found was this obnoxious, bitter, hateful old creep." Others would call this a harsh judgment, but most would agree that James was a major head case—just like Fahey. "They both had big egos," recalled an acquaintance of both James and Fahey. "Skippy pretty much expected hero worship, which he pretty much got from most everybody, but Fahey was a pretty arrogant person."
(excerpted from In Memoriam of Blind Thomas of Old Takoma)

Note: John Fahey devotes an entire chapter of his book How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life to the story of how he discovered Skip James. It is replete with mythological overtones and Fahey's inimitable style. I wanted to paraphrase it here, but it would be an injustice to leave out any part of the chapter. Needless to say, I highly reccommend it.

Skip James - Rare and Unreleased

Year: 2003
Label: Vanguard

Review by Richie Unterberger

All of these 19 songs, not released until 2003, come from a 1967 recording session. That might make it the last studio work Skip James did before his death in 1969, although the liner notes, frustratingly, offer virtually no specific details about the session and why it wasn't released for 35 years. This wouldn't rate among James' better recordings, as his voice, material, and instrumental skills weren't as sharp here as they were on some of his other releases (from both the 1930s and 1960s). It's OK, however, if not that exciting. James stuck to traditional songs for this set, and some listeners might be surprised or disappointed to find that much of the material is spiritual/gospel in nature. Too, he played guitar only about half the time, moving to piano for the remainder of the tracks. His trademark high, haunting voice was still intact; in fact, on songs like "Oh, Mary Don't You Weep" and "One Dime Was All I Had" it's so high as to almost sound like it's a cloud of smoke dissipating into space. That high voice is the factor that elevates this above routine traditional blues, since the songs aren't James' best and aren't all that diverse. An unidentified woman sings faint duet vocals with James on "Walking the Sea," her name being another detail that escapes the annotation on this disc.

Tracks
1 Backwater Blues - Traditional - 3:06
2 Everybody Ought to Live Right - Traditional - 3:16
3 I Want to Be More Like Jesus - Traditional - 3:52
4 Jack O'Diamonds (Is a Hard Card to Play) - Traditional - 2:44
5 My Last Boogie - Traditional - 3:42
6 Lazy Bones - Traditional - 3:09
7 Let My Jesus Lead You - Traditional - 3:01
8 My Own Blues - Traditional - 4:23
9 Oh, Mary Don't You Weep - Traditional - 1:53
10 Omaha Blues - Traditional - 2:06
11 Bumble Bee - Traditional - 4:43
12 One Dime Was All I Had - Traditional - 2:24
13 Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning - Traditional - 2:48
14 Somebody Gonna Wish They Had Religion - Traditional - 2:34
15 Somebody Loves You - Traditional - 2:46
16 Sorry for to Leave You - Traditional - 2:21
17 Sporting Life Blues - Traditional - 2:25
18 They Are Waiting for Me - Traditional - 4:49
19 Walking the Sea - Traditional - 3:43

holy hole
mp3 >256kbps vbr | w/ full scans | 110mb

Skip James - Live: Boston, 1964 & Philadelphia 1966

Year: 1994
Label: Document

Review by Tim Sheridan

These recordings, made in coffee houses during the folk boom and James' comeback after 30 years of obscurity, find him still in remarkable control of his talents. His guitar and piano playing are agile and sensitive and his high tenor still sends a shiver down the spine. The sound is very good (save for the occasional drop out), but more importantly the performances are first rate, and with a little imagination you can put yourself right there in the room with this enormous talent.

Tracks
1 Illinois Blues - James - 3:36
2 How Long Blues - Carr, Williams - 3:12
3 Drunken Spree - James - 3:31
4 4 O'Clock Blues - Durham - 3:13
5 Hard Luck Child - James - :59
6 I Don't Want a Woman to Stay Out All Night Long - James - 4:40
7 Lorenzo Blues - James - 4:26
8 Special Rider Blues - James - 2:58
9 Cherry Ball Blues - James - 4:50
10 Washington D.C. Hospital Center Blues - James - 5:34
11 Hard Luck Child [No. 2] - James - 4:45
12 Look at the People Standing at the Judgement - James - 5:06
13 Mary Don't You Weep - 2:22
14 Someday You Gotta Die - Traditional - 2:23
15 I'm So Glad - James - :36

more songs about death and sorrow.
mp3 224kbps | w/ full scans | 83mb

note: these are not his essential, well-known recordings. for those, see Muddy Sava Riverbank, Merlin in Rags, Un Disco al Día, and probably other blues blogs.

Son House - At Home: The Legendary Rochester 1969 Sessions

2009-05-30T00:25:00.005-06:00

Don't worry, blues fanatics! I have not abandoned ye in favor of banjo-plunking cornheads. I still love crazed, semi-intelligible, barely-enunciated, heart-wrenching, soul-aggrivating, gut-churning blues from repentant revenants renewing their contentious creed through full-bodied antiharmonies. I have not forgotten you, though I have detoured.

Now, about this music. I have a contention, a bias if you will. Not all of you may be familiar with Indian Classical Music but to those of you who are, I'll say this: Son House was every bit as great a singer as Pandit Pran Nath, or whomever else you'd like to pull from the roster. He could slide the pants off most Veenaists (and I like veenaists). He lacked instruction, refinement and sophistication of technique, but made up for it all in power and soul. This is a heretical claim, to be sure, but it is true nonetheless. There are not only microtones in Son's notes, there are micro-feelings in his emotional scale. Redemptive and repulsive, reverentially profane - this is a music that draws you in as it kicks you in the face, a story which touches the ancient timeless epic sagas within your own soul, and looks to the world like a filthy drunk staggering under a streetlight, blathering on about some great folly that looms forever in his path. And wake up, because as pitiful and uncomfortable as this music is, it contains a truth that most people will never even dare to think. Something very close to enlightenment, very close to death. So pay attention, but don't listen with your mind, or you'll never get it.

Notes & lies & irrelevent details:
When back in 1964 Nick Perls, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro searched the Mississippi Delta region for clues as to the whereabouts of legendary blues recording artist Son House, they first drew a blank. Finally, in Robinsonville - where Robert Johnson first played blues in a juke joint - they got a lead which eventually took them right back to New York State. In June of that year, they arrived at Son House's home in Rochester's riverfront Corn Hill neighborhood, almost a thousand miles from Mississippi! Son had lived here since 1943, soon after being recorded for the Library of Congress by Alan Lomax. Son had not performed blues for many years and was completely unaware of the international enthusiasm for the 10 sides he recorded for Paramount in 1930 and those he later made for Lomax. Although a little rusty at first, after practicing for some weeks he gradually relearnt his old guitar skills and his voice strengthened to the point where he was able to play concerts again. "When he played, his eyes rolled back in his head and he went somewhere else. Whether it was Robinsonville in the '30's or wherever, he transported himself back without any trickery and became the essence of Delta. He would then finish the song, blink his eyes, and then reaccustom himself to where he was at the time." - Dick Waterman, remembering Son House. By the time John Hammond of Columbia Records decided to record him in April 1965, he was singing and playing with such power and conviction that the years seemed to have rolled away, with some of performances rivalling those for the Library of National Congress twenty years before. The informal recordings of Son and his wife (who plays tambourine and gives a spoken message) on this CD were made by Steve Lobb at their Rochester home, just prior to Son's second European tour. They remind us of the remarkable return to music of one of the very greatest of all the many Mississippi blues singers.

Son House - At Home: The Legendary Rochester 1969 Sessions

Year: 1992
Label: Document

Review by Bruce Eder

Recorded at his home in September of 1969 by blues enthusiast Steve Lobb, Son House turns in one of the most vital and compelling performances available from his late career comeback. While the 1965 Columbia Records sessions require explanations about his age and extended retirement, there is no excuse necessary for the contents of this CD. Opening with the 20-minute long "Son's Blues," he radiates explosive power, his voice surging and his guitar strings snapping against the fretboard in a slow, fiery performance. The tension and sustained strength of this one piece makes this CD far more valuable as a specimen of Son's best work than any of the CBS material -- this is the perfect companion to his inimitable Alan Lomax and Paramount recordings of the 1930s and early 1940s. Nothing else here quite matches the opening track, although Son still seems in far better form than he did on some of his better-known comeback recordings.

Tracks:
01 - Son's blues
02 - Yonder comes my mother
03 - Shetland pony blues
04 - I'm so sorry, baby
05 - Plantation song
06 - Mister Suzie-Q
07 - Evening train
08 - Sundown
09 - Preachin' the blues
10 - Empire State express
11 - Never mind people grinnin' in your face
12 - Sun goin' down
13 - A spoken message

the dark at the end of the tunnel.
mp3 160kbps | w/ cover | 90mb

and thank Al 'Blind Owl' Wilson of Canned Heat fame for re-teaching Son House to play like Son House, and for taking Fahey's Veena and learning to play it.

Fred Geiger - Fred Geiger

2009-05-28T20:16:00.003-06:00

Yet another mysterious progressive banjo album from the 70's! I don't know much more about Fred Geiger than I did about D.W. Griffiths or Larry McNeeley. But he sounds something like the two of them, and this is a very worthwhile album. I do know that he's been a regular contributor to Banjo Newsletter for some time, so a great many banjoists have probably learned from him indirectly. There's some great exploratory bluegrass on here, and some fine grassy jazz too. Though Don Parmley's break on The Sheik of Araby owes considerable debt to Clarence White (who among us doesn't?...), Geiger's work on it is a crystalline dance of originality, and it's an outstanding version of the tune.

Hope you're enjoying these interludes of banjoey brilliance. There's more to come!

Fred Geiger - Fred Geiger

Year: 1978
Label: Ridge Runner 0014

Tracks:
01 - Liza
02 - I've found a new Baby
03 - Ain't Misbehavin
04 - Sheik of Araby
05 - Lulaby of Birdland
06 - First Day in Town
07 - Sundance

08 - Nice Work If You Can Get It
09 - Take the 'A' Train
10 - Ambogeneity
11 - Muskrat Ramble
12 - Back Home in Indiana
13 - Send in the Clowns

Fred Geiger, Banjo
Akira Otsuka, Mandolin
Bob Williams, Guitar
Tom Gray, Bass
David Parmley, Rhythm Guitar and lead guitar on first break of Sheik of Araby
Warren Blair, Fiddle

ambogeneity?
from vinyl | mp3 320kbps | w/ cover | 95mb
* out of print

oh, and for those of you who had trouble extracting a track of the hawaiian post, it's re-uploaded.

Vintage Hawaiian Treasures, Vol. 7: The History Of Slack Key Guitar

2009-05-25T22:53:00.007-06:00

It's past time I posted some Hawaiian music. I love this stuff, though I know very little about it so I'll leave the writing to the better-informed. I'll just add a note about its particular magic. It would be impossible for this music to have been born on the continent. The landscape of Hawaii permeates the moods and rhythms, the tones and wails. If you listen, you can hear waves carressing the sand, palms dancing to the breeze and the curves of semi-clad women making loops around the conversation. The music lopes and turns in upon itself, only to give way under its own lofty billowing gait. It takes your tensions and rings them out like plantains through a pestle. Unbutton your mind and float upon the salty drones.

Reviews from Amazon.com:

I love this album! Here we have all 20 of the first commercial recordings of ki ho'alu (slack key) guitar, pressed between 1946 and 1950 by small local Hawaiian labels-- Bell Records of Hawai'i, 49th State Hawai'i, and Aloha Records. Especially noteworthy is the 78 rpm record that started it all back in 1946 -- Gabby Pahinui's HI'ILAWE. Ray Kane, the late Sonny Chillingworth and many of the other older slack key masters point to this Bell Records release as the one that
got them interested in seriously pursuing the ki ho'alu style. In fact, the C Wahine tuning that Gabby used for this piece has since become known in the slack key world as "Gabby's C" or "HI'ILAWE" tuning. Prior to HI'ILAWE's release, ki ho'alu was considered "home" music. You heard it at family gatherings and neighborhood parties, but hardly ever in context of Hawaiian pop. Professional Hawaiian musicians, who played for the tourists at hotels and night clubs and
recorded commercially, stuck to the more recognizable (and, therefore, marketable) sound of the steel guitar, ukulele and the standard-tuned, strummed guitar. Gabby's HI'ILAWE was a revelation to the young Hawaiian guitarists of the day; not only did it legitimate ki ho'alu but it also served as a model for the creative revitalization of this important element of Hawai'i's musical heritage.

The legendary HI'ILAWE aside, each cut on this album is a rare treasure-- from Gabby's 1947 HULA MEDLEY, the first commercial recording of a slack key guitar solo instrumental, to PUNALU'U, which features the lovely traditional singing of Mama Tina Kaapana, the mother of today's current slack-key great, Ledward Kaapana. Unfortunately, most of these 78's were originally recorded in small, poorly equipped studios and some of the master discs used here have suffered from the wear 'n' tear of age. Still, you can hear and appreciate the incredible care and skill that went into the near- impossible task of restoring and remastering these precious time capsules.

It's great that this album was the product of the combined efforts and resources of the leading labels documenting traditional Hawai'ian music: Michael Cord's Hana Ola Records and George Winston's Dancing Cat Records. Mahalo to Jay Junker, Harry B. Soria and George Winston
for the very informative liner notes, complete with the slack key tunings for each cut.

THE HISTORY OF SLACK KEY GUITAR is a keeper and "must-have" for every fan of ki ho'alu and Hawaiiana. Better yet, it belongs in the music library of all those who love finger-style acoustic guitar... regardless of musical persuasion.
- Schlomo Pestcoe

This is roots music. Granted, the guitar is not native to Hawaii, and so the slack key genre had non-native influences at its very beginning (Mexican cowboys from the 1830's, to be exact.) But the guitar is also not native to, say, the Mississippi Delta, and I think few would say that the rich treasure trove of guitar music that came out of that region was not genuinely reflective of the culture that spawned it. This record, containing pieces recorded mostly in the 1940's and 1950's, showcases the Mississippi John Hurts, Blind Blakes and Robert Johnsons of the slack key tradition. These were the first artists of the genre to be recorded (this record contains the first ever recorded slack key piece, recorded by the legendary Gabbie Pahinui), and the ones who later became the idols of a new generation of Hawaiians in the 1960's and 1970's wanting to discover their musical roots. Pahinui, Henry Kaalekaahi, Tina Kaapana, Tommy Blaisdell and many others, some of whom later recorded prolifically, but most of whom did not, are featured here.

Every tune on this record is a complete gem. If you have never heard slack key guitar, imagine stumbling for the first time on a compilation of Hurt, Blake, Johnson, and perhaps Lightnin' Hopkins, Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Willie McTell and others of that genre, and you may get the idea. The playing, all finger-picked on unique (slack key) open tunings whose mysterious fingerings and overtone qualities are still the closely-guarded secrets of the family musical dynasties that developed them, is every bit as virtuosic and thrilling as that of the Delta and country blues masters of the American South. And every bit as evocative of the culture it grew out of. It somehow embodies the slow rhythms of the ocean waves and a slower, more open and generous culture than the one in which we now find ourselves.

A must have for anyone who treasures pure,uncommercialized roots music that still allows us a glimpse of a vanishing culture.
- David K. Bell

Vintage Hawaiian Treasures, Vol. 7: The History Of Slack Key Guitar

Year: 1995 (comp)
Label: Hoc

Tracks:
1. Hi' ilawe - Philip Gabby Pahinui - 3:14
2. Hula Medley - Philip Gabby Pahinui - 2:56
3. Wai O Ke Aniani - Philip Gabby Pahinui - 3:11
4. Ki Ho' alu - Philip Gabby Pahinui - 2:53
5. Slack Key Hula - George Keoki Davis - 2:46
6. Wahine Slack Key - George Keoki Davis - 2:40
7. The Kanaka Hula - George Keoki Davis - 2:53
8. Holau Medley - Henry Kaalekaahi - 2:20
9. The Strolling Troubadour - Henry Kaalekaahi - 3:03
10. Ho' okipa Paka / Maunawili Medley - Henry Kaalekaahi - 2:55
11. Hawaiian Melody - Abraham Kalauli Konanui - 2:40
12. Maui Serenade - Abraham Kalauli Konanui - 2:56
13. Punalu'u - Mama Tina Kaapana - 2:53
14. Music for Dreaming - William Namahoe - 2:59
15. Midnight Hawaiian Serenade - Tommy Solomon - 2:23
16. Old Timer's Hula - Tommy Solomon - 2:18
17. Hula Medley - Mike Ho' omanawanui - 2:56
18. Mokihana Slack Key - Tommy Blaisdell - 2:31
19. The Rocking Chair Hula - Tommy Blaisdell - 2:24
20. Hi'ilawe - Philip Gabby Pahinui - 2:45

increase your slack! [new link 5-28-09]
mp3 128kbps | w/ full scans | 78mb