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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Atomic Café




The Atomic Café is an acclaimed documentary film about the beginnings of the era of nuclear warfare, created from a broad range of archival of film from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s - including newsreel clips, television news footage, U.S. government-produced films (including military training films), advertisements, television and radio programs. News footage reflected the prevailing understandings of the media and public.

The film was produced over a five-year period through the collaborative efforts of three directors: Jayne Loader, and brothers Kevin and Pierce Rafferty. For this film, the Rafferty brothers and Loader formed the production company "Archives Project Inc." The filmmakers opted to not use narration and instead they deploy carefully constructed sequences of film clips to make their points. The soundtrack utilizes atomic-themed songs from the Cold War-era to underscore the themes of the film.


Though the topic of atomic holocaust is a grave matter, the film approaches it with black humor. Much of the humor derives from the modern audience's reaction to the old training films, such as the Duck and Cover film shown in schools.


The film was released in April 1982. Its release coincided with a peak in the international disarmament movement, and the film received much wider distribution than was the norm for politically-oriented documentaries. It rapidly became a cult classic, and greatly influenced documentary filmmaking.


Here is the Soundtrack
ENJOY

Posted by Joski at 2:06 PM | 1 comments  
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Ruckus Juice and Chittlins – The great jugbands




The jug maybe the most versatile kitchen staple outside of the crafty spoon when it comes to making music. The sauté pan was abandoned as a percussion tool during the Great Depression and the food processor was a failure from the start.


The only man to lift the jug to new heights was Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators who utilized an electric jug on their earliest forays into Texas psychedelia. Therefore, we are left with dusty 78s of the 20s and 30s to satisfy a craving for old-fashioned jug band music.


The Yazoo label is an excellent resource for the forgotten history of American folk, blues and country and its catalogue rivals anything found on the Smithsonian-Folkways series of albums. I’ve never heard of a single soul on this compilation and chances are you haven’t stumbled upon King David’s Jug Band or Cannon’s Jug Stompers (How’s that for a image!) either. There isn’t a mournful moment on the whole album.


This is music of celebration as these musicians draw upon or predate blues, folk, bluegrass, western swing and jazz to create a joyous clatter. It’s also interesting to hear how each artist utilizes the lowly jug in so many different ways. Some use it to imitate the human voice; others use it as a percussion instrument of sorts while some use it for comic relief. It provides such a distinctive sound that it makes you wonder why more bands haven’t adopted it today. Ruckus Juice and Chittlins documents a thoroughly American form of music and stands as one of the better comps on the Yazoo label.




That said, when these recordings were made in the Twenties and Thirties they themselves were a novelty and if some of the glorious music that they contain was deemed to require a jug to be blown to make it commercially viable, then who am I to complain? For indeed, amongst all the grunts, rasps and burps here, on these two albums is as fine a collection of down home blues, rural jazz and country dance music available today.




Yazoo have been championing this music for many years now but their leading card has always been Country Blues, so it is no surprise that three quarters of the selections favour this idiom.


However, in this field there can only ever be one winner. I think that Cannon's Jug Stompers must be included in the roll of the all time Delta Greats. For surely with Cannon's dextrous banjo, Ashley Thompson's shimmering vocal and snapped basses, and the unsurpassed harmonica playing of Noah Lewis, this is Mississippi Blues at its peak.


In complete constrast but I guess for completeness' sake four tracks by white groups are included. The Five Harmaniacs (of whom there were naturally four) are spirited, while Ezra Buzzington's Rustic Revellers are clever.


Clever yes, but any group that features not only the jug but the dreaded Swanee whistle and 'novelty laughing', has a mountain to climb as far as I'm concerned, and it comes as no surprise to me that they were an early incarnation of the equally annoying Hoosier Hot Shots. On the other hand, no amount of unnecessary kitchenware can detract from the work of The Prairie Ramblers, surely the greatest country swing band ever to record. The ultimate sore thumb in this company, though, is The Walter Family from Kentucky, here performing their classic That's my rabbit, my dog caught it. A simple but memorable fiddle tune is augmented, first by piano, then banjo, then jug. They stop and then repeat the process.


Wonderful.



So here they are :

http://lix.in/-390882

http://lix.in/-43b6fd



Enjoy the Masters

Posted by Joski at 11:39 AM | 6 comments  
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Who was the first to record "Blowin' in the Wind" ?




The earliest Dylan cover I've been able to document is Blowin’ in the wind by The Chad Mitchell Trio, recorded June 1962, and released on their Kapp LP “In Action!”, later re-titled and reissued as "Blowin' In The Wind." The New World Singers' “Blowin’ in the wind” that appeared on "Broadside Ballads Vol.1" was also recorded in 1962, but probably later in the year, although Bob Cohen claims he was first (see below)These are the only two versions of the song I know of recorded in 1962, before covering his songs became more commonplace during 1963.



How did it all start ?Dylan originally wrote and performed a two-verse version of the song; its first public performance, at Gerde's Folk City on April 16, 1962, was recorded and circulates among Dylan collectors. Shortly after this performance, he added the middle verse to the song. Some published versions of the lyrics reverse the order of the second and third verses, apparently because Dylan simply appended the middle verse to his original manuscript, rather than writing out a new copy with the verses in proper order. The song was published for the first time in May 1962, in the sixth issue of Broadside, the magazine founded by Pete Seeger and devoted to topical songs.In his sleeve notes for The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991, John Bauldie writes that it was Pete Seeger who first identified the melody of "Blowin' in the Wind" as Dylan's adaptation of the old Negro spiritual "No More Auction Block". According to Alan Lomax's The Folk Songs of North America, the song originated in Canada and was sung by former slaves who fled there after Britain abolished slavery in 1833. In 1978, Dylan acknowledged the source when he told journalist Marc Rowland: "'Blowin' in the Wind' has always been a spiritual. I took it off a song called 'No More Auction Block' — that's a spiritual and 'Blowin' in the Wind' follows the same feeling."Dylan's performance of "No More Auction Block" was recorded at the Gaslight Cafe in October 1962,



Says David Blue : “The night "Blowin' in the Wind'' was first heard by an audience [Apr 16, 1962], Dylan and I had been killing the latter part of a Monday afternoon drinking coffee [at the "Fat Black Pussycat"] and bullshitting.About five o'clock, Bob pulled out his guitar and a paper and pencil. He began to strum some chords and fool with some lines he had written for a new song. Time passed and he asked me to play the guitar for him so he could figure out the rhymes with greater ease. We did this for an hour or so until he was satisfied. The song was "Blowin' in the Wind.''We decided to bring it over to Gil Turner who was hosting the Monday-night hoots at Gerde's, and we arrived about nine thirty or ten. Gerde's was packed with the regular Monday night jam of intense young folk singers and guitar pickers. We fought our way through the crowd down the stairs to the basement where you waited and practiced until your turn to play was called. It was a scene as usual.Gil Turner finally took a break and came down to the basement to organize the next half of the show. Bob was nervous and he was doing his Chaplin shuffle as he caught Gil's attention. "I got a song you should hear, man,'' Bob said, grinning from ear to ear. ''Sure thing, Bob,'' Gil said. He moved closer to hear better. A crowd sort of circled the two of them. Bob sang it out with great passion. When he finished there was silence all around. Gil Turner was stunned. "I've got to do that song myself,'' he said. "Now!'' "Sure, Gil, that's great. You want to do it tonight?'' "Yes,'' said Turner, picking up his guitar, teach it to me now."





Bob showed him the chords and Gil roughly learned the words. He took the copy Bob made for him and went upstairs. We followed, excited by the magic that was beginning to spread. Gil mounted the stage and taped the words on to the mike stand. "Ladies and gentlemen,'' he said, "I'd like to sing a new song by one of our great songwriters. It's hot of the pencil and here it goes.''He sang the song, sometimes straining to read the words off the paper. When he was through, the entire audience stood on its feet and cheered. Bob was leaning against the bar near the back smiling and laughing. Mike Porco bought us a drink. Later in the evening Bob went home with Suze, and l split with some friends. Another moment in time ticked of. With a lyric sheet on his mike stand, Turner became the first in a long line to pose that lilting litany of metaphorical questions....Riotous applause told Dylan, if he didn't know already, that "Blowin' In The Wind" was his first classic. The next day Dave Van Ronk, who had been working the Village scene far longer, begged to differ. "Jesus, Bobby," he later recalled telling him, what an incredibly dumb song! I mean what the hell is blowing in the wind?" A few weeks later he had the answer. "I was walking through Washington Square Park and heard a kid singing, 'How much wood could a woodchuck chuckif a woodchuck could chuck woodThe answer my friend is blowin' in the wind.'At that point I knew Bobby had a smash on his hands."




This is how Bob introduced the song at Gerde’s “ Here's one that's called "How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down"....Here's a song that's in sort of a set... set pattern of songsthat say... a little more than"I love you, and you love me,An'... let's go over to the banks of ItalyAnd we'll raise a half a family,You for me, and me for me..."



Joan Baez remembers : “I don't remember the exact first time, but I remember leaving Gerde's Folk City in New York City, and I heard Bob do it, maybe not the first time, but he had just written it.And I got into a cab and I was so excited. Bob put me in the cab, actually, and I drove off and I wanted the world to know I'd been in on this phenomenal episode, this incredible new song. And I was trying [laughs] to tell the New York cab driver about it. "You wouldn't believe this. I mean, this is amazing. This is real poetry." [laughs] He said, "Does it rhyme?" [laughs] I said, "Yeah." He says, "Okay." [laughs] He wasn't impressed. But something in me knew, probably, it was one of the songs that would last forever. “



The New World Singers The New World Singers, Gil Turner, Bob Cohen, Delores Dixon, and Happy Traum, were the very first to record this song, in 1962. According to the Smithsonian Folkways site, the story goes that Dylan approached Gil Turner backstage at a New World Singers' performance with the words to Blowin' in the Wind, and asked if he could sing it for him. Turner was so impressed that he asked Dylan if he could take the song upstairs to the stage and perform it with the group, and he did.Says Bob Cohen : “So one day Dylan says to us: “Hey, I got this new song” and we go down to the basement at Gerdes (filled with rats, roaches and other folkies) and he sings his new song: “Blowin’ In the Wind”which was based on the melody of “No More Auction Block”. In those days we spoke of “borrowing” tunes, something Pete Seeger called “the folk process”. Woody Guthrie and Joe Hill and even J.S.Bach had done it. We thought it was great and started to sing it. We would bring Dylan up on that postage stamp of a stage to sing it along with us. It seemed to me then as it does now that his re-working or recreation of that spiritual carried on its original message and was in itself a song of resistance to all the injustice in the world. We would go on to sing it in Mississippi in 1963-64 where it became a civil-rights anthem.During our sets at Gerdes, Dylan would sit at the bar drinking wine that we often bought for him. He listened to us night after night. After about a year when we made an album for Ahmet Ertegun, head of Atlantic records and son of a Turkish diplomat, (Ahmet loved the blues and he is wonderfully portrayed in the recent film “Ray”), Dylan would write the liner notes for our album much in the same style he uses in his new book, “Chronicles”, writing generously about each of us. Ironically, when we sang “Blowin’ In The Wind” for Ahmet Ertegun he said that if we could change the lyrics to make it a love song then he would include it on our album! But we were too far into the essence of that song to change it, singing it at college rallies to raise money for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and its voter registration work in the South.When Moe Asch (Folkways) decided to release an album of topical songs on Broadside Records (Broadside, the topical song magazine that first printed many of Dylan’s songs along with others) we were asked to sing “Blowin’ In the Wind” and we did - making it the first recording of that song, even before Bob did it on Columbia Records.”"Blowin' in the Wind" has been covered by hundreds of artists.








Here is what I gathered :

1. Blowin’ in the wind – The Chad Mitchell Trio
2. Blowin’ in the wind – The New World Singers
3. Blowin’ in the wind (live) – Bob Dylan
4. No more auction Block – Odetta
5. No more auction Block – Pete Seeger
6. No more auction Block – Bob Dylan
7. Blowin’ in the Wind – Peter, Paul and Mary
8. Blowin’ in the wind – Bob Dylan (LP version)
9. Blowin’ in the Wind – Joan Baez
10. Blowin’ in the wind (first ?) – Bob Dylan
11. Blowin’ in the Wind – Bob Dylan at Gerde’s


http://lix.in/-40a71d

Enjoy the Master


Posted by Joski at 10:15 AM | 3 comments  
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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Modern Folk Quartet (1963)


The Modern Folk Quartet's self-titled 1963 debut album was produced by Jim Dickson. Though most famous as the co-manager and artistic mentor of the early Byrds, prior to the Byrds' formation he'd been doing his part to help modernize folk music with production for the Dillards, Dino Valenti, and Hamilton Camp, where he'd add a greater rhythmic swing and countermelodic bass presence than was usually heard on acoustic folk recordings of the time. Indeed one of the session men he favored, bass Red Mitchell, plays on The Modern Folk Quartet, which even includes some light drums here and there.


As Yester explains, "Chip was just new to the bass, he took it on because no one else played bass. Herbie thought, 'Well, he hasn't been doing it that long, let's get Red Mitchell,' who was like a giant of the bass, and Red did a great job. But Chip turned out to be one of the best bass players I've ever known."

As to how Dickson ended up producing the LP, Jerry continues, "Herbie was in with some jazz people and those studios, World Pacific Studios [where Dickson would soon extensively rehearse and record demos with the infant Byrds], did a lot of that kind of stuff. He got some kind of rate or something with Dickson, because we were working at the Troubadour and went there after work every night and sang. It took about a week, I think, to do the album. That was a lot of time back in those days. The Christy Minstrels album that I was on took two three-hour sessions."


The dozen tracks did include a few adaptations of traditional tunes, such as their live favorite "Ox Driver," which Faryar says "was a big powerhouse for us." Adds Yester, "The first time I heard 'The Ox Driver Song,' it just sliced my brain in half. I thought, that's the best thing I've ever heard, the use of voices."

But there were also a good number of covers of contemporary folk singer-songwriters, including Bob Gibson ("Yes I See") and John Stewart ("Road to Freedom"). The group had been friendly for some time with Stewart, who had replaced Dave Guard in the Kingston Trio, and according to Yester, "it was between Chip and John Stewart as to who was gonna replace Dave Guard. So they flew him over, but John was a little more experienced and was a really good writer, so he had the edge on Chip. Henry knew John Stewart too; he's been very close with John for years. So I think John approached us about the song. I think that may have been, actually, the first thing we worked up after I joined." Furthering the Kingston Trio connection was a cover of Ervin Drake's "It Was a Very Good Year," which the Kingston Trio had recorded a couple of years previously, and which Frank Sinatra would make into a hit in 1966, as Faryar laughs: "It always was kind of a personal amusement to me, and an entertainment, that that became such a hit for Sinatra. But who better else, you know, than this, like, wrinkled warrior? I mean, you can listen to Frank and believe it. Four young guys, you're thinking, what?"


Also of note was what may have been the first released cover of a Dino Valenti song, "Pennies" (credited to Valenti's birth name, Chester Powers). A friend of the MFQ, Valenti would become most famous as the author of "Get Together," covered by many artists, including Jefferson Airplane and the Youngbloods, who had a Top Five single with it in 1969. Another song on the album, "Sassafras," was recommended to Yester "by Dick Rosmini, who was very influential on the sidelines. He was an amazing 12-string guitar player, fingerpicker, and banjo player, had a great sense of material, and a wonderful singing voice." What's more, a song Rosmini recommended that Jerry show Judy Henske, "High Flying Bird," became a proto-folk-rock classic when Henske recorded it on her second album in 1963.

(From the liner notes)




Enjoy

Posted by Joski at 3:21 PM | 3 comments  
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Jim and Jean - Changes (1966)


Jim and Jean, composed of Jim Glover and Jean Ray, were a folk duo who performed and recorded music from the early 1960s to the late 1960s.

They were married for a time, and were listed as Jim and Jean Glover in the liner notes of their albums, but eventually went their separate ways.

Glover attended Ohio State University, where he met Phil Ochs in the Fall of 1959 and introduced Ochs to folk music, Leftist politics, and taught him how to play guitar. Jim Glover and Phil Ochs were in a short-lived folk duo called the "Singing Socialists", later renamed the "Sundowners".
Though the group didn't last long, Jim and Phil remained friends. In 1961, Jim left Ohio and moved to New York City, where he met Jean Ray and later fell in love with her.

Jim and Jean began performing music together and developed a good following in the Village, and soon began making enough money to pay the rent on their apartment. In 1962, Phil Ochs moved in with Jim and Jean when he was first starting his musical career in Greenwich Village. Jean introduced Phil to her friend Alice Skinner, and Phil soon moved in with Alice and eventually married her. As Phil got better at songwriting, Jim and Jean began to perform (and later recorded) a number of his songs.

Jim and Jean's first appearance on record, Jack Linkletter Presents a Folk Festival, was a live 1963 compilation album released on GNP Crescendo that featured a number of folk acts. In 1965, Jim and Jean released their first full length album, a self-titled release, on the Philips label. This album contains songs written by Tom Paxton ("Ramblin' Boy" and "Hold On To Me, Babe"), Phil Ochs ("There But For Fortune"), Buffy Sainte-Marie ("Welcome, Welcome Emigrante"), Lead Belly ("Alabama Bound" and "Relax Your Mind"), as well as traditional songs. Alice Skinner Ochs wrote the original liner notes printed on the back of the album.

In 1966, Jim and Jean's second album, Changes, was released on the Verve Folkways record label. The title track was written by their friend Phil Ochs, and the album also contains two other Ochs' songs ("Flower Lady" and "Crucifixion"). Phil wrote the original liner notes printed on the back of the album too. This album also contains songs written by Eric Andersen, David Blue, Bob Dylan, and Jim and Jean. The sound on their first album is more folksy, whereas their second album contains more session musicians, instrumentation, and even some folk rock experimentation.

This is their “Changes” album from 1966





Love

Posted by Joski at 12:07 PM | 0 comments  
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Rev. Edward W. Clayborn (Vocalion recordings 1926 – 1928)



Rev. Edward W. Clayborn (he is often listed as just Edward Clayborn, with the surname sometimes spelled Clayburn or Claeburn) billed himself as "the Guitar Evangelist," and indeed he was, singing a kind of blues gospel not unlike the work of the better known Blind Willie Johnson. A brilliant guitarist and slide player, Clayborn recorded some 20 tracks for Vocalion Records between 1926 and 1930.

If you've not come across Clayborn before, he is a legendary guitar evangelist preacher who in the market of the day was successful in what they called the "race" market.

Along with vaudeville, jazz and blues, there was an audience for sacred music including singing preachers recorded with their congregations and for a group of emerging singer/guitarists like Clayborn.

These sides, originally on 78s, were recorded between 1926 and 1928 and when heard altogether on a single CD, there is something very monotonous about his limited guitar playing since every song has exactly the same rhythm.

Having said that, Clayborn is responsible for two absolute classics that are featured here and have been covered by many other people. "Your Enemy Cannot Harm You" starts off describing the story of Judas but ends with Clayborn suggesting you can't trust anybody. Clearly he had been badly treated at some point!

Another classic is "The Gospel Train Is Coming" and somehow "The Wrong Way To Celebrate Christmas" seems thoroughly contemporary lyrically for the 21st century. Aside from his limited guitar playing, Clayborn was an excellent lyricist and the track "Let That Lie Alone" is the best example here to prove that point. Robert Johnson is much admired for his primitive blues recordings and Clayborn could be considered a gospel equivalent, writing songs that influenced all the gospel blues that followed.

In 1926, the upstart Vocalion label released a record, which, at least in its initial pressings, simply credited "The Guitar Evangelist." That 78 offered up a folksy, awesome and always timely spin on the story of Judas called "Your Enemy Cannot Harm You (But Watch Your Close Friend)," backed with a surprisingly subtle rendering of "The Gospel Train Is Coming." Many songs from the era basically quote clumsily from the Bible when it comes to retelling events, but not "Your Enemy," which has a vernacular style that's instantly accessible: "They planned to give him money/And for the garden they made a start/Judas would not bring the soldiers until the night/So he waited until it got dark." We do not have "charts" from back then, and no sales accountings exist either, but judging by the number of variations in the label artwork on the 78, indicating numerous pressings, it's safe to say this song was a hit.Other labels scrambled to find similar artists for their "race" label subsidiaries. Though not the first guitar evangelist to make a record (that would likely be Vocalion's Blind Joe Taggart), by having his first record issued under that savvy moniker, the Rev. Edward W. Clayborn gave this remarkable style its name.

Sanctified blues is more than a bridge from the blues to gospel; it has a power all its own that's vortex-like, insistent. It's got the sheer, driving power of Delta blues with all the intensity of the spiritual. The recordings of the guitar evangelists provide everything I love about gospel, and in the densest form imaginable. I resist using words like "pure," although they do spring to mind; anyway, it's really beautiful stuff. Thankfully, and unlike many of his contemporaries, Clayborn recorded some twenty 78s for Vocalion, the best of which are featured on this record.

Nothing about Clayborn is known for certain, not even the proper spelling of his surname, which was sometimes spelled Claeburn on the recordings.

We have just one photo of him, blown up from a Vocalion sleeve. He is not smiling. Some people believe he played slide guitar lap-style, but that's not for sure. We do know he used an open tuning of his own devising. Paul Oliver surmises the reverend came from Alabama in his great study Songsters and Saints, based on the fact that Clayborn shared a session with Charles Davenport, who was from there.


"When you're having ups and downs,
tribulations anti trials
He will! never say goodbye. "



http://lix.in/-38ec8a

Amen

Posted by Joski at 11:30 AM | 3 comments  
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