SFC Spotlight: On Texas and March 2

Even after almost ten years living in North Carolina, whenever March 2 rolls around, also known as Texas Independence Day, my thoughts inevitably return to the Lone Star State where I was born and raised. Despite the mythology, misinterpretations, and misinformation surrounding the Texas Revolution, something about the story of Anglo and Tejano delegates joining together to so recklessly adopt the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos while General Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón and his troops prepared to take the Alamo has stuck in my head since I first heard the stories in kindergarten. Unlike July 4, I don’t really think of Texas Independence Day as a day of celebration, but rather a day to reflect on the messy and fascinating history of all Texans. Texas independence from Mexico did not benefit the Tejano and Mexican residents of Texas as much as it did the recent Anglo colonists and helped establish a legacy of discrimination that continues to this day, 176 years later. Texas independence also meant the legalization of slavery, outlawed at that time in Mexico, for another 30 years. Still, wandering through the stacks this morning, my mind turned to the sounds of central Texas, well represented in the Southern Folklife Collection, so I pulled a few records to share with you good readers.

First up is Saturday Night in San Antonio, a 1982 Folkways LP, by Los Polkeros, a duo of Ben Tavera King on three-row button accordion and guitarist Frank Corrales on guitar. A fantastic slab of classic conjunto compositions, the guitar work of Corrales is superb on these recordings. The guitar fell out of favor with conjunto groups in the 1950s, replaced in the typical ensemble by the bajo sexto, but Corrales persisted in the old style of pre-war conjunto guitar accompaniment and his talent for melodic flourishes complimenting the accordion make Los Polkeros’ version of the Santiago Jimenez Sr. composition “Viva Seguin” stand out among the many different recordings of that tune. FC453_Viva Seguin as performed by Los Polkeros
Another favorite, also from central Texas, is the Czech tinged western swing of Aldoph Hofner and his San Antonians [see 78 rpm disc pictured above]. Recorded in 1942, their version of “Alamo Steel Serenade” features the singular steel guitar stylings of Adoph’s brother, Emil Hofner, on the lap steel guitar. Emil, given the nickname “Bash,” played the steel harder and heavier than any of his contemporaries [just listen to the clips below], bending his leads and melodies around the rest of the band’s rhythm driven dance music. 78_4900_178_4900_278_4900_3
 

In tribute to Joe Thompson: 1918-2012

Photo by Nancy Kalow, 1988

North Carolina master fiddler and musician Joe Thompson passed away on Monday morning, 20 Feburary 2012, at the age of 93. A recipient of both the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 1991 and the National Endowment of the Arts Heritage Fellowship in 2007, Joe and his first cousin Odell Thompson performed their own unique style of fiddle and banjo old-time music across the Piedmont throughout most of the 20th century and beyond. It should come as no surprise that the music of Joe and Odell Thompson is well represented at the Southern Folklife Collection, including field recordings, CDs, documentary video, photos and more. We hope to share some of these materials with you in remembrance of Joe Thompson and to demonstrate the impact he had on the history and legacy of stringband music in North Carolina.

Born and raised just north of Mebane in 1918, Joe Thompson learned fiddle and old-time tunes from his father and uncle, Walter and John Arch Thompson. Joe, his brother Nate, and cousin Odell quickly became sought after performers for Saturday night dances for both white and black audiences. Even as interest for old-time stringband music waned in the decades after WWII, the Thompsons continued to play the songs they grew up with. Joe recorded many of these tunes for his 1999 release on Rounder Records, Family Tradition

In the early 1970s, folklorists like Kip Lornell and students of folklore at UNC began documenting the music of Joe and Odell Thompson, and also encouraging them to perform publicly again. The photo at the top of this post, call no. P4705 from the Tommy Thompson Collection (#20359), possibly shot during a visit to the Thompson home in Mebane in 1974 [UPDATE: Photo by Nancy Kalow, taken in 1988 as part of a project on North Carolina fiddlers with Wayne Martin], accompanies numerous field recordings made by Thompson and noted Appalachian banjo and African American music scholar CeCe Conway. Until Odell’s death in 1994, the duo performed at folk festivals across the country, exposing new audiences to the rich tradition of African-American stringband music many never even knew existed. The following video of Joe and Odell, call no. v8m-138 in the Nancy Kalow Collection (#20113), was shot at a 1988 concert in Gerrard Hall at UNC Chapel Hill.

Joe Thompson continued to perform and record throughout the 1990s and 2000s, but perhaps most importantly, he graciously shared his music and skills with members of younger generations looking to learn. The Carolina Chocolate Drops became Thompson’s most well known protégés, learning from him at his home in Mebane and eventually recording and performing with him at festivals like Merlefest and even local dances. The video below comes from DVD-130, part of the Dom Flemons Collection (#20427). Please enjoy and feel free to share your memories of Joe Thompson in the comments below.

SFC Spotlight: Glenn Thompson

78_18471_Dixie Playboy’s Swing_Glenn Thompson and his Dixie Playboys
78_18471_Dixie Playboy’s Swing_Glenn Thompson and his Dixie PlayboysThe Southern Folklife Collection is looking forward to  2012.  We’ve got a number of exciting programs, including tributes to Son House (the third in our Blues Tribute Series) and Mike Seeger, and projects coming up and we can’t wait to share more with you dear readers. While working through the ongoing Wilson Special Collections Library sprinkler construction project, we’ve been digitizing some more of the Southern Folklife Collection photographs, including those from the Glenn Thompson Collection (#20341).
During the 1940s and 1950s, country music singer and guitarist Glenn Thompson was a popular bandleader, radio personality, and recording artist, performing first with the Burlington, N.C.,-based Blue Ridge Entertainers and subsequently with his own Dixie Playboys. Thompson continued to perform regularly and released several recordings as both soloist and bandleader until his retirement in 1985.

78_18472_Double Stone_Glenn Thompson and his Dixie Playboys78_18472_Double Stone_Glenn Thompson and his Dixie PlayboysThe collection includes photographs and sound recordings documenting Thompson’s musical career. Photographs feature Thompson, his bandmates, and associates during the 1940s and 1950s, and include several promotional shots of Thompson (top), the Blue Ridge Entertainers, and the Dixie Playboys. Photographs also document Thompson’s involvement with Danville, Va., radio station WDVA and his performance at a number of venues, including the WDVA Barn Dance, the Carolina Theatre , Burlington (above), a voting rally, a WTOB (Winston-Salem) television show (below), and several radio stations.

Also included are photographs of comedians who performed in Thompson’s stage show, most commonly long-time bandmate Sleepy Johnson and WDVA personality Homer T (Thomasson). Other performers include Charlie Monroe; armless musician Ray R. Meyers; and the Louvin Brothers. Sound recordings include CD copies of commercial 78 rpm records (including those featured in this post) and LP records; original 45 rpm records; and cassettes and compact discs issued privately by Thompson or by the Greensboro-based Skatter label. A taped interview (call nos. FS-6086 and FS-6087), in which Thompson comments on the collection’s photographs, provides anecdotes about Buck Owens, Bill Monroe and Charlie Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, the Louvins, Ray Meyers, Thompson’s bandmates, and Thompson’s musical experiences in Danville and Burlington.
78_18467_All Alone, I’ve Been Waiting for You_Glenn Thompson and his Dixie Playboys78_18467_All Alone, I’ve Been Waiting for You_Glenn Thompson and his Dixie Playboys
 

A SFC Holiday

Carson Robinson and his Pioneers appeared on BBC run Radio Luxembourg and Normandy on Sunday mornings in the late 1930s. They are often credited as the first Country & Western group from the United States to tour Europe. Robinson was a well known singer, guitarist, and professional whistler in his native Kansas before he moved to New York City for a contract with Victor records and began collaborating with the legendary singer Vernon Dalhart in 1924. Robinson accompanied Dalhart on the recording of country music’s first million selling record, “The Wreck of the Old 97” b/w “The Prisoner’s Song.”
The postcard above was a holiday card sent to John Edwards for Christmas dated 1957, the year that Carson Robinson died. We found a few other holiday images in the photos from the John Edwards Memorial Foundation Collection (#20001) that we wanted to share with you here.  Have a wonderful weekend.

 
 

Photo of the Week: Merle Haggard and the Texas Playboys

P2998, from the John Edwards Memorial Foundation Collection (#20001), is but one of a series of photographs documenting the recording sessions for Bob Wills’s final album, For the Last Time. Sessions, produced by the legendary guitarist Tommy Allsup (another former Cricket like Bobby Durham), took place just outside of Dallas on December 3 and 4, 1973.
Haggard drove all night from Chicago to participate on the final day after begging permission from Wills to attend. Sadly, Wills was unable to complete the session after suffering a severe stroke on the night of December 3 and slipping into a coma the following day never to retain consciousness. Haggard and the band, the first reunion of the Texas Playboys since Wills disbanded the group in the 1960s, pressed on with noted successor of the Bob Wills sound Hoyle Nix stepping up into the boots of his hero to lead the group.
We are not positive, but we believe the photo above includes Haggard, fiddlers Keith Coleman and Johnny Gimble, steel guitarist Leon McCauliffe, and the back of guitarist Eldon Shamblin’s head.
 

Photo of the Week: Bobby Durham

Bobby Durham was not just a smart dressed man. A prominent vocalist with the Bakersfield sound, Durham got his start in country music performing on California country music variety shows like Town Hall Party and Hometown Jamboree.  After stints with Cousin Ebb Pillings’s Ozark Squirrel Shooters and Jolly Judy and her Go-Go Daddies, Durham signed with Capitol Records in the early 1960s.  He scored a major hit with the Merle Haggard penned classic “My Past is Present,” earning Durham a 1965 Academy of Country Music Awards nomination for “Most Promising Male Vocalist.” Durham later joined The Crickets, performing some excellent progressive country with the group in the early 1970s.
Durham returned to Bakersfield in the 1980s, recording solo albums for Hightone Records like the popular Do You Still Drink Margeritas and Where I Grew Up.  Durham continues to perform with his Durham Band at Buck Owens’s Crystal Palace.
The photo above, call no. P599, is part of the John Edwards Memorial Foundation Collection (#20001).
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Tribute Concert to Rev. Gary Davis: November 17, 2011


Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Jorma Kaukonen will headline a Nov. 17 tribute concert and symposium in honor of blues legend Reverend Gary Davis. Schedule and information follows at the end of this post.
The Southern Folklife Collection and the Friends of the Library will sponsor the evening devoted to the master of finger-style guitar who influenced musicians such as Blind Boy Fuller, Taj Mahal, and Bob Dylan.
The 7:30pm concert will feature musicians who studied with Davis or were directly inspired by him, including Hot Tuna and former Jefferson Airplane member Jorma KaukonenStefan Grossman, and Ernie Hawkins. Tickets to the concert can be purchased from the Carolina Union Box Office.
Prior to the concert, a free public symposium will take place in Wilson Library. At 5:30 p.m., blues scholar Elijah Wald will give a keynote lecture on Davis’s life and music. A panel discussion at 6:30 will include Kaukonen, Grossman, and Hawkins.
Wald, a musician and writer, has written for The Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times, and his books include How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music (Oxford University Press, 2009), The Blues: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2010), and Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues (Amistad, 2004). In 2001, he won a Grammy award for his liner notes for The Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Collection: The Journey of Chris Strachwitz 1960-2000.
The concert is the second event in the Southern Folklife Collection’s Blues Legacy Series. A third event is planned for Feb. 2012 for Eddie James “Son” House.
Davis was born in 1896 in Laurens, S.C., and lost his vision before adulthood. He moved to Durham, N.C., in the 1920s, and worked with a number of musicians in the Piedmont blues scene. In 1933, he became an ordained minister of the Washington, N.C., Free Baptist Connection Church. His best-known songs include “Baby, Can I follow You Down,” “Candy Man,” and “Samson and Delilah.”
The Southern Folklife Collection is fortunate to hold a variety of recordings and materials related to Rev. Gary Davis, including FT-4600 from the Bob Carlin Collection (#20050).  This open reel audio tape features a young Carlin interviewing one mentor (and former camp counselor) Roy Book Binder, a friend, student, and chauffeur of Gary Davis. The interview includes live concert recordings of Davis and Book Binder offering contextual information and sharing his personal experiences with Davis.

FT_4600 FT_4600_Roy Book Binder interviewed by Bob Carlin, WBRC New Milford, Connecticut, Summer 1969 
SymposiumWilson Special Collections Library, (Free and open to the public)
5 p.m. Reception
5:30 p.m. Keynote with Elijah Wald
6:30 p.m. Panel Discussion with Jorma Kaukonen, Stefan Grossman, and Ernie HawkinsConcertStudent Union, Great Hall, with Jorma Kaukonen, Stefan Grossman, and Ernie Hawkins
7:30 p.m.
Purchase concert tickets from Carolina Union Box Office, ($5 for students; $12.50 for others)Information: Liza TerllFriends of the Library, (919) 548-1203
Facebook event

SFC Halloween Spotlight: Roky Erickson live at Raul's

Good Evening_Roky Erickson“Children of the Night, what music we make” by Roky Erickson from CD-7041, Live at Raul’s (Dejadisc 1995)
Cover from 1995 Dejadisc CD reissue of Live at Raul’s

While perusing the the CD collections in the Southern Folklife Collection today and thinking of Halloween, I came across CD-7401, Live at Raul’s.  Recorded September 16, 1979, these recordings document the Austin punk scene that swirled around the Tex-Mex bar owned by Joseph Gonzales located just west of the University of Texas campus.  Featuring some of Austin’s most celebrated punk and new wave bands like The Standing Waves, The Skunks, and The Next, Live at Raul’s was also slated to feature two tracks by the legendary Roky Erickson.
Unfortunately due to contractual confusion, Erickson’s tracks did not appear on the original LP release in 1979, however they were included in the 1995 CD reissue. Studio versions of Erickson’s two tracks, “Don’t Shake Me Lucifer” and “Red Temple Prayer [Two Headed Dog]” were released a year later on Erickson’s first solo record, The Evil One (CBS 1980), an excellent record that features such Halloween appropriate subjects as ghosts, demons, vampires, zombies, and bloody hammers.
So as tribute to Halloween, rather than turn to The Evil One, we wanted to feature these lesser known versions of Erickson’s nightmare rock and roll songs. As you can hear from the clip at the top, Erickson fully immersed himself in the horror mood for a truly spooky performance.  Enjoy some Don’t Shake Me Lucifer” and “Red Temple Prayer [Two Headed Dog]” below.
Any of you readers have any Halloween favorites?  Please do share in the comments. Along with The Evil One, I usually give Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising a spin, and I find a little Screamin Jay Hawkins or Darkthrone’s Transilvanian Hunger are always a treat while carving a jack-o-lantern.  Happy Halloween.
Roky Erickson_Don’t Shake Me Lucifer “Don’t Shake Me Lucifer” by Roky Erickson from CD-7041, Live at Raul’s (Dejadisc 1995)
Two Headed Dog_Roky Erickson “Two Headed Dog” by Roky Erickson from CD-7041, Live at Raul’s (Dejadisc 1995)

SFC Spotlight: Vogue Records


Another item from our upcoming exhibit.  This Vogue picture disc, catalog number R764 (according to this excellent discography), features Shep Fields and his Orchestra (also known as Shep Fields and his Rippling Rhythm Orchestra) performing Sunny Skylar and Patrick Lewis’s hit song “Whatta ya Gonna Do!” and everybody’s favorite “I Guess I’ll Get the Papers (and go home).”  The image is attributed only to the mysterious “Sprink,” an illustrator who painted many of the Vogue discs and we now know was the artist Walter F. Sprink.
Vogue picture discs were made from May 1946 until April 1947 by Sav-Way Industries, Inc. of Detroit, Michigan.  According to the history compiled by the now defunct Association of Vogue Picture Record Collectors, Sav-Way CEO Tom Saffady and his engineers developed a new and complicated manufacturing process to ensure 78 rpm discs that were not only aesthetically beautiful but also hi-fidelity audio.  Most of the Vogue records feature post-war big band jazz orchestras, but a few include blues and even some country from those famed Sweethearts of Country Music, North Carolina’s own Lulu Belle and Scotty (nee Myrtle Eleanor Cooper and Scotty Greene Wiseman), and Patsy Montana.
The exhibit opens this Thursday, October 20th, as part of a celebration of the UNC Music Library 75th Anniversary.
The exhibit Curating Sound: 75 Years of Music Collections at UNC will open with a keynote address at 5:45 p.m. by Dr. Tim Carter, the David G. Frey Distinguished Professor of Music at UNC, titled “Adventures of an Archive Rat, or How Kurt Weill Came to Chapel Hill in May 1936.”
At 6:30 p.m. will be a concert titled “From Early to Old-Time: A Concert of Music from the Collections.” UNC students, music library staff members, and community musicians will perform music in four genres: Irish traditional, Baroque, early rockabilly, and old-time.
Curating Sound features original publications and artifacts from the Music Library and the Wilson Special Collections Library and will be on view through Jan. 31, 2012.
We hope to see you on Thursday, October 20.