Miss Emily’s JukeJoint 8.24.12: Folkies invade NTSU!

   In my research for someone unrelated in the old Denton High Bronco yearbooks circa 1962, I came across the following photo of one “Steve Fromholz”…

Bad Luck Steve

    I figured it had to be the singer-songwriter because it fit the era and that name is kinda unusual. The next one is pretty sweet:

Friendly Steve

   Which led my brain to vaguely remember a picture of him at NTSU. Sure enough, here he is in the 1964 Yucca yearbook with the more well-known Michael Martin Murphy singing an old appalacian tune that the Stanley Brothers recorded and Ralph Stanley made hugely popular about a decade ago thanks to the “O Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack and movie.

Wherefore Art Thous

Some kind of unbroken circle, what with the resurgence of folk-influenced music of current Denton bands such as Hares on the Mountain. The so-called “folk craze” of the early ’60s swept many a college campus but, I don’t know how many could say in retrospect that they had two very fine musicians in the making. You can read about Steve here and Michael here and about the Folk Music Club at North Texas State here.

Miss Emily’s JukeJoint 3.29.12: Earl

    Few musicians are able to revolutionize how their instrument is played and Earl Scruggs was one. He belongs in that category of rare species that mark a point in the evolution of an instrument where you can say there’s a ”Before” and an “After” along with Charlie Christian on electric guitar, Jaco Pastorius on electric bass, Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax, Clarence White on flatpicking acoustic guitar, etc.

 

Lester and Earl

Earl passed away on March 28, 2012 at the age of 88. We have his music here at the Denton Public Library and of course there are great videos on YouTube- specifically look for parts of the great documentary from about ’71-’72 when he formed a band with his sons and featuring a few folks named Dylan, Monroe, McGuinn, Doc, etc. Highly recommended!

Miss Emily’s JukeJoint, 3.15.12: Satan Is Real

    The Louvin Brothers, Ira and Charlie, have been called one of the most influential duos in Country Music. And, as so often happens with brothers who collaborate, they fought like dogs but made moving sounds. Yin-yang. I just finished Charlie’s autobiography “Satan is Real”, completed shortly before his death at age 83 in 2011. Here is the cover in full pulp fiction glory:

Pulp Louvin

Pretty cool idea for a book cover: make it look like a dime store pulp fiction novel and base it on one of the cheesiest, classic album covers of all time. The thing is, its all true and reiterates my belief that reality is oftentimes stranger than fiction and more powerful because of it.

   Charlie may have followed a straighter path than Ira’s womanizing, alcoholic one, but his storytelling pulls no punches both in language and subject matter. The reader gets a good sense of their hardscrabble upbringing, life on the road, and the volatile nature of their relationship. In full Nudie suit glory: Ira on the left, Charlie on the right-

Nudie Louvins

We naturally have some examples of their work and Charlie’s at the Denton Public Library and more Louvin goodness can be found on Youtube, such as this: That Great Atomic Power

Posted by Chuck

Miss Emily’s JukeJoint 11.30.2010: Willie and Wynton

I’m digging the CD “Two Men With The Blues” featuring Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis. Back in 1930, Louis Armstrong recorded with Jimmie Rodgers on the latter’s “Blue Yodel, No. 9“. I like to think this recording was inspired by that pairing of 80 years ago. Sadly they don’t do that tune, but there is plenty of goodness for the ear anyway.

Wynton and Willie

Bet you didn’t think of Willie as a jazz musician, did you? Well, his vocal phrasing and guitar style exhibit his affection for Django, Bob Wills and Hoagy Carmichael.

Here’s Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash paying tribute Jimmie Rodgers in 1970 on the Johnny Cash show. Johnny was deep.

Miss Emily’s JukeJoint, 9.17.2010, Blues and Boxcars

Tomorrow and Sunday, The Denton Black Chamber of Commerce  will host the 12th Annual Denton Blues Fest http://www.dentonbluesfestival.org/. Son of Muddy Waters, Big Bill Morganfield, headlines on Saturday and Guitar Shorty headlines on Sunday. We have a Guitar Shorty CD available at the North Branch library.

Denton Blues Fest Poster, 2010

 

We, naturally, have many blues CDs for your enjoyment and edification.

The Boxcar Bandits http://www.boxcarbandits.com/ have had a weekly residency at Dan’s Silverleaf on Monday nights since at least this past July. We have their CD to help you get in the mood for acoustic/folk/bluegrass/twang. I really like the description on their homepage: “drinkers with picking problems”.

Blue Bandits

posted by Chuck.

Miss Emily’s JukeJoint, 8.3.10 Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music

I’m excited about this, y’all. This will be a long blog post, so bear with me please.

 We have a copy of Harry Smith’s  Anthology of American Folk Music on Smithsonian Folkways records. This is the first extensive collection of folk music in the U.S. and was edited-created by record collector Harry Smith for Moe Asch’s Folkways label in 1952. More on Harry in a bit…

The Anthology

    Smithsonian/Folkways re-released this collection as a 3 CD set in 1997 and has a reproduction of Harry’s original handmade booklet along with extensive essays and an up-to-date description of the artists and songs that builds upon 45 years of research. All of these items are included in the Denton Public Library’s copy for you.

    In it you will feast your ears on an auditory world that is long gone but yet somehow familiar. This Anthology influenced many in the so-called “folk revival” of the late ’50s-early ’60s. The tunes and some of  the artists themselves have had their own massive impact separate from their inclusion in it: The Carter Family, Charley Patton, Dock Boggs, Charlie Poole, Clarence Ashley, Blind Willie Johnson, etc. in the realms of Bluegrass, Blues, Hillbilly, C&W, etc.

Charlie Poole

  Here’s a few examples to whet your earlobes-

Not merely a collection of a particular genre or style, the Anthology includes Cajun, Black Gospel, Sacred, and some performances that don’t fall neatly in a particular heading. Take Hoyt Ming and His Pep-Steppers’ “Indian War Whoop”. Not really sounding like Native-American singing per se, it moves nonetheless. http://vimeo.com/832869

    Fiddler Eck Robertson is recognized as the first commercially recorded  “country” musician for his performance of “Sally Gooden” in 1922. Although not included here, that disc is still considered a masterpiece of old-time fiddling and not easily duplicated 88 years on.

Eck

     Jug bands were intensely popular in the period covered in the Anthology (late’20s-early ’30s), and Cannon’s Jug Stompers swung hard.

Cannon's Jug Stompers

     Finally, native Texan Blind Willie Johnson sang hellfire and brimstone with a voice that sounded like he came back from Hades to warn the world. Oh, and his slide guitar accompaniment influenced Ry Cooder, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_veQRT7bus 

Blind Willie Johnson

     Harry Smith (http://www.harrysmitharchives.com/) was a filmmaker, artist, musicologist, intellectual, autodidact, and eccentric who had contacted Moe Asch, founder of Folkways Records in NYC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Asch), about putting this compilation togther. He finally received a Grammy Award late in life for this Anthology but, tellingly, this quote at the ceremony speaks to how personal the project was for him, “”I’m glad to say my dreams came true. I saw America changed by music.”

Harry framed

Here’s the Anthology in our catalog: http://library.cityofdenton.com/search/t?SEARCH=anthology+of+american+folk&sortdropdown=-&searchscope=4.