Music

Tuesday, October 17, 2000

So, a little happy music to celebrate. I discovered Greatest Hits! Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band in the late 60s. It helped start the jug band movement in the early 60s. Twisted jug band. But with so much energy. Maria D'Amoto on "That's When I'll Come Back To You", "Richland Woman", "Chevrolet" and "I'm a Woman". Unforgettable on those late nights that I don't remember so well. A voice that sticks in your head. Later, around 1973, I was working nights in a photo lab printing color. Robot work in a dark room with the radio going. And that voice came out of the ether. "Don't feel my thigh." I was dissapointed when the DJ announced it was Maria Muldaur. It was later that I realized Maria D'Amoto was singing Chevrolet with fellow jug bander Geoff Muldaur. Duh! Go to the link and listen to the clips at Amazon. Use up their bandwith. Buy it and make me rich. Buy it and you'll be rich.

That led me to search Amazon for one of the most twisted records (yes, records - you know, those big black CDs) that I own. One of those that I would run back into a burning building for. Oh, euphoria!! It's available, finally, on CD. The Holy Modal Rounders - 1 & 2 The review at Amazon says it.

This is a reissue of the first two Holy Modal Rounders records, resequenced according to the artists' original intent and including two unreleased songs from the time of the recording (1963-64). Perhaps the most earsplittingly original duo of the entire folk revival, the Holy Modal Rounders (fiddler-banjoist Peter Stampfel with guitarist Steve Weber) merged the raw energies of rock, traditional American folk, and blues in a weird, whimsical manner (later dunderheadedly termed "acid folk"). The Holy Modal Rounders performed screeching yet subtle versions of old numbers by the likes of Clarence Ashley, Vernon Dalhart, and Uncle Dave Macon, updating tunes like "Hesitation Blues" with a countercultural reference or two (their version of that song contains the first recorded usage of "psychedelic"). This is one of the coolest things about the Rounders--as Stampfel writes in the liner notes, their basic approach to an old tune was to "hear song, forget song, try to remember song while adding your personal wrinkles, bingo!" An irreverent wit pervades the disc, from pop-tune parodies such as "Mr. Spaceman" to their original folk-based songs (which were neither preachy nor ham-fisted--a true rarity in '63) such as "Blues in the Bottle" and "Hey, Hey Baby." The result not only sounds way less corny than anything else from the era, but hews much closer to the raggedly strange, sublime Americana sounds of Charlie Poole, Dock Boggs, and Charley Patton. --Mike McGonigal

This now available to anyone. What's more, it has their first two albums and I have only heard their first. Oh, joy! Again, go to the link and listen to the clips. You have never heard anything like it. Unless...

Anthology Of American Folk Music (Edited by Harry Smith) This is where Kweskin and the Rounders (and Dylan, and all those city boys in the 50s) learned about Charlie Poole, Dock Boggs, and Charley Patton. They are all here including Johnny Cash's mother-in-law who is incredible. Again, Amazon-

This impressive--and frankly, fun--musical document is still sending out shock waves almost 50 years after its original 1952 vinyl release. The Smithsonian's 6 CD reissue is painstakingly researched, annotated and packaged (even boasting an enhanced disc for the techno-capable). Unlike field recorders, eccentric filmmaker/collector/musicologist Harry Smith assembled the Anthology from commercially released (though obscure) 78 rpm discs issued between 1927 and 1935. Its broad scope--from country blues to Cajun social music to Appalachian murder ballads--was monumentally influential; setting musicians like Bob Dylan down the path to folk fandom. The White House started its own national music library with the Anthology; anyone with more than a passing interest in American roots music should do the same. --Michael Ruby

Music without time. Again, go to the link and use up Amazon's bandwidth.