The NRR Project: Blind Willie McTell and 'Statesboro Blues'

 

"Statesboro Blues”

Written by Blind Willie McTell

Performed by Blind Willie McTell, vocals and guitar

Recorded Oct. 17, 1928

2:32

You have heard this song before, just not in its original version.

Anyone exposed to rock and roll will know the iconic 1971 performance of this song by the Allman Brothers on their first live album, raucous and slashing, full of bluesy guitar squeals and whines.

The Allman version, however, is based directed on a slide-inflected, upbeat version recorded by Taj Mahal in 1967. The Brothers heard this in concert and determined to cover it themselves.

Taj Mahal reached far back into the history of the blues to revive this song. Blind Willie McTell, the song’s creator and first performer, played it into the microphone in 1928.

Now, I could not do better than the comprehensive essay onthis song by Bruce Bader on the National Recording Registry website. It is beyond comprehensive. However, I can say that McTell (originally McTier, but people couldn’t understand his slurring) was a quiet genius, one whose musicianship is expressed modestly, and with understated wit.

McTell accompanies himself on the 12-string guitar, and unusual choice at the time. The com-plex rhythms that underlie his verses propel the song forward, gently. His chiming tenor floats over the arrangement, chanting out a series of vaguely related blues verses, a kind of portmanteau song.

 Wake up, mama, turn your lamp down low

Wake up, mama, turn your lamp down low

Have you got the nerve to drive Papa McTell from your door?

 

My mother died and left me reckless

My daddy died and left me wild, wild, wild

Mother died and left me reckless

Daddy died and left me wild, wild, wild

No, I'm not good lookin' but I'm some sweet woman's angel child

 

She's a mighty mean woman, do me this a-way

She's a mighty mean woman, do me this a-way

When I leave this town, pretty mama, I'm goin' away to stay

 

I once loved a woman, better than any I'd ever seen

I once loved a woman, better than any I'd ever seen

Treated me like I was a king and she was a doggone queen

 

Sister, tell your brother, brother tell your auntie

Now auntie, tell your uncle, uncle tell my cousin

Now cousin, tell my friend

Goin' up the country, mama, don't you want to go?

May take me a fair brown, may take one or two more

 McTell never had a recognizable hit during his lifetime – he died in 1959, nine years before Taj Mahal’s rediscovery and rebroadcast of this essential blues track.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: Rosa Ponselle sings ‘Casta Diva’ from Bellini’s ‘Norma.’

 

The NRR Project: the Standing Rock Reservation Recordings

 

Standing Rock Reservation Recordings

Members of the Yanktoni Tribe

Recorded by: George Herzog

Recorded 1928

205 Yanktoni songs

First of all, I could not do better than the explanatoryessay by Daniel B. Reed, as published on the National Recording Registry website. It is concise yet comprehensive, full of all the information you might like to know on the subject.

That being said, it behooves me to take a crack at of at least summarizing this entry’s contents. It consists of 205 songs of the Yanktoni tribe of the Sioux nation, sung by seven members of the tribe, recorded in 1928 by budding (and pioneering) ethnomusicologist George Herzog. The songs range from sacred and ceremonial songs to secular pieces, made contemporaneously with the time of performance.

It seems distinctly ironic to me that the powers that be in the white man’s world first marked native Americans for destruction, subjugated them, and then meticulously preserved and studied the remnants of their culture. This schizophrenic pattern concerning indigenous and minority peoples is a familiar one. Nonetheless, with or without apologies here is a collection of vital memories that otherwise would have been lost forever.

Recorded on wax cylinders, the collection is still in the process of being digitized. Beyond the documentation of a collapsed culture, the material offers insights to scholarly researchers. Above all, it provides a link to the past for the surviving descendant’s of the songs’ singers.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: Blind Willie McTell and ‘Statesboro Blues.’

 

 

The NRR Project: 'Smyrneikos Balos'

Smyrneikos Balos

Traditional

Performed by Marika Papagika; accompanists unknown

Recorded 1928

4:03

It took a while for ethnic music to be represented on American recordings. Frankly, at the beginning record companies wanted popular hits; for a few decades they maximized mainstream music production, putting out whatever they thought would catch the fancy of the widest possible audience.

But gradually it came to be realized that there were smaller but markedly more enthusiastic groups of folks that would buy ethnic music, specifically music from their homeland. The pangs of assimilating into American culture were tempered by an adherence to and affection for old, traditional cultural creations, helping to maintain the identity of the immigrants.

Marika Papagika was among the earliest Greek-American artists to be recorded. She was born on the island of Kos in 1890; she began her recording career in Alexandria, Egypt in 1913-14. Soon after that, she and her husband Kostas (Gus) immigrated to America. Over the course of 1918-19, she began to record for both Victor and Columbia. The subset of ethnic music fans snapped up her recordings, making her famous in the context of the Greek-American community.

In 1925, she and her husband opened a nightclub (and speakeasy), Marika’s, at 34^th and 8^th in Manhattan. There, the Greek-American, and migrants from other regions near the old country, settled in for food, conversation, and entertainment. \

It is estimated that she recorded at least 232 sides during her American recording career, 1918-1929. All were songs from the old country. She was accompanied by her husband on the cymbalom, and by others at various times on violin, cello, and clarinet.

Her soprano voice is clear and vibrant, keening at one moment and slurring into a note-quaver the next. Smyrneikos Balos is a dance tune, but it is also a lover’s lament, and even those of us with no Greek can catch the energy of longing she puts into the song.

Marika’s closed in 1930, and Marika more or less retired. Still, her 78 r.p.m. slices of sounds from home comforted its listeners.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: the Standing Rock Preservation Recordings.

 

 

The NRR Project: 'Allons a Lafayette'

 

Allons a Lafayette

Traditional

Performed by Joseph Falcon and Cleva Breaux; vocals, Leon Meche

Recorded April 27, 1928

2:56

It’s the first commercial recording of Cajun music. Now, let’s figure out – what is Cajun music? Who are Cajuns?

It starts back during the time of the French and Indian War. The British wrested Canada from the French, and dealt the French-speaking population of the colony of Acadia a bitter blow – they forcibly exiled thousands of them to Louisiana, between the years of 1755 and 1764. Why Louisiana? For the simple fact that France still controlled it.

This “Great Expulsion” meant that a whole set of language, custom, and culture was transported south and intermingled with the predominant Creole (mixed-race) heritage of the region. They wound up creating a unique and vibrant mini-culture, grounded in spicy and delicious food, dance, and music.

 Cajun tunes come primarily in two forms – the first, a hopping-fast two-step full of juicy chords emanating from the accordion, guitar, fiddle, and percussion quartet that forms the typical Cajun music ensemble; the second consists of dreamy waltzes. This is perfect music for a party, infectious and good-tempered.

Using only an accordion and guitar, Falcon and Breaux create a sonic storm, an onslaught of notes topped by the keening vocals of Meche in Cajun French, itself a unique concoction of colloquial language.

The song is derived from a traditional tune, “Jeune Gens Campagnard,” but it’s sped up and given new lyrics. In “Allons,” the singer is cajoling his beloved, asking her to change her name and get out of town with him, presumably to engage in some hanky-panky. The jolly, light-hearted tune became a hit, guaranteeing that more of this unique music would be recorded, preserved, and celebrated.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: Smyrneikos Balos.

The NRR Project: The Victor Bristol sessions

The Carter family.

Victor Talking Machine recording sessions

Bristol, Tennessee

July 25 – Aug. 5, 1927

Wonder of wonders! There is a legendary story about a music producer swinging into a sleepy Appalachian town for a couple of weeks in the hot summer of 1927 and discovering the first greats of American country music. Fortunately, that story is true.

Country music had not really been recorded or heard popularly until 1922 in New York City, and even then was referred to as “hillbilly music.” It proved to be quite popular, spurring a search for more of the same. Also helpfully, the transition from acoustic to electric recordings in 1925 meant that microphones were more sensitive and could pick up softer instruments such as the guitar. By the late ‘20s, the leading record manufacturers were sending recording teams out into the country to find and develop new talent.

Ralph Peer was an A & R (“Artists and repertoire”) producer for Victor, one who sought out and signed artists. He took only $1 a year in salary, but he retained all the publishing rights to everything he recorded, paying the recording artists royalties based on sales – a business practice still in effect today. Peer asked one of his early hitmakers Ernest Stoneman where he could find more hillbilly musicians. Stoneman directed him towards the heart of Appalachia: Bristol, which straddled the line between Tennessee and Virginia.

There he and his engineers set up an impromptu recording studio, on the third floor of the Taylor-Christian Hat and Glove Company. Advertisements in the local newspaper solicited performers. Eventually, Peer would capture 76 performances by 19 different groups and individuals, some of which were contracted to produce more work.

Most prominent among these performers, which included such acts as Ernest Phipps and his Holiness Quartet, the Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers, and the West Virginia Coon Hunters, were the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. A.P. Carter, his wife Sara and her sister-in-law Maybelle formed a trio that would wind up recording many of the foundational country songs – “Wabash Cannonball,” “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes,” and many more. (Their best-known cut from Bristol was probably “Single Girl, Married Girl.") Their prominence in the genre was undisputed, and they rapidly rose to fame.

Similarly, Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman, was massively influential. Known as “the Father of Country Music,” his sessions in Bristol were solos, as he had broken up with his band shortly before recording time. While he only cut two sides that day, the singer and songwriter made an impression that led to many hit recordings before his untimely death six years later.

It wasn’t until 2011 that a multi-CD set of all the Bristol recordings was curated an pressed, but now we can hear all of the sessions (Peer found that gospel music was a big seller, too) aand think about the amazing intersection of talent and technology that produced this music.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: Marika Papagika and ‘Smyrneikos Balos.’

 

The NRR Project: First transatlantic telephone conversation

 

First official transatlantic telephone conversation

January 7, 1927

The idea that one can speak to anyone, anywhere in the world, instantly, is a new one. International calls that used to be held over cumbersome land lines were difficult and expensive. However, even that level of communication was not conceived of until AT&T created a viable mode of transmission from one continent to another.

All the salient facts regarding the first official transatlantic telephone conversation can be found in Cary O’Dell and SheldonHochheiser’s excellent essay at the National Recording Registry web site. The advance meant that transcontinental conversations, business matters, and new reports could be transmitted instantly. The limitations of time and space were shrinking.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: the Victor Talking Machine Company session in Bristol, Tennessee.

 

 

 

CU in outer space: Missions, experiments aim at deep-space exploration

From Boulder Magazine! Photo by Bonnie Chaim.

 A half a century after the last human visitor stepped on the moon, mankind is looking to the stars again – and the University of Colorado at Boulder is leading the way.

Boulder’s hometown university is a key player in space science and exploration, and has been since 1948, when CU scientists participated in the launches of captured German V-2 rockets on suborbital missions at a missile range at White Sands, New Mexico. Since then, CU has worked with NASA (founded in 1958) and other space agencies to provide expertise, research, and personnel for expeditions beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

CU-Boulder receives $120 million in aerospace-related research yearly, and the university boasts of more than 20 aerospace-related academic departments, centers, and institutes. To date, 20 CU-Boulder scientists, faculty, and alumni have gone into space, on 52 missions. Hundreds of CU-Boulder-built scientific instruments have flown into the outer reaches as well.

One of the most significant upcoming journeys to feature CU involvement will be this spring’s Polaris Dawn launch. This commercial flight will spend up to five days in orbit and will feature the first-ever all-civilian spacewalk, laser-based communications testing, and much scientific research.

One member of the four-person crew, Mission Specialist, Sarah Gillis, 29, is an almost-Boulder native (she got here at three months of age), and a graduate of CU-Boulder. If the launch goes as scheduled, she will be the youngest American ever to orbit the Earth.

Her primary focus will be to conduct many of the 38 scheduled science and research experiments during the mission. Many are focused on human health, both on Earth and on long-duration space flights. One of her collaborators on the ground is CU Assistant Professor Torin Clark, assistant professor in BioServe Space Technologies, who with fellow CU-Boulder aerospace engineer Allie Anderson will lead five experiments that study how astronauts experience motion sickness, disorientation, and similar issues during space flight and upon their return to Earth.

“We’re studying how the astronauts’ brains are affected by the environment,” Clark says. One experiment involves inducing motion sickness. “That’s not one we’re looking forward to,” he quips.

One long-term goal of the mission? To prepare humans to return to the Moon, and to reach for a landing on Mars, by the end of this decade.

“I was in high school when Apollo 11 landed,” says Dr. Jack Burns, CU professor and head of the Network for Exploration and Space Science, a collaboration among several universities, NASA, and significant regional commercial entities such as Ball Aerospace and Lockheed Martin. “If you would have told me then that it would have been more than 50 years before returning, I would have said you’re crazy.”

Burns is an articulate exponent of space science and exploration, over a 50-year career that includes 21 years at CU. He posits the creation of what he terms a sustainable space program.

“When you look at the history of American space missions, Apollo was not sustained once the political goals were finished. Now we are concerned not with a one-and-done, ‘flags and footsteps’ approach, but a public and private infrastructure for space exploration, something that would grow and develop over time, including what NASA calls an Artemis base camp on the Moon by the end of the decade,” he says.

“We look to set up a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon,” Burns continues. “We will be learning to live of what the Moon provides, doing things like getting water from the ice at the poles. All this with an eye to look forward, to going to Mars.”

Of CU’s dominant affiliation with space studies, Burns says, “It just all came together. As a strong and well-known research university, it just continued to build over time. Of course,” he adds, “Boulder’s a wonderful place to live as well.”