OBAMA!?
Please remove all [of our] music from your play list. We won't have our music perceived as supporting a web site that endorses a racist.
Of all the stupid shit, John. Politicizing a once friendly and all-inclusive web presence like SITG.
Farewell;
[name & band name withheld]
Anyone who tuned in last Sunday should have noticed that I was playing an awful lot of "Soldier's Joy"! In fact, I played nothing else all day. It was intended as a little April Fool's gag. Back when I started this station, there was another Live365 broadcaster who ran the "All Soldier's Joy Station." So think of it as part gag, part homage to him. But it turned out everyone I heard from really liked hearing all the different versions back to back. Face it, it's such a well-known tune because it's a great tune. But anyway, I'm thinking this may be an ongoing feature -- so look for future playlists lasting only a day or so, which include every version I can find of a given tune.
In other news, just got a nice email from someone letting me know of a recent article in the Austin Chronicle about Old-Time Music, which includes a link to this site. The piece was written by Mark Rubin of the Bad Livers, the Bing Bang Boys, various klezmer conglomerations and who knows what else.
I'm proud to have even a small mention in a print piece, and especially one written by Mark, for whom I have a lot of respect.
Another cool item just crossed my desk. This is "Internet radio" but let's not forget that in a few areas of the country, there are still good actual old-fashioned radio stations (terrestrial is the word in vogue to describe them these days). WNCW in Spindale, NC comes to mind (you can listen online Sundays from 3-6pm ET to hear John Fowler's terrific show of old-time music, This Old Porch). Another great station that normally can't be heard outside a small area of NC/VA is WPAQ, the famous station from Mount Airy, NC. Well, it looks like that is about to change. From an email I received yesterday:
ROBBIE ERNHART writes:
I'm trying to get the word out that we will actually be going global, beginning around Easter Sunday. So, if you want a full dose of the Southland, we'll be at WPAQ740.com.
Hard to believe, I know. We still have stuff running on tubes and if you turn on the microwave after someone leaves on the coffee pot, the circuits blow. But here we go.
Going global. Yikes.
Cheers -
RobbieChange of plans: We actually start to stream at 1pm on thursday [April 5]! When the station first signed on the air in 1948, Benton Flippen played for it with his band at that time. So, we've got Benton to come play live along with Richard Bowman and the Slate Mountain Ramblers and Kevin and Trish Fore and who knows who else will show up. Should be fun. Plus, I just found out we'll be streaming the entire fiddler's convention, not signing off at sundown, so anyone can hear the entire band contest, live, anywhere! Gosh, I just love this technology. You'll be able to get
the real feel of extremely southern radio.love-
Robbie
That's great news, and I look forward to listening!
Best wishes,
John
Check out this great video of an African guitarist, apparently named Hannes Coetzee, who plays slide with a spoon held in his mouth. [direct link to the video: 6 MB, mpg format]
Now jump ahead some 70 years to two Fridays ago. Four African-American musicians--three of them in their 20s--with banjos, fiddles and guitars coming alive in their hands, are playing string band standards for a black and white audience gathered at a Greensboro church. The players are from Sankofa Strings and the Carolina Chocolate Drops, two new bands at the vanguard of a revitalization of music styles and traditions slowly forgotten over time. Joining them for "Georgia Buck" and several other tunes is 86-year-old fiddler Joe Thompson, who rode up with the quartet from his home in Mebane. When Sankofa Strings founder Rhiannon Giddens' banjo meets Joe Thompson's fiddle and his voice wanders in, as much chanting as singing, there's the feel of something if not quite ancient, at least the product of an era long gone. You start seeing things in sepia tones and even though the music's being played right in front of you, you expect to hear crackles and hisses as if the sounds were being torn from a salvaged 78.One of the more impressive things about him, aside from sheer virtuosity, is he doesn’t just master individual songs but takes on the entire stylistic vocabulary as well, allowing him to interject his own musical ideas into a tune without breaking the spell of painstaking authenticity and a real '20s vibe. His additions to Lemon Jefferson sound right at home, his liberties with Blake are things Blake himself would likely have played. Some contemporary players of country blues dismiss such an approach as too curatorial and insist the music needs a modern or personal imprint to stay vibrant and keep moving forward. But That Will Never Happen No More proves Eisinger’s method is completely viable as well: the music is very much alive in his hands, bringing new insight into the guitar styles of the '20s and '30s and the original masters of the music in a way that is just as exciting, if not moreso, for the listener. What he calls "the golden age of the blues" comes streaming back for the all-too-brief 45 minutes you'll spend with this CD in the player.
