First of all, I saw this comic, go ahead, read this comic:
http://catandgirl.com/view.php?loc=611
This comic is cute, but I think it’s got a point. And it’s an interesting point, at that, for folk musicians. Are we approacing (or regressing?) to a state of ‘post-consumerism’ in music? Where the everpresent microphone makes recordings meaningless and the idea of music as a commodity, moot? A marching resurgance of DIY Folk Musicians taking over the planet? Read on for my thoughts on this compelling cartoon!
(more…)
Tags: Comics, 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!
(more…)
Tags: Big Bill Broonzy, Pete Seeger
Hi guys, just a note. If you were at the Grafton pub this evening you got to see an excellent set by our friends The Pickin’ Bubs, but also a steller performance by guest artist Lauren Shera. We’ll have this set up pretty soon, but if you missed out on the show you can see Miss Shera at the Hideout (Elston and Wabansia), Wednesday night (6/25) at 6:00 pm and next Wednesday (7/2) also at 6pm. Check it out!
Tags: Lauren Shera
I got a chance to see the latest staging of Woody Guthrie’s American Song in Chicago last night. The production is a amalgamation of Guthrie’s songs and writings into a sort of narrative of his life. It was really great. Not really a biography, the production pretty well romanticizes Guthire’s career into one long string of bi-coastal ramblings, but never delves into the more morose events from his life. It would be a good introduction to Guthrie though, or familiar territory to anyone who knows his songs.
The show is more about exploring the recurring themes in guthrie’s songs and the beat yet optimistic attitude they embody. The cast is pretty great, they are all musically skilled pickers and singers and really bring these songs to life, they hit some super harmonies throughout the show as well. Check it out if you get a chance. And have a look at the wikipedia article when you get home to fill you in on the rest of Woody’s story.
The production runs at Chicago’s Victory Gardens theater, through July 20th 2008.
See Also:
Woody Guthrie on Wikipedia
Tags: Woody Guthrie
Hi Everyone, so this is the first episode of the podcast! For this first episode, I have the great pleasure to syndicate Mike Alberts’ monthly series ‘One Mike Stand’.
The live show runs at the Grafton Pub (Lincoln Avenue) every second Tuesday of the month, (Check out the live page for upcoming show dates) but we will be rebroadcasting the series after the fact. This episode was recoded in May and features three segments, Mike Alberts and Mark Mitchell in the first, Maura Lally and Peggy Browing as The Pickin’ Bubs in the second and songwriter Mark Dvorak in the third.
These guys are all doing great stuff, they are great at interpreting traditional folk and roots tunes and at creating new music, this some of the best songwriting going on in Chicago right now.
The Entire show runs 1h:51, the Pickin’ Bubs and Mark Dvorak’s sets are in part 2.
Enjoy!
If you use iTunes, click here to subscribe to this podcast and future episodes will be delivered directly to you when they are released.
Tags: Mark “Louie†Mitchell, Mark Dvorak, Maura Lally, Mike Alberts, One Mike Stand, Peggy Browning, The Pickin' Bubs
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
As folk musicians and appreciators we are quite aware of the contributions of the Appalachian region to the mythology and cannon of American folk music. It can sadden us then when we see interviews with West Virginians and Kentuckians in the run up to the Democratic presidential primaries culled for the most reactionary racist and stereotypical comments towards the candidates. How then can we try to reconcile this image with the music that we say we love? I read an interesting blog post by Michael J. Iafrate today regarding the stereotyping of Appalachian Americans through hurtful humor and imagery. From the blog post over at CatholicAnarchy.org:
Despite the complex sources and forces that contributed to the development of the image or idea of Appalachia, what developed, and continues to exist today, is a two-sided and contradictory image of Appalachians: that of a romanticized proud people steeped in tradition and “original†American values, or its opposite, a culture of backward, ignorant, and violent savages
….
Most Appalachian scholars locate the origin of the idea of Appalachia within various literary narratives, particularly the popular postbellum “local color†writers who constructed fiction centering around the curiosities of regional cultures which helped to define middle class American values by creating and gazing at exotic “others.†As has been the experience of other colonized peoples, a number of scholars have noted that the creation of a distinct, homogeneous region called Appalachia, as well as its colonization, was also facilitated by the missionary activity of the churches after the Civil War, who spread the political ideologies and values of middle class America to the people they served.
(more…)
Tags: Appalachia, Lead belly, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie
