Contemporary Rootsy Americana-y Type Stuff

[A Lark Ascending]

Me myself, being an American with a semi-rural background and all that, I'm of very mixed emotions about the whole "Americana" etc movement...

Me too! I like the music...I'm not remotely interested in any 'gittin' back to what's true' spirituality or whatever. Strikes me as packaging.

We get similar things in British folk music - endless wrangles over what is and is not authentic.

The music of the Carolina Chocolate Drops or Otis Taylor or Corey Harris just sounds good to these ears (as does Robert Johnson, the Louvain Brothers or Skip James). The 'heritage industry' aspects pass me by.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Bev Stapleton

[JSngry]

But what the source obsessed forget is how people like to hear music played by living musicians in their own time.

Now this makes sense to me, at least in theory....but the clip that seeline posted of the mall band reminded me of a Disney anamatronic diorama (or whatever it is they call those things, the one about the history of electricity sponsored by GE where the family goes through all the stages of electric evolution), and having had the Disney experience more than once (being a good middle-class American with kids who lived in Central Florida for a while...), that's not necessarily a, uh....ringing endorsement , although, Disney is not without its charms the first time, so...I can see it both ways, truthfully, and since I don't have nearly the personal investment in this type thing as I do other musics...I don't really care in any but a broad sense.

Then again, I am not at all unsympathetic to why a group of contemporary African-Americans would be intrigued by the notion of exploring the sense of "otherness" that is still at the root of the so much of the "African-American experience"...no doubt there are emotions stirred that may or may not be "vocies from the past", but either way, there would be, I should think, a fertile mental/spiritual field to be plowed there. How this may or may not differ from what thier Anglo-American counterparts are doing at any given time is probably up to any given individual at any given moment.

[seeline]

The Ebony Hillbillies were busking in the NYC subway in that clip.

I think they play old-time music because they enjoy it - just like other people who play in that style (or any other you could name).

Agreed on the whole "back to the roots"/recapturing the past thing as well. I don't understand the whole "living history" movement all that well (Civil War re-enactors, the works), but that's fairly tangential to this thread. (Although there certainly are musicians involved in both, just as there are lots of musicians who dress up in costumes and play the whole Renaissance Faire circuit, or who are regulars on the Society for Creative Anachronism's festival/"war" equivalent of same.)

Edited March 29, 2010 by seeline

[seeline]

Re. "otherness," that's not what it is... at least, the people who are playing the music say it's about reclaiming certain kinds of music, and certain instruments for themselves, now.

Lotsa history behind black Americans playing dance music on fiddle; banjo coming from a variety of W. African plucked-string instruments (including a wide variety of spiked lutes); even W. African fiddles, though those are very limited (musically) compared to violin and viola.

Dena J. Epstein's book Sinful Tunes and Spirituals is a great place to start re. accounts of antebellum African American music of various kinds. And there are a number of good recordings of - and books on - the subject of black American banjo, fiddle, etc. players, music - the works.

Edited March 29, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Me myself, being an American with a semi-rural background and all that, I'm of very mixed emotions about the whole "Americana" etc movement...

Me too! I like the music...I'm not remotely interested in any 'gittin' back to what's true' spirituality or whatever. Strikes me as packaging.

We get similar things in British folk music - endless wrangles over what is and is not authentic.

There's no doubt many parallels that neither one of us can really realize exist, due to having lived different lives in different cultures (and that's nothing but a fond-ish statement of the whole vive-le-difference thing!), but here in America, it's kinda hard to separate "the culture" from "the music" sometimes. Same was true in the early days of hip-hop, punk, anything "new" that "goes against the grain" in a not-just-commercial sense...and a lot of the "Americana culture" that I see is either based in a desire to retreat from the inevitable globalization of the 21st Century, or else it's a place of retreat to "stay true to one's roots" at the end of a hard day of being globalized...and to be hinest, I really don't know which is the prevalent impetus, or if there even is one. either way, me myself, I think it's kind of fallacious to think that you can remain "the same" in the face of inevitable change. OTOH, there is certainly comfort to be had in connection, and comfort at the primal level is not to be trifled with, so...I don't know. These are very much divided times in America, what with about half the country resolutely wanting to move ahead to a new way, and about half wanting anything but that, so...surely you can see the possibility for ambiguity here?

Yeah, i know, at the end of the day, it's all about the music, just the music, but I guess I'm one of those type whose wiring maybe never really sees the end of one day without wondering what the next one will bring.

[A Lark Ascending]

It's part of the dynamic of culture to forge forward...and then to move backward to somewhere familiar before moving on again. You could dismiss the whole neo-classical movement in classical music in the 1920s and 30s as 'Disnified' Bach or Pergolesi. Yet it produced enduring music that takes their music to another place (without being 'better').

If anything is 'Disnifying' its this projection onto the music of the past of an image of authenticity. I don't see it as 'authentic' but as part of an ever-evolving continuum. As things move on things change, which is what makes going back so pleasurable...whatever has grown from the past is still different from the past.

It's fashionable to knock Eric Clapton's take on Robert Johnson. But I greatly enjoy many of his interpretations - they don't sound like Johnson, nor do they replace him. And if you can rid yourself of the excessive myth-making projected onto Johnson, well, you can enjoy both for the different but connected things they are.

But some people need their Ur-texts...

[JSngry]

The Ebony Hillbillies were busking in the NYC subway in that clip.

subway, mall, same thing, only different

I think they play old-time music because they enjoy it - just like other people who play in that style (or any other you could name).

Agreed on the whole "back to the roots"/recapturing the past thing as well. I don't understand the whole "living history" movement all that well (Civil War re-enactors, the words), but that's fairly tangential to this thread. (Although there certainly are musicians involved in both, just as there are lots of musicians who dress up in costumes and play the whole Renaissance Faire circuit, or who are regulars on the Society for Creative Anachronism's festival/"war" equivalent of same.)

those things -all of them -just plain ol' creep me out!

Re. "otherness," that's not what it is... at least, the people who are playing the music say it's about reclaiming certain kinds of music, and certain instruments for themselves, now.

well, that disappoints me...I mean, how do you not be in that place, looking like that, playing like that, and not ponder? For that matter, how do you do anything "different" in America and not ponder, unless you're some kind of savant or something who just does it, period...

Lotsa history behind black Americans playing dance music on fiddle; banjo coming from a variety of W. African plucked-string instruments (including a wide variety of spiked lutes); even W. African fiddles, though those are very limited (musically) compared to violin and viola.

Dena J. Epstein's book Sinful Tunes and Spirituals is a great place to start re. accounts of antebellum African American music of various kinds. And there are a number of good recordings of - and books on - the subject of black American banjo, fiddle, etc. players, music - the works.

Oh, I bought some of these recordings back in the 70s...and my in-laws used to live just down the road from the Booker T. Washington National Monument/Homestead...the gift shop there was full of such recordings..have to say that nothing I've heard there really grabs me, but that's just me. My bigger question is - ok, so you "reclaim". Then what? That's what bugs me about so much of America these days - seems like there's so much DO THIS and so little "then what?"

Then again, whatcha' gonna do about that, eh?

[A Lark Ascending]

...and a lot of the "Americana culture" that I see is either based in a desire to retreat from the inevitable globalization of the 21st Century, or else it's a place of retreat to "stay true to one's roots" at the end of a hard day of being globalized...

I think that's true...alongside the whole downsizing, small is beautiful agenda.

Go to any UK folk festival and you'll find people dressing, easting, drinking in 'authentic' style, as an escape from reality.

But that overlooks something else - that the sound of mandolins, banjos (or rock'n roll reverb electric guitar) might just sound appealing in a world of drum machines and synth washes. Authenticity be damned...it just has a good sound.

Make no mistake: the industry behind these newer bands is packaging them as something 'real', 'close-to-nature', 'rooted'. But does that mean that there is little of substance beneath the packaging?

'Music from Big Pink' and the career of 'The Band' that followed was packaged as a return to truth after the excesses of psychedelia. Is that all there was (to misquote Peggy Lee!)? Well, I'm still listening to their records 40 years on, and not just because it takes me back to a warm, fuzzy time.

[seeline]

I think the "Then what?" might be found in the music that many people are playing, now. And you can't get that from a single 2-minute clip.

I agree with you completely on the "creeps me out" bit about re-enactment, etc.

fwiw, the Carolina Chocolate Drops' name comes from the Tennessee Chocolate Drops... a black string band. One of the Armstrong brothers (whose band it was, along with Carl Martin) is Howard, aka Louie Bluie. There's a movie about him, and a soundtrack on Arhoolie, etc. - none of that was available in the 70s, and neither were some of the more recent comps I was referring to. You had to own the actual 78s to get the music (in many cases) until quite recently. Check the Smithsonian Folkways black banjo comp. for some of that (rare) music.

The Document series on black string bands has some very hard-to-find material as well, and it goes far beyond Appalachia and Memphis... (As a former resident of the Piedmont region, I guess I'm a little bit defensive when it comes to Piedmont blues and other musical forms from the area - because so many blues fans discount it, for one, also because I got to hear some of the older performers live.)

Edited to add: what you knew in the 70s is real news to a lot of people who are a bit younger than you.

* There's a newer doc on Howard Armstrong, titled "Sweet Old Song": http://www.leahmahan.com/films/sweet-old-song (Not sure if there's a soundtrack for it, though...)

Edited March 29, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

It's part of the dynamic of culture to forge forward...and then to move backward to somewhere familiar before moving on again. You could dismiss the whole neo-classical movement in classical music in the 1920s and 30s as 'Disnified' Bach or Pergolesi. Yet it produced enduring music that takes their music to another place (without being 'better').

If anything is 'Disnifying' its this projection onto the music of the past of an image of authenticity. I don't see it as 'authentic' but as part of an ever-evolving continuum. As things move on things change, which is what makes going back so pleasurable...whatever has grown from the past is still different from the past.

It's fashionable to knock Eric Clapton's take on Robert Johnson. But I greatly enjoy many of his interpretations - they don't sound like Johnson, nor do they replace him. And if you can rid yourself of the excessive myth-making projected onto Johnson, well, you can enjoy both for the different but connected things they are.

Fair enough, I respect that, even if, as somebody for whom both neo-classical and most of post-Cream Eric Clapton provide little of anything pleasurable, I have a fundamentally different viewpoint myself. It does take all types, we are all pieces of the puzzle, none of us is the puzzle. Passion for one's beliefs w/o respect for others' equally passionate beliefs is just as futile as is no passion at all. We all like what we like, but by god, like it!

When it comes to things like this, I like it when people are above all else true to what is inside of themselves, defend it passionately, and expect there to be equally passionate disagreement. After all friction not only holds the potential to destroy, it is what holds ultimately us together!

[seeline]

a bit on Howard Armstrong (his NYT obit) - Pareles' opening sentence is incorrect, insofar as identifying Howard A. as "the last guardian," because there are other people out there. (Though fewer in number every day... like WWII vets.)

Howard Armstrong, 94, String-Band Fiddler and Mandolinist

By JON PARELES

Published: August 2, 2003

Howard Armstrong, the last guardian of a vanishing African-American tradition of string-band music, died on Wednesday in Boston, where he lived. He was 94.

Mr. Armstrong played 22 instruments although he was best known as a fiddle and mandolin player. He performed with a virtuoso's panache, pleasing audiences with fast fingers and a droll stage presence. His repertory included blues, standards, country tunes, rags, work songs, jigs, reels, polkas, spirituals, Hawaiian songs and international songs in the seven languages he spoke. His gifts as a musician and raconteur were captured in a 1985 documentary by Terry Zwigoff called ''Louie Bluie,'' a nickname that Mr. Armstrong got from a drunken fan in the 1930's. A documentary by Leah Mahan, ''Sweet Old Song,'' was broadcast last year on PBS, and will be shown again on Aug. 12.

William Howard Taft Armstrong was born in 1909 in Dayton, Tenn., and grew up in LaFollette, Tenn. He was one of nine children whose father, Thomas Armstrong, was a factory worker and a musician who led the elder children in a family band. When Thomas Armstrong became a preacher, he renounced music and gave his mandolin to Howard, warning that it was a ''devil's instrument.'' Howard had already made his own fiddle out of a box strung with horsehair. Later he organized his younger brothers into the Armstrong Brothers Band.

As a teenager, Mr. Armstrong joined the band led by a blind fiddler in Knoxville, Roland Martin, soaking up his style. He learned to read music, a skill that he called ''knocking blackbirds off the fence.'' He also studied art at Tennessee State Normal School in Nashville, later supported himself at times as a sign painter and a mural painter. He also made autobiographical paintings throughout his life.

African-American string bands were widespread across the South in the 19th and early 20th centuries, performing at parties, medicine shows, saloons and fish fries. Tunes and techniques moved freely between white and black string bands.

Mr. Armstrong joined Roland Martin's stepbrother, the guitarist Carl Martin, and a mandolinist, Ted Bogan, and began performing around the South, sometimes with Roland Armstrong, Howard's brother, on bass. After performing on the radio in Knoxville, Mr. Armstrong's group made its first recordings there in 1930 as the Tennessee Chocolate Drops but worked under various names, including the Four Aces. Their recordings are among the few African-American string band sides recorded by companies that classed ''hillbilly'' music as white, and favored blues, jazz and gospel ''race records'' for African-Americans.

Martin, Bogan and Mr. Armstrong spent the Great Depression years working their way through southern Appalachia and the Midwest. They wound up in Chicago, playing on street corners until Mr. Armstrong had the idea of what he called ''pulling doors'': boldly stepping into saloons in immigrant neighborhoods and winning over Poles or Irishmen or Italians or Germans with old songs in their own languages, many of which Mr. Armstrong had learned from neighbors as a child. They also appeared at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair and recorded with the blues singers Big Bill Broonzy and Bumble Bee Slim.

During World War II Mr. Armstrong worked for the civil service as a sign painter and was working at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked in 1941.

His music went out of style after the war, and from 1944 to 1971 he worked on the Chrysler assembly line in Detroit. But in the 1970's that music was rediscovered, his music career revived and he reunited with Martin and Bogan. They played a weekly club date at the Earl of Old Town bar in Chicago, made albums, including ''Barnyard Dance'' (Rounder) in 1972 and ''That Old Gang of Mine'' (Flying Fish) in 1978, and appeared on Steve Goodman's 1975 album ''Jessie's Jig and Other Favorites'' (Red Pajamas).

They also began touring, playing at coffeehouses, folk festivals and on a State Department tour of Central and South America. In 1990 Mr. Armstrong received a National Heritage Fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mr. Armstrong released a solo album, ''Louie Bluie'' (Blue Suit), in 1995, and it won a W. C. Handy award from the Blues Foundation. He continued to perform and record until early this year.

During the 1980's he met Barbara Ward, and the couple moved to her hometown, Boston, in 1996. She became the manager and drummer for his band, and they were married in 2001. They collaborated on projects, including an illustrated children's book. She survives him along with his sons, Ralphe, Will and Robert Armstrong; 13 grandchildren; and 2 great-grandchildren.

Edited March 29, 2010 by seeline

[seeline]

When it comes to things like this, I like it when people are above all else true to what is inside of themselves, defend it passionately, and expect there to be equally passionate disagreement. After all friction not only holds the potential to destroy, it is what holds ultimately us together!

Not sure if that's true on the molecular level, but hey - I get your drift and agree.

[JSngry]

Edited to add: what you knew in the 70s is real news to a lot of people who are a bit younger than you.

Hell, there's days when it's new to me too ...sometimes I have to be reminded, and this thread is such an example. But people "of my age" who wanted to... stuff was out there, not as comprehensive &codified as it is now, but if you wanted to "explore" and you had access to a good record store (or if you knew where the "neighborhood" stores were..) there was exploration to be had. The whole "black string band" thing was something i was curious about, so I found a few LPs at Peaches (don't ask if you don't already know, because it's long over with, that whole thing), and it looked like something to check out, which it was, and so I did. But it never really took with me, just as "mountain music" didn't, at least until I met my wife's parents (she's from Boomer, WV, they were from WV & just across the river in Kentucky, and were both "rural" w/o being RURAL) and got to know the area and its people a little better. But even now, it's something I can only "feel" so much..but tell you what - one time my mother-in-law was reminiscing about her childhood (she does that a lot...), and she did an imitation of a tent evangelist she heard as a kid, and, unlike almost all of her other stories which she pretty much repeats by rote, this time she got into the moment and really captured a cadence and inflection in her speech that totally transported me out of where we were for the few seconds that she did it... so, yeah, if it connects, it connects, and if it only sometimes connects, that's real too, and if it never connects, well...that's real too.

Connections or the lack thereof, that's just reality. It's all the attempts to manipulate, commercially and otherwise, them that raise my suspicion...misplaced trust, abused trust, false confidences...old as time itself, but...all the more reason to still be wary, eh?

[seeline]

Peaches: I remember it well! (and miss it, and other stores, large and small.)

I grew up in - and now live in - rural PA, where there are lots of "mountain music" bands playing bluegrass (mostly, along with some old-time stuff) and I don't get the popularity/"lifestyle" aspect of any of that, or even why local people seem to identify so strongly with a lot of music that comes from pretty far south of the Mason-Dixon line. (We didn't have any record stores; you had to travel to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or NYC to buy anything but Top 40 and country.)

OTOH, there *are* active KKK chapters (both public and not-so-public) in PA, and this area is (from what I'm told) no exception.

People here are either Scotch-Irish or German, mostly, although there are some Russians and Chinese and even - of all things! - a Vietnamese Buddhist monastery within 15 minutes' drive of where I live.

The Scotch Irish have a claim on old time, bluegrass and country, but nobody sings in German except for the Amish - kinda weird, given the fact that PA German dialect was (once) spoken alongside English by people of my grandparents' and great-grandparents' generation.

But hey, I've seen lots of Connecticut farm boys wearing cowboy duds and genuine 10-gallon Stetsons at county fairs, so there you go - America, they name is contradiction, maybe?

Edited March 29, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

If by "contradiction" you me a devilishly intoxicating blend of ego, self-loathing, imagination, wishful thinking, and outright denial, then yeah. Pretty much!

[seeline]

but there's good stuff, too, that I think you left out... [smile]

...and she did an imitation of a tent evangelist she heard as a kid, and, unlike almost all of her other stories which she pretty much repeats by rote, this time she got into the moment and really captured a cadence and inflection in her speech that totally transported me out of where we were for the few seconds that she did it... so, yeah, if it connects, it connects, and if it only sometimes connects, that's real too, and if it never connects, well...that's real too.

I've heard some music that hit me that way, both live and on records. (And a couple of people speaking, too, though they were just talking about their lives...)

I'm not really a fan of old-time string band music, but I like some of it. And i do think it's moving forward; or rather, that some performers are genuinely doing new things with the music. And I like that, whether I enjoy their style or not.

For me, the Chocolate Drops are just fun, and Dom Flemons' work on rhythm bones has inspired me to learn to play them myself. I guess that could be part of the "moving forward," although i don't intend to use them in old-time music settings.

Edited March 29, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

oh yeah, re:PA KKK - played a gig in Uniontown w/a "mixed" band in 1981...this was in the days of hotel show bands...the gig was supposed to be for two weeks, but we were lucky to finish one...rumors & not-so-rumors were rampant that the Klan was about to "show up" if we weren't replaced ASAP...had the same experience w/the same band in Coer d'Alene, Idaho a few months later...not realizing that the whole Aryan Nation thing had just taken root there...it was still kinda "not known" then...but also in Coer d'Alene, got to hear a few minutes of a country band with an African-American steel player whose sound was one of the most haunting..."lonely" sounds I've ever heard (and was before we came into view of the actual band, when we saw him, we were all like, DAMN, no WONDER!)

I think I've told this story before, sorry if I had

[seeline]

oh, I believe you about Uniontown... I have no trouble picturing the KKK being there, or the rumors - none of it.

Steel guitar: I love it, though I'm a convert mainly because of the series of recordings Arhoolie put out in the 90s - I forget the name of the black Pentecostal church that all the players come from, but they rock! The Campbell Brothers (along with singer Katie Jackson, who's from Baltimore) are my faves. The C. Bros. are Floridians. Teaming them up with Katie was an inspired idea.

Actually, those Arhoolie discs are a very good addition to this thread...

Campbell Bros.' site is here: http://www.campbellbrothers.com/sacredsteel.html

Edited March 29, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

You mean Sacred Steel?

[seeline]

Yes I do!

here's a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFwYueewzZI

I really, really wanted to visit Katie Campbell's church, but never did get around to it... (when i was living in D.C.).

Their denomination is House of God - Keith Dominion, but House of God - Jewel Dominion also uses pedal and lap steel in their services.

Edited March 29, 2010 by seeline

[Big Beat Steve]

I haven't read every word of the last two pages of this to-and-fro debate but from the gist of it the way I understood it I find it a real pity Bev's idea of naming a few "suggested listening" ideas of this kind of "rootsy" music has degenerated into such a debate of whether this is any legitimate form of music anyway, whether it is OK to openly refer to stylistic inspirations of an era far in the past or whether this is just "reenactment" or whatever ...

IMHO this really misses the point.

Look at it this way for a moment, if you care to:

Evidently there are not only collectors with tastes firmly rooted in, say, the 20s, 30, 40s and/or 50s (I am one of them too, I guess) but there are also musicians who take their main inspiration from the music of that era and do not feel any need to refer to more recent musical sources.

Quite a healthy attitude IMO, because what's the point of feeling obliged to prove that you've listened to your Eric Clapton or Rory Gallagher (in the name of "musical progress" or "progressivity") when in fact your most "recent" guitar hero would be, say, James Burton or Chet Atkins?

Who says stylistic "evolution" in music has to proceed in a straight line only?

What about exploring byways, sideways, tangential evolutions or even branching off in a direction that staylistically (by common "rock" yardsticks) would lead backwards but in fact just explores areas that had hardly been touched in the past?

So what's wrong with musicians asking musical questions of "What would have been if ...?" What would have been if black and white musical genres of those times had been combined to a greater extent than has been preserved on record? What if Django Reinhardt would have been a country hick in the sticks (and would NOT have ended up playing Western Swing in the stricter sense of the word)? What if bluegrass had adopted jazzier overtones? What if hit tunes of today had actually been recorded 50 or 60 years ago? What if down-home blues would still be played actively TODAY? How far would today's influences have touched down-home blues at all? Etc. etc.

And - ABOVE ALL - what is wrong with fans of the music of the 20s to the 50s appreciating being able to listen to LIVE music that evokes that era yet is NOT a carbon copy (i.e. not one of those party "cover bands") but presents music firmly rooted in, say, the 30, 40s or 50s yet adds a decidedly different and new twist to it? A new twist that fits in with the music of those times? And all this just in the name of musical enjoyment and without any obligation to resorting to a scientific dissection of the musical ingredients?

Is it that hard to imagine that the musicians who play this kind of music do so because they are aware of a HUGE amount of the music of the past but are also aware of the extent to which a LOT of the music recorded back then just never went "all out" in all that cross-fertilization that COULD have happend but did not so the music remained in separate stylistic ruts? Maybe so because the recorded music of those times was dictated too heavily by commercially-minded A&R men or just by the (less adventurous) "majority middle-of-the-road tastes of the times"?

No doubt Allen Lowe could rattle off an arm's length of musical examples of such cross-fertilization across stylistic boundaries normally perceived to be rather rigid that occurred even many decades ago. Yet these often were only isolated cases and only hinted at what "could have been".

Now the musicians who today play this music that clearly refers back to eras long gone by are no longer bound by these boundaries and A&R considerations so often they come up with new combinations and crossbreeding which really presents the music with a new twist. In short, they "do now" what "could have been done" then but in most cases wasn't.

Listening to bands of this sort and being aware of the "originals" of way back I every now and then find myself wondering "If only they had recorded that tune THAT way back then instead of stopping halfway as if impeded by some fear they might alienate their middle-of-the-road public"...

Sure this is not the ultimate in breaking new musical grounds (but which music REALLY is?) but I really cannot see why this has to be put down as "reenactment" or "copycat"-ism. "Musical" music (i.e. I am not talking about radical "free" noises) usually DOES refer to previous styles, and if you cannot accept those references being made you'd probably have to throw most "post-bop" out the window too because its links to "hard bop" of 50s years ago often are pretty obvious.

So while I cannot comment on those Carolina Chocolate Drops (they do sound interesting, though), I'll throw another name into the ring:

HOT CLUB OF COWTOWN

And I will have to explore more of the SWEET HOLLYWAIIANS recommended by Durium here some time ago.

Just my 2c

Edited March 29, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[seeline]

Yes, I'm sorry that the thread took the turn it did, but we can always try to get it back on track.

Good suggestions, too!

*

Don Vappie and Cassie Taylor (Otis Taylor's daughter) performing "Les Ognons," from Recapturing the Banjo -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VesbqfoD-Q4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VesbqfoD-Q4&feature=PlayList&p=5363C6DFA4E46261&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=14

This is "old" music, not new... though I'm not sure how many people know about it.

Canray Fontenot, fiddle; Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin, button accordion:

just in case the player doesn't show:

Edited March 29, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

well, you can play "what would have happened then if", or you can play "what would happen now if"

depends on what you want to play, eh?

[seeline]

Jeffrey Broussard & the Creole Cowboys - "Motor Dude Special" -

(In case the embed doesn't work:

)

[kenny weir]

This request from my original post seems to have been missed: "Please resist the temptation to explain how you only listen to this sort of music from West Tennessee before 1952...lots of other threads for that".

Ha ha - good try, Bev. But you the know the same drill we all do - start a thread and the, immediately and forever, give up any hope of influencing the content or tone that develops!

But what the source obsessed forget is how people like to hear music played by living musicians in their own time.

Which doesn't mean anyone needs to enjoy both

Agreed!

Consider the source? In many ways I'm with Allen in all of this - and I do find it interesting to discuss.

Seeline, Bev, I've know you both long enough to know you happily do both.

However ...

I'm pretty much over having friends, colleagues, acquaintances forcefully thrusting new releases in my face, demanding that I listen, that this CD is simply amazing, that I'm sure to love it. Any ambivalance on my part is often met with accusations of snobbery that can be quite angry and even hostile. Yet when I gently - I try, really I do! - point out that this tune is a cover version, that band is using this sound as its foundation, this album uses this vintage artist's catalogue ... the response is often equally hostile. Like I'm a party pooper or something ... I guess this maybe has something to with succeeding generations needing to feel they're re-inventing the wheel or something. But I can't help feel that this denial of the past is frequently not as passive as is being suggested here. It often seems wilful and deliberate.

Finally, IMHO, listeners of contemporary music of all sorts can only have their listening enhanced by familiarity with the sources.

Edited March 30, 2010 by kenny weir