Lydia Mendoza

Lydia Mendoza - This tex-mex Tejano legend is just awesome. <3

Article here

Elizabeth Cotten

Classic folk-music discovery of today: Elisabeth Cotten. Nice.



Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Please don't tell what train I'm on
They won't know what route I'm going

When I'm dead and in my grave
No more good times here I crave
Place the stones at my head and feet
And tell them all I've gone to sleep

When I die, oh bury me deep
Down at the end of old Chestnut Street
So I can hear old Number Nine
As she comes rolling by

"Unhalfbricking" rereleased

And Fairport Convention's magnificent "Unhalfbricking", one of the greatest albums ever, has just been rereleased in in the US. I love everything about this album. The cover pic is just magnificent too. Go read Pitchfork's review here.

And listen to "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" here:

WHO KNOWS WHERE THE TIME GOES?

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving

But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

And I am not alone while my love is near me
I know it will be so until it's time to go
So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time
For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?

"She Moved Through the Fair"

"Last night she came to me... my dead love came in" - Another song performed by, but not written by, Richard Thompson, this classic Irish folk song plays almost like a Neil Gaiman horror story.... although obviously it's more like the other way around, Gaiman being inspired by the folk tradition and all. This was one of the old folk songs that Thompsons legendary sixties band Fairport Convention helped revive.

The Original 1960s version by Fairport Convention, sung by the great Sandy Denny, and with a young Thompson on guitar, can be found here (embedded youtube play not allowed, so you'll have to click on the link), but the Thompson version below is also quite brilliant and creepy.

At the beginning of this clip you'll see some typical funny between song banter from Thompson. He probably does his funny skits so that all the dark songs he's singing doesn't make it all into a celebration of depression or something.

SHE MOVED THROUGH THE FAIR

My young love said to me, My parents won't mind
And my father won't slight you, For your lack of kind
And she laid her hand on me me , And this she did say,
"It will not be long love , Till our wedding day"

And She stepp'd away from me and she moved through the fair,
And fondly I watched her go here and go there,
Then she went her way homeward with one star awake,
Like the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

Last night she came to me, my dead love came in
So softly she came, that her feet made no din,
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say,
"It will not be long, love, till our wedding day."

It's sometimes sung with an extra verse between the second and third verse, but that verse left out of Fairports version, and from Thompsons solo version. It can be heard in this version by a nice-looking and sinister-sounding young lady on Youtube:

The people were saying no two were e'er wed,
But one has a sorrow that never was said,
And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear,
And that was the last that I saw of my dear.

Manufacturing Memory: American Popular Music in the 1930's

Cool online Jukebox here, featuring Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, The Carter Family, Ethel Waters, Blind Willie Johnson, Leadbelly, Duke Ellington, Robert Johnson, Judy Garland, Glenn Miller, etc etc. Doesn't get any better than that.

"American popular music from the 1930's reflects the cultural and social conditions that shaped the American identity during the period. For the purposes of this academic endeavor, the term "popular music" applies to any music in any genre from a select time frame that aspired to and achieved popularity with a particular audience. The popular music of the thirties can be used as a lens to better understand the collective memory of the American people during a decade marked by the Depression, emerging technologies and the growing population of cities as many Americans relocated from rural areas. The music in these pages is in many ways reflective of how Americans imagined themselves during this period. It is important to note that all of the songs posted here were originally released as phonograph records, and as such were the products of an industrial process that shaped this imagination of national identity."

Efisio Melis, Sardinian virtuoso

This page has an mp3 of legendary 1930s launeddas player Efisio Melis. The Launeddas/tripplepipe is an ancient instrument somewhat related to the scottish bag pipe.

Pretty haunting!

Wikipedia only has a little bit of info about Melis:

"Efisio Melis (1890–1970) was a legendary Sardinian folk musician.

He was born in Villaputzu near the southeastern tip of the island of Sardinia. Melis is considered to have been the greatest performer ever on the traditional instrument, the launeddas, which is typically used in the music of southern Sardinia.

Melis was a child prodigy, performing in public at the age of eleven. His career fell into decline in the 1920s, but revived in the mid-1930s when he made a number of authoritative recordings on the launeddas that have since been reissued and serve as important documentation of his skill. He was praised by the Danish musicologist, Fridolin Weis Bentzon, as having a talent comparable to that of Bach and Mozart (cited in Leydi, 1990). He died in Cagliari."

youtube clip of various other recordings of the launeddas-instrument:

Hindenburg disaster, "Doom & Gloom"

Hindenburg disaster 1937, it simply HAS to be in this blog:



This compilation was released a few months ago:

From the introduction to "Doom and Gloom - Early Songs of Angst and Disaster 1927-1945" compilation, released by Trikont:

"The modern age, driven by science and technology, made a promise: to put an end to all the evils of the past, once and for all. At last mankind would be freed from the horrors of disease, fire, plague, drought, floods and earthquakes. But progress also produced new horrors. Mega-technology in transport, and a drive towards ever larger capacity and higher speeds unleashed catastrophes on a scale previously unknown. Now a railway crash, a blazing zeppelin or a shipping disaster could inflict not dozens, but hundreds or even thousands of casualties. In the 1920s and 30s a series of disasters created a climate of fear, affecting the psyche in a way similar to today, when wars, fanaticism, terrorism, natural disasters, global warming, bird flu, tsunami, hurricanes and tornados all contribute to a gloomy atmosphere of uncertainty and constant dread. Hillbilly and blues musicians in the 1920s and 30s expressed the general mood in a poignant way. They sang of catastrophes and disasters, whether far away or on their doorstep. They talked of the effects these events had on the lives of ordinary people; they described what happened when disaster struck, as seen through the eyes of the victims. Perhaps the articulation of these awful events in songs helped to ease feelings of despair, offering a crumb of comfort to those listeners dealing with the brutal reality."

FEATURING:

BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON - ROY ACUFF AND HIS CRAZY TENNESSEEANS - CHARLIE POOLE WITH THE NORTH CAROLINA RAMBLERS - BIG BILL BROONZY - THE CARTER FAMILY - COFER BROTHERS - CAROLINA TWINS - THE DIXON BROTHERS - THE ALLEN BROTHERS - RICHARD ("RABBIT") BROWN - CASEY BILL WELDON - BESSIE SMITH - CHARLEY PATTON - and many more.

Review of the album:

VILLAGE VOICE, 28. August 2007
"Man, I almost didn’t want to remove this one from the plastic, such was my sweet anticipation: a picture of what is presumably the Hindenburg airship disaster on the sleeve; 24 songs (with none of this crap digital cleaning up of sound; but none of this crap ‘crackles and all’ stuff, either—pristine, in the right way) with titles like ‘When The Atom Bomb Fell’, ‘High Water Everywhere—Part 1,' ‘Sinking Of The Titanic’ and ‘School House Fire’ by artists like Bessie Smith, Charley Patton, Blind Willie Johnson and Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie. . . how could this even remotely, even possibly fail?. And how could anyone—any fan of music or of human suffering and pain, and furthermore loving a good tale well-spun within a song—resist an album like this once they’d stumbled across it? Don’t bother answering that: if you’re cynical ‘bout this, there ain’t no helping you." Everett True