[78-L] A Folk Music Playlist covering ALL recording formats! WORTH reading!

[Steve Ramm]

There was an interesting posting on a Folk Music DJ list yesterday which I thought was interesting enough to share with you. I asked the poster if it was okay and he agreed.
 
Paul Stampler is a a DJ with a show in St. Louis. His show on 8/30/ covered the whole range of recorded sound formats except 8-track. I'll copy his full post which, again, I think you'll enjoy. Paul let me know that the show is still available for a few more days as a stream (I'm heading there new to listen) but it will be deleted. BTW, the Alexander Prince cylinder was taken from the UCSB website.
 
So read on and enjoy! I found Paul to be really creative with this playlist.
 
Here is the direct link to HEAR the stream:http://tinyurl.com/ysckyo
 
Steve Ramm
 
In a message dated 9/4/2009 11:00:39 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, LISTSERV at lists.psu.edu writes:
Date:    Fri, 4 Sep 2009 20:16:57 -0500
From:    Paul Stamler <
 
Subject: Playlist "No Time to Tarry Here" 8/30/09

Hi folks:

This was a fun show to put together. I'm taking a course in Media 
Communications (beginning a Master's degree, actually), and we're 
discussing all the various media forms out there. So I thought it'd be 
fun to play music from as many different media that have been used to 
store music as I could find. I got, I think, every popular music 
delivery technology in except 8-track tapes.

I didn't plan to go chronologically, but after the first set, that's how 
it wound up, more or less. Also, I cheated: everything went through a 
stage of CD, so I could play it on air.


Phil Cooper & Margaret Nelson - No Time to Tarry Here -  - private tape

Pete Seeger - One Percent Phosphorous Banjo Riff - At 89 - Appleseed
    [fun stuff from pete's new cd]

-----

Matys Bros. - Who Stole the Keeshka? -  - Select 45, 1962
    [surprisingly, i don't have a whole lot from 45s that'd be suitable for 
this program, but i found this, which was a minor hit in its time]

VA/Doc Roberts - And the Cat Came Back - Kentucky Mountain Music - Yazoo
    [originally a gennett 78, either from 1925 or 1927, electrically recorded]

New Lost City Ramblers - Long Lonesome Road - Boxed set, vol. 3 - 
Smithsonian/Folkways
    [from an lp, in stereo, released in the 1960s. the guy's having an 
exceptional bad day; he's lonesome, his girl's left him, he didn't 
listen to his mother, he's eating bad food, and he's in jail]

Tom T. Hall - A Week in a Country Jail - Homecoming - Mercury
    [ditto, recorded multi-track in nashville, 1970s, and one of my 
favorites of his recordings]

-----


[some acoustical recordings:]

Polk Miller & the Old South Quartette - Jerusalem Mournin' - Music of 
the Old South - Flaherty
    [from an edison blue amberol cylinder, recorded 1909 -- these were a 
type of celluloid, layered over plaster, and a major improvement over 
the previous wax cylinders. polk miller was a case-and-a-half; he was a 
southern white gentleman who deeply disapproved of emancipation, thought 
black people were way better off as slaves, and said so. he also deeply 
enjoyed and respected the traditional music of black people, and wanted 
to share it with his fellow whites as well as blacks. to that end, he 
formed a quartet of black musicians and toured with them, sometimes 
running into major hostility for integrating the stage. the material was 
a blend of minstrel material and black tradition; this song has the 
distinction of being the first known appearance of the 
'boom-boom-boom-boom' descending bass line common in gospel quartet 
singing. polk miller -- an odd man indeed]

Ennis, Morrison & Muller - Irish Jig Medley I -  - Columbia 78, 1922
    [an acoustically-recorded 78 with some fine piping and fiddling from 
ennis and morrison, and barely-audible piano from muller; acoustical 
recordings couldn't capture anything below about 200Hz, which is about G 
below middle C. that's the equivalent of a three-string guitar, with the 
bottom three missing. still wonderful music]

Alexander Prince - Scotch Reels -  - Edison cylinder, 1909
    [played on concertina; again an acoustical recording, this time a 
standard wax cylinder]

The Happy 4 - Te Kako Koritsi (The Naughty Girl) -  - Victor 78, n.d.
    [a greek polka -- did you know they had polkas in greece? neither did i 
until i found this acoustical 78]

Sara Martin - Don't Quit Me, Daddy -  - OKeh 78, 1924
    [and now for something completely different: sara martin and her jug band]

-----

[going electric:]

Patrick Gaffney - Jerry Daly's Hornpipe -  - Columbia 78, 1925
    [electrical recordings from here on. another irish 78; i played it to 
show the contrast with acoustical recordings. here, you can actually 
hear the piano, and the fiddle is a lot clearer as well. from the first 
month after columbia signed a contract with western electric to license 
their new electrical recording system, which used a microphone and 
electrical cutter head instead of a horn]

Jules Allen - Days of 49 -  - Victor 78, 1928
    [a cowboy song from a couple of years later -- thanks to jim nelson for 
lending the 78]

Carl T. Sprague - The Cowboy's Meditation -  - Montgomery Ward 78, 1935; 
rec. 1930
    [ditto; cowboy science fiction, to quote robert waltz's description]

VA/Jean Kalafayi (Congo) - Nalimbisi Yo - Secret Museum of Mankind, v. 3 
- Yazoo
    [recording companies made a specialty, from early days, of recording 
the music of indigenous people so the companies could then sell it back 
to them. it worked, and we got some wonderful music on discs in the bargain]

VA/Luther Mack, Tommy Miller, William Long & Julius Harmon - I Sure 
Can't Stand It Long - Deep River of Song: South Carolina - Rounder
    [a field recording of a work song, made at reid state farm, south 
carolina in 1934. john and alan lomax made the recording using a 
custom-built disc recorder that dug the groove into the surface of an 
aluminum disc. it was about the size of a washing machine, and ran off a 
car's electrical system. a far cry from the pocket-sized portable 
recorders of today]

VA/Unidentified group, Nassau - All Day, All Night Long - Deep River of 
Song: Bahamas 1935 - Rounder
    [in 1935 alan lomax took similar portable equipment to the bahamas for 
the first recordings on those musically rich islands]

-----

[jumping ahead to the lp, first in mono...]

Horton Barker - The Turkish Rebilee - Traditional Singer - Folkways, 
rec. 1961
    [barker came from america's 'folklore province', the corner where north 
carolina, virginia, tennessee and kentucky come together, and he was a 
marvellous singer. he recorded for the library of congress in the 1940s, 
and again for sandy paton in the late 1950s. he was a good deal older, 
but had perfect voice control and a compelling style of a capella 
singing. give the disc a try; it's easy to just play the 'novelty' songs 
from the album, but the serious ones are well worth hearing too. oh, 
this is a triple-score format: recorded on reel-to-reel tape, issued on 
lp, but downloaded as a flac file, which has full audio quality without 
losing information]

Pete Seeger - John Riley - Champlain Valley Songs - Folkways, 1960
    [from one of pete's records, made for moe asch when pete was afraid of 
going to prison and not coming back. during the time between when he was 
tried and convicted -- for essentially telling the committee on 
un-american activities that they had no business prying into his 
associations -- and the time when his conviction was reversed on a 
technicality, he averaged a new album every two months, trying to get as 
much repertoire onto records as possible. pete used a splendid tune for 
this 'broken-token' ballad]

VA/Caldiera Trio (Sicily) - Tarantella di li Mafiusi - Folk Music of the 
Mediterranean - Folkways, 1952
    [one might want to be circumspect about playing this piece, no? 
released on lp, probably recorded on a very early tape recorder]

Young Tradition - Banks of the Nile - Galleries - Transatlantic
    [from 1968 -- and now we're in stereo, probably two microphones direct 
to two track analog tape and thence to lp, and another of my favorite 
albums]

-----

[some recordings made on multi-track analog tape, beginning with two 
where a single person overdubs multiple parts, a la les paul -- may he 
rest in peace:]

John Kirkpatrick - The Jolly Ploughboys - Jump at the Sun - Trailer
    [a capella vocal, in several parts, all john, from his first lp]

Robin Williamson - Greensleeves Morris / Green Groweth the Holly / The 
Eagle's Whistle - Winter's Turning - Flying Fish
    [robin williamson is another who, from back in the incredible string 
band days to now, has used multi-tracking to fine artistic ends]

Kapelye - In Shtetl Nikolaev - Future and Past - Flying Fish
    [probably direct to multi-track, still in the analog era, beautiful 
sound and wonderful playing and singing. my favorite of their albums, 
originally lp, now cd]

Tina Chancey - Tom Billy's Jig Set -- Boys of the Lough - The Versatile 
Viol - self
    [more multi-tracked, but this time clearly digital, and a very fine 
album too from this member of hesperus]

Pyewackett - The Limousine - 7 to Midnight - Familiar
    [this came out on cassette -- okay, lp too, but i got it on cassette. 
my mother heard them play in the lobby at the royal shakespeare theatre 
in london, and thought i would like them. boy, was she right. the album 
is mostly english country dance tunes, but this one is french]

-----

[miscellany, in content and in format:]

William Tuson - Esquimaux Dance -  - NJ Phonograph Cylinder Co, 1892
    [a recording of ghastly quality -- it was a cylinder, digitized, then 
downloaded in streaming audio. still, how many pieces can you find that 
are scored for clarinet, piano, anvil and dog?]

Sydney Stripling - Alabama Red -  - Download from Library of Congress, 
American Memory website
    [another download, from john a. lomax's 1939 field recording trip from 
texas to washington, dc; the recordings can be downloaded for free, in 
.wav format or .mp3]

Tom Lehrer - I'm a Very Quiet Hound -  - private tape
    [this was recorded in 1972 on reel-to-reel tape. lehrer was touring to 
raise money for george mcgovern's campaign, and played at a house near 
washington university. this was a song he's never recorded commercially, 
to my knowledge; it was written for 'the electric company', a kids' show 
on pbs]

Walter Harp & Band - Square Dance to Chicken Reel -  - Library of 
Congress download, 1939
    [recorded in california by sidney robertson cowell, probably on 
aluminum disc but it may have been a wire recorder. i had a request for 
a chicken song, dedicated to the listener's chickens; i obliged. that's 
another thing you don't get to do too often on air]

-----

Bart Veerman - Bunkyo -  - Download from artist's website
    [finally, i ended with an .mp3 download, of a really nice banjo 
instrumental. according to the player, it conjures up a neighborhood in 
tokyo where they sell really good yakitori]


So that was the program; comments and questions welcome as always. Next 
week, a program of guitar music. "No Time to Tarry Here" airs Sundays 
from 2 - 4 pm central daylight time (1900-2100 GMT) on KDHX-St. Louis, 
88.1 FM, and over the net via RealAudio at www.kdhx.org . Programs are 
archived for two weeks after air.

Peace,
Paul
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