So here’s another great out of print album from Chicago’s Win Stracke. Long before The Offspring were tearing up the crummy mid 90s-alterna-pop punk charts, Win released his album Americana. Win’s booming bass voice make this album seem much fuller than the liner notes lead you to believe. The album has a the Big Rock Candy Mountian and Dinks Song tracks that are among Win’s most famous. The album features accompaniment by the excellent guitar player Richard Pick.
Americana
- Paul Bunyan’s Manistee
- Single Girl
- No Irish Need Apply
- Duncan and Brady
- Wanderin’
- Debate - Cold Water versus Rye Whiskey
- Big Rock Candy Mountain
- Dink’s song
- Acres of Clam
- Venuezla
- the Colarado Trail
- Ladies Man
Click here to download the mp3s as a Zip archive: Americana.zip
See Also
Tags: Dusty Grooves, richard pick, the Offspring, Win Stracke
The other half of the Chicago’s Old Town School from Frank Hamilton was a guy named Win Stracke. Frank and Win met while performing at The Gate of Horn club in Chicago. The two were unlikely partners, while Frank was a young kid, at the founding of the school in 1957 Win was already an institution In Chicago (and somewhat nationally).
In addition to the albums he cut he was a founding member of I Come For to Sing a sort of folk variety show with Studs Terkel, Big Bill Broonzy and Larry Lane. He was a pioneering member of the Chicago style of television as a cast member on Stud’s Terkel’s show Studs Place and as Uncle Win on NBC’s Animal Playtime and Time For Uncle Win. He too, like Pete Seeger, was hit pretty hard by the Hollywood Blacklist, after loosing his television shows he relied on commerical voice over work during this period.
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Tags: Win Stracke
After posting the out of print album version of this concert a bit ago a friend of gave me a copy of the complete concert as it was broadcast on Chicago WFMT radio in 1956. Here’s a copy of it for all your Independence Day Barbecues. From the liner notes:
This historic concert was broadcast live on WFMT radio’s ‘Midnight Special’, on October 25, 1956. It was one of Big Bill’s last shows before being diagnosed with cancer, and one of Pete’s first visits to chicago after leaving the Weavers. This concert is remembered as an important event in Chicago folk music. Soon The Gate of Horn, the first folk music night club in the nation, would open on the near north side, and within the year the Old Town School of Folk Music would open it’s doors.
Click here to download an archive of this concert:
PeteAndBillNorthwestern.zip
See Also:
Pete Seeger and Big Bill Broonzy in Concert
Tags: Big Bill Broonzy, Pete Seeger
Another cool out of print record. This is a live recording Big Bill and Pete Seeger made at Northwestern University in 1956. It was released on the Verve Folkways label. It’s a nice recording and features standards from both performers and some funny banter. The back cover of the album features a write up by Chicago author and journalist extraordinaire Studs Terkel. Of the blues and Bill, studs say, “Does not the blues tell us of man’s condition - not just one man, but all men?” and of Pete, he says, “If ever a performer represented ‘the oneness of man’ it’s Seeger”, and I think I’ll leave it at that.
Update 7/1/2008: Our good friend Mark Dvorak has given us his recording of the Entire WFMT Broadcast of this concert. I’ll be putting it up shortly!
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Tags: Big Bill Broonzy, Pete Seeger
Frank Hamilton is a musician’s folk musician. Co-Founder of Chicago’s Old Town of Folk Music, and teacher for half a decade, he has been exploring and preserving folk music from not just the American tradition, but from all over the world for longer than a lot of us have been alive. Frank came from the west cost (briefly, in his teen years of the 1950s, even playing with Woody Guthrie when he was living out there on Will Geer’s ranch) to chicago bringing with him a teaching style he learned out there from Bess Lomax Hawes. After founding the school in 1957 he spent a short few years as the dean and finally left to fill in for Pete Seeger in the Weavers. He also played at the 1959 Newport Festival and regularly in Chicago at places like the famous nightclub, the Gate of Horn. He deserves a longer look than we will do today, but we will revisit the man in the future. (more…)
Tags: Frank Hamilton, Old Town School, Valucha DeCastro
So, In the future I’d like to share some of the out of print records I have on my shelf, here is the first of these with a small note and a zip archive of the record at the end. Enjoy.
The Earl of Old Town was a bar in Chicago owned by a guy named Earl Pionke. Opened in 1961 on the site of an ex-Antique store on Wells St and North Ave, the bar didn’t start with idea of being a folk nightcub but eventually fell into the role. The Earl had music seven nights a week and was the place that gave a start to soon to be famous artists like Bonnie Koloc and John Prine.
This album is a set of live recordings from the Earl titled, ‘Gathering at the Earl of Old Town’, it was released on Drive Archive in 1970. The folky 70s seemed to be a time when you could call something a Gathering in full seriousness and people would willingly show up. It features performances by several Earl regulars, and marks the first appearance on record of Steve Goodman performing what would become arguably his most famous song City of New Orleans. Also on this, my favorite, are the four tracks by notable Chicago folk siblingry Fred and Ed Holstein. (more…)
Tags: Earl Of Old Town, Ed Holstein, Fred Holstein, Steve Goodman
