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

Sun Sep 6 23:15:18 PDT 2009

>From Duane Goldman
>> I think you may have mistaken the intent of this particular show.
>> As I heard the intro, it was to demonstrate examples of the popular
>> commercial musical formats using recordings picking from "a box
>> thrown together for the show". There was no intent to be exhaustive
>> nor any expectation on the part of regular listeners. 

>From David Lenneck
> What am I missing here? Very little reference to recording formats
> in the playlist at this link, other than 1909 cylinder, 1972 private
> tape and a couple of others.  dl

What both of you are missing is what Stampler put in his ORIGINAL
posting that Steve re-posted which DID discuss different formats and
stated that this was the outcome of discussions in the Graduate Media
Communications course he is taking which is covering "all the various
media forms out there."  He stated "I got, I think, every popular music
delivery technology in except 8-track tapes."   But he DIDN'T, and I
think the problem is that his college instructor has left out a LOT of
formats.  His original posting seemed to indicate that a lot of thought
and preparation was put int it -- it was not "picking from 'a box thrown
together for the show.'"  If he said that he got in every popular music
delivery technology except 8-track, he DID mean for it to be an
"exhaustive" listing.  I'm not blaming him, I am tentatively blaming his
college instructor who might be thinking that he got the subject covered
but he doesn't -- or he has oversimplified without telling the students.
 It might also be a fault in the text book or other sources being used
for this course.  I know how many lousy media textbooks there are out
there, and we all know how faulty a lot of internet sources are.

In case you had deleted the original posting with all the details I was
commenting about, here it is.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com   

 In a message dated 9/4/2009 11:00:39 P.M. EDT, 
    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

-------- Original Message --------
 Subject: [78-L] A Folk Music Playlist covering ALL recording formats!
 WORTH reading!
 From: Steve Ramm <steveramm78l at hotmail.com>
 Date: Sat, September 05, 2009 5:40 pm
 To: 78-l 78-l <78-l at 78online.com>

 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