H I L L INO S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PRODUCTION NOTE

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007.

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Number 33 &0414 April 15, 1970

MIKE SEEGER HERE TONIGHT

April 15, 8:00 p.m., Lincoln Hall Theater

Mike Seeger was born in in 1933 and has lived most of his adult life in the Baltimore-Washington area. His father, Charles, a musicologist, and his mother, Ruth, a composer, became interested in in the early thirties, and sang folksongs informally with their four children, Mike, Penny, Peggy, and Barbara.

In addition to this family circle, Mike Seeger's education consisted of listening to hundreds of Library of Congress field recordings as well as to early commercial records of southern mountain music. Albums by his brother, Peter, also were daily fare at home. Mike began to play the guitar in 1951, followed by the banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, harmonica, autoharp, and dulcimer.

In mid-1958, , Tom Paley, and Mike Seeger formed the , whose style was based on old-time American string bands. Since 1962, when Tom Paley was replaced by Tracy Schwarz, the group has expanded its repertoire to include unaccompanied ballads as well as more modern bluegrass selections. Also, the Ramblers have become the leading performer-spokesmen for traditional country music in the . The group has recorded many albums for Folkways. Seeger has recorded four excellent solo albums on Vanguard and Folkways.

Over the past ten years, Mike Seeger's tours have included folk festivals, college concerts, and coffee houses in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. He has been active in such important scenes as the Newport Festival and the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folk Life.

Perhaps Mike Seeger's most memorable contribution will prove to be that of folksong field collector. He has worked with such great artists as , Elizabeth Cotton, and Ernest "Pop" Stoneman to produce LPs of tremendous significance--documents of our nation's traditional heritage.

CONCERT REVIEW

Buell Kazee at the U. of I., March 21, 1969

The problem of the "folk" esthetic is a ubiquitous one. When the so-called "folksong revival" was at its height, the scene in this country, at least, was a confused one, from the scholar's point of view. The situation was unique; for the first time, "folk" music and "folk" song made up a not inconsiderable portion of the popular cultural scene. The obfuscation and nit-picking which followed, not only in the halls of Academe, but in the midst of the masses, resulted in no concrete definitions. But the value of that period to all truly interested parties cannot be discounted, at least in one sense, to wit: the confusion of the period drove home to many people the realization that all art must be judged in terms of its proper esthetic. That is, it is inappropriate to judge a "folk singer" in terms of "pop" esthetic. Similarly, it is equally inappropriate to judge a "pop" singer in terms of the esthetic of "folk" society.

This is not a terribly profound comment, but neither is it trivial. The battles have raged back and forth in the academic journals, in SING OUTI, and most vehemently in the Campus Folksong Club. Folk song "purists" derided Judy Collins as being "un-ethnic" and "not traditional." Kingston Trio enthusiasts scorned the music of, say, Leadbelly, as being "unpolished" or even "crude."

Who was (and is) right? The answer: neither group; both the "purists" and the "commercialists" went to extremes in their accusations, and both factions neglected to objectively consider the criteria upon which their esthetic was based.

Buell Kazee, who performed in concert for the Campus Folksong Club on March 21, 1969, has caused a great deal of local commentary in terms of "esthetics." The problem is this:

Mr. Kazee is a singer of "folk" material; that is, material that has come to him through the slightly mysterious process of "oral tradition," and Mr. Kazee is also a very intelligent and well educated man who has had, among other things, formal voice training.

Even to those who did not see Mr. Kazee here in Champaign on March 21 the problem is obvious. Is Buell Kazee a "folk singer?"

Mr. Kazee has been compared with Richard Dyer-Bennett. That, I feel, is an unfortunate comparison. Both men sing "traditional" songs, and both men are accomplished instrumentalists, and both men have trained voices. Yet I would unhesitatingly pronounce Buell Kazee a "folksinger" and Richard Dyer-Bennett an "art singer of folk songs." The difference is this: Buell Kazee is not only singing traditional material, he is moreover performing material which is specifically in his own tradition; Dyer-Bennett, on the other hand, is repro- ducing something from a tradition not his own. Simply put, Buell Kazee is a folksinger because he is a "folk," and Richard Dyer-Bennett is not a folksinger because he is not a "folk."

Now, all of this seems mighty familiar. So far this article is a restate- ment of the "ox-driver" argument. That is, "if you are not now and never have been an ox-driver, and you sing a traditional song of the ox-drivers, are you a folksinger?" The answers to that question are as varied as the answerers. Many very learned men, confronted with this question, have thrown up their hands in despair and said, "It depends." The argument proper has never (at least, not to my satisfaction) been settled. What has come out of discussions of that argument is the very important and germane point that ox-drivers, singing their ox-driver- song, should be judged according to the stylistic esthetics of their own tra- dition, and other men, singing the ox-drivers song, should be judged esthetically in terms of their own traditions.

Having gotten all of this seemingly picayune business out of the way, I shall proceed to the main thesis of this article, which is that Buell Kazee, judged in terms of his own traditions and his own proper esthetic, is a great musician and singer, and that he demonstrated that greatness fully on the even- ing of March 21, in 141 Commerce West Hall of this campus.

Mr. Kazee began his program slowly, having informed the audience that "it often takes half an hour or so. You can't just sit down and do this..not properly."

After a number of ballads and slow songs, Mr. Kazee played some of the more lyrical and lighter songs. Still, the high point of the evening, for myself at least, was "Lady Gay."

A number of people in the audience pointed out later that many of Mr. Kazeets tunes were unfamiliar to them, though the song texts were old favorites. I noticed "different" (to me) tunes to both t Sporting Bachelors" and "The Rowan County Crew," but it should be once more pointed out that Buell Kazee sticks strictly to his own traditions. The tunes he sang are the tunes he learned when he was a boy.

Just one word about the banjo styles involved: Mr. Kazee utilizes what many people call "frailing." (That is, downpicking with the fingernail, then a brush across the strings, and then the striking of the fifth string with the thumb.) However, Mr. Kazee does not think of his style as frailing. (He told me that frailing was a different way of playing, but he did not explain it further,)

There is at least one aspect of Mr. Kazee's banjo playing which is (as far as I know) unique. Occasinnally he brings his thumb over to hit one of the inside strings, that is, the second or thrid string. This is found frequently in the "double-thumbing" style, but Buell Kazee is the only man I have ever seen pick a string with his thum while the thumb is moving upwards. While up-picking with the thumb-nail is the logical extension of a frailing style, it is extremely difficult to do. Banjo players who pay close attention to Mr. Kazee's technique should note the distinctive flavor of this unusual fillip.

The concert proper ended with an impromptu collusion of Buell Kazee and The Girl in the Blue Velvet Band. As a member of the GBVB, I found that to be a real pleasure and a marvelous experience; Mr. Kazee is the finest old-timey banjo picker I have ever had the pleasure to accompany.

Though I have indicated my own enjoyment of the Buell Kazee concert, all readers of AUTOHARP should form their own opinions. Those who missed the concert on March 21 should strive to hear Mr. Kazee, somehow, somewhere. The LP album Buell Kazee (Folkways FS 3810) is a good start. He is a great man and a great performer, and he deserves the attention of all who are interested in traditional American folksong.

-- Tom Adler POLK FESTIVAL OF THE SMOKIES

May 28, 29, 30 1970 Civic Auditorium--Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Dear Friends,

You are cordially invited to attend the second annual "FOLK FESTIVAL OF THE SMOKIES," to be held in the Civic Auditorium, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, on May 28, 29, 30, 1970, sponsored by the Folk Life Center of the Smokies, Inc., and directed by Jean and Lee Schilling of Cosby, Tennessee.

The Festival, founded by Jean, received national recognition last year through the facilities of the National Educational Television Network, which broadcast nationally a two-hour, color, videotape of the Festival as a part of its series "Sounds of Summer." As a result, letters of acclaim were received from all parts of the country, from to Maine. In Boston, Massachusetts, this videotape of the Festival was shown every night for a week.

This year the three day Festival will feature Janette Carter, daughter of A. P. and Sarah Carter, "The Original Carter Family;" Frank George playing the; hammered-dulcimer, bagpipes, fiddle, and fretless banjo; Glenn Ohrlin, authentic singer of traditional Western songs; Elizabeth Cotten, who at the age of ten wrote one of America's most famous folk songs, "Freight Train;" Frank Proffitt, Jr.; John and David Morris; the Berger Folk; Anne Romaine; The LeFevre Family; Hank Arbaugh; Sparky Rucker; The Pinnacle Mountain Boys; The Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers; Roger Bellows; The Pisgah View Ranch Square Dancers; Jim Cope; Andy King; Hal McGaha; The Highland Dancers; Danny Brown; Red Rector; Rutherford County Square Dancers; and Jean and Lee Schilling.

Many other fine traditional singers, dancers, and musicians are expected. Additional information for performers and volunteer workers may be obtained by writing the Festival Directors. Competitions will be held Thursday night with judges selecting the Folk Festival Champion Guitarist, Fiddler, Folksinger, Dulcimer, Banjo (two classes), Autoharp, Mandolin, and Harmonica Player. Hand- crafted trophies will be awarded. No electrified instruments or drums will be allowed. Special matinees during the Festival will present the "World on a String" Marionette Show from Raleigh, North Carolina. These clever marionettes will do some old time "Clogging and Fiddling" in an original script written by Shirley Gold and Celest Bennett.

The Festival will be held during a time of the year when the mountains are particularly lovely. Campgrounds will be open and several motels will be offer- ing off-season rates for Festival-goers. The "Mountain Manor Motel," across from the Civic Auditorium, will be the Festival housing headquarters. Room reserva- tions for the Festival may be made by writing to Mr. Henson, Mountain Manor Motel, Gatlinburg, Tennessee 37738. BOOK REVIEW

Blues People, by LeRoi Jones

In today's music, we find many references to the blues, from 's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" to Perry Como singing "Bye Bye Blues" to Muddy Waters' record entitled "The Real Folk Blues." An analysis of blues is likely to be a complex problem, as LeRoi Jones would certainly acknowledge. In his book Blues People (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1963), he approaches the problem from a functional and developmental viewpoint, tracing the history of both the blues and the American Negroes from the first days of slavery to the present.

Jones never gives a definition of the blues more formal than the subtitle of the book: Negro Music in White America. He does not classify the blues in the context of other music forms (i.e., by examining melodic or harmonic patterns, etc.) because he feels that the relationship between the Negro people and the blues is so intimate that reference to the people is required for any definition. The very same music sung by another people in a different culture would not have been blues--and likewise, the Negroes would never have developed from a congregation of captive Africans to a people with a distinct and pro- ductive culture had they not experienced the emotions and reactions that are expressed in the blues.

Blues was the slaves' first expression of their identity. With the deporta- tion to the New World had come a complete upheaval of their family system and the suppression by the slave owners of most expressions of African culture. Music was one of the few traditional means of expression that was permitted to survive since it had no concrete product or artifact which could be destroyed. But the music was necessarily changed to fit the new conditions of slave life. Old African songs about hunting or fishing had no meaning to people who spent their lives in the cotton fields. African religious music and rituals which concerned gods or spirits embodied by natural objects were forcibly replaced by hellfire and brimstone Christian beliefs. The intent of this conversion was to calm the savage passions of the slaves and placate their discontent by offering them hope for a better life after they die. But only marginally did the Southerners even recognize the right of the slaves to be saved, since they were not really people with souls but mere property. Thus with music almost the only means left them for expression, the Negroes naturally found in it a vent for their despair and anger, and for their new-found feelings of being individuals in a growing nation of American Negroes.

The early forms of blues showed the influence of African "shouts" which consisted usually of a rhythmic line sung by a leader and a chorus of people joining in for the repetition, old Christian humns which the masters taught their slaves, and work songs which had pronounced rhythmic patterns to fit the rhythm of monotonous field labor. But the content of the songs was soon expanded to incorporate the deepest emotions of the Negroes as exemplified in the worksong:

"...Oh, Laws, I'm tired,. uuh Oh, Lawd, I'm tired a dis mess." (from Blues People, p. 60).

No sooner did forces develop which allowed the blues to express identity and unity in the suffering of the slaves than did other forces arise which split this unity and threatened or denied this identity. From the time of slavery when there was a division between "house niggers" and "field niggers" through and especially after the Emancipation when Negroes began to move to the Northern cities and form a middle class, there was great tension between the higher and lower class Negroes. The situation in New Orleans showed this split extremely well and also showed how the two factions of Negroes developing separate cultures could contribute much more to the broadening development of the blues.

New Orleans was already a city of many foreign cultural influences. The lighter skinned Negroes of mixed racial descent chose to associate themselves with the French culture of the city and considered the darker Uptown Negroes to be savages. Yet each group took advantage of the great number of European music forms and musical instruments to blend with their own music and express their desired identity. The Creoles adopted rhythms from French quadrilles and started their own military bands. Originally the Uptown Negroes tried to emulate these forms also, but they found they were ridiculed and could not be accepted by the Creoles just because they could imitate their music. So they returned to their old music which was more African-oriented, applying the very term by which they had been ridiculed, "jass" (meaning dirty), to the music that was theirs alone. The new instruments such as brass, reeds, guitar and string bass, remained though and the blues had moved into an instrumental vein. Later, just before the turn of the century when segregation enforcement became much more strict, the Creoles and Negroes were forced back together to interact while confronting a common enemy. The accompanying fusion of the Creole virtuosity on the new instruments with the Negroes' keen rhythmic sense led to the flourishing of jazz.

Meanwhile in the North, Negro music was also flourishing and expressing the dilemma of wishing to succeed in a white society while still maintaining a separate identity. The development of mass media had a great impact on the blues. Com- panies saw that among Negroes there would be a ripe market for recordings of "honest" Negro music and within a short period around the 1920's many "race record" companies sprung up to exploit this market. The effect of this was to put the blues in a much more formal and professional context, removing it somewhat from the honest personal expression of a people. Certain popular race recording stars who did not usually reflect the traditional blues progression were widely imitated while the country blues were largely ignored. Yet the success of race records proved that a cultural form peculiar to Negroes could succeed in a white value system and again added to the people's feeling of unity and individuality.

The growing acceptance, at least on a formal basis, of Negroes in Northern society was shown by the rash of white musicians who tried to imitate the Negro blues stars and produced a vast spectrum of approximations and distortions which they claimed was the blues. The Negro found himself in the position of leader lf an avant-garde non-conformist movement in music which was soon extended to other areas of expression because as soon as he developed a music form, the white performers would adopt it to their own expression and the meaning or purpose with respect to Negro individuality would be gone. This explains the rapid succession of swing, bebop, and funky or soul music that has dominated the musical history of the past 25 years.

The development of the blues and the development of the Negro people went hand in hand, each influencing and giving impetus to the other, and striving to demonstrate the right of a people to express itself through its own culture.

-- Laura Davis December, 1969 A BLUE SKY BOYS FAN LETTER

November 24, 1968 6718 Donal Street El Cerrito, Calif. 94530

Mr. Archie Green Dept. of "Folk Song and Old Time Music" University of Illinois Champagne-Urbana, Illinois

Re: "The Blue Sky Boys" .Bill and Earl Bolick

1. Camden's Record-CAL 797 2. Starday's Record--SLP 257

Dear Mr. Green:

I am writing to you mainly because of the write-up on the Camden Album which I purchased recently, of "The Blue Sky Boys." I was going to write to the Starday Record Company, but I doubt very much if they would have the slightest idea of what I am talking about.

Mr. Green, have you heard the Starday Album referred to above? I was terribly disappointed in it, because the "Arranger and Co-ordinator," I guess is the one who came up with the brillian idea of all the added instruments; and the outcome is something almost resembles "The Blue Sky Boys," but more in the way of making you feel you are hearing the voices of someone you have listened to, and grew up with, but it is not "The Blue Sky Boys."

I was disappointed enough when they added that skweeky, skawky violin, after the war, but he's even worse now, then to really do things up royally, they have added the piano, steel guitar, drums, bass fiddle, etc. on this album. Then they have the nerve to state on the write-up, "no effort was made to add any gimmicks to the original and authentic sound of the Blue Sky Boys."

That violin comes in and nearly lands me on the ceiling and with all the added instruments, they just aren't the Blue Sky Boys anymore.

Maybe you don't agree with me, however you must have been impressed with their own original style of singing, one with the Mandolin and guitar only, since this is the Camden Album you state that you have done a lot of research on the Blue Sky Boys, along with many others.

Mr. Green, if you know how to get in touch with the Blue Sky Boys, would you mind passing on a message to them, from a life-long fan, since the age of 12, so I feel qualified to give my opinion. I am qualified in other ways too, since I write songs and apply my own melodies "by ear," and it has taken me a long time but you'll be hearing my name in the jfield of music in the not too distant future.

Country music, folk songs, and old time songs have been my big love, when it comes to music; and how I loved to listen to the Blue Sky Boys, The Carter Family, Chuck Wagon Gang, The one and only, Jimmy Rogers, The Stoneman Family, Grandpa Jones, and a number of others.

Please tell Bill and Earl Bolick that if they will take time to listen to what's left of the original Carter Family, they have not changed their style one iota. Also, The Stoneman Family, Grandpa Jones, The Chuck Wagon Gang; all still retain their original style. Why? Simple. They're smart enough to know they became well-known and well loved by the way they first started singing, and their own individual styles. If the Carter Family or any of them I've mentioned took on 89 different instruments, it is bound to change the original authentic sound, and the people who, like me, have followed and loved them all those years would be terribly disappointed. I, for one, do not want another album of the Blue Sky Boys unless I can get those that were made before the war, because I don't like that blinking violin in it. They were perfect with just the mandolin and guitar, and just thoese two instruments blended beautifully with their voices, which is perfect in tone and harmony.

For a long time, when just listening to them, their voices was so close, it was difficult to know whether I was singing the melody or the harmony, but I caught on after awhile.

Tell them, please, be the Blue Sky Boys again, for me and for all their many followers, and for .themselves. Don't sell yourselves short, because that is what you are doing; and I'll have to add, I felt cheated when I listened to their Starday Album "Together Again."

Thank you very much,

Sincerely,

Mrs. Shirley R. Judge

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CAMPUS FOLKSONG CLUB RECORDS STILL AVAILABLE

$3.50 to members - $4.00 to general public

CFC 101 Philo Glee and Mandoline Society CFC 201 Green Fields of Illinois CFC 301 The Hell-Bound Train SONNY AND BR~WNIE IN CHICAGO

It has been said over and over by bluesmen that when you've got the blues, the only way to get over the blues is to play the blues. Both Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee display so much resilience nowadays that it is hard to believe that so many years have passed since they first began playing and singing the blues.

Recently during a two-week Old Town appearance in Chicago, Sonny and Brownie proved that the blues really can be remedied. The two seemed so happy to be there playing and singing that past troubles disappeared. Sonny talked about a time when he was sick, and all his drinking friends deserted him. He recovered in the hospital and wrote a song, called "When I was drinking"..."they thought I was going to kick the bucket but I sure fooled em." The two played together and also took turns "doing their thing" (a phrase used here only because it is part of Sonny's vocabulary).

Brownie McGhee is a little man possessed of a bad limp, a big smile, and a strong on-stage personality which he never allows to eclipse his partner's quieter one. Brownie's smile-up-at-the-ceiling type of musicianship is hard to ignore; exuberance is his trademark. He answered the question, why do you fellows always sing about whiskey, women, and money? with "it's one way of staying out of politics." The real answer is probably hard to get from any blnesman. Brownie led off with some tunes on his amplified guitar and kazoo- type horn, with Sonny's harp accompanying him. Then Sonny took his turn. He came up with some unusual selections, one of which originated in a 1946 Broadway show, "Finian's Rainbow." He explained that he had been told he'd have to play the same song the same way every night, over and over. Reluctant, he asked "how much you gonna pay me for playing the same thing over and over every night?...Oh yes, I can play it over and over for you." He rambled on like that between tunes, but we still got a good dosage of low, coarse, bluesy vocals, plenty of hee whoa whups, and a broad, broad smile.

Together the two succeeded in bringing us a good selection of songs, such as "Long Way from Home," "Custard Pie," and "If you lose your money please don't lose your mind; if you lose your woman please don't fool with mine." It is good to know that neither has lost any of his talents, and that they seem to be real friends.

-- Linda Teal February 1, 1970

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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN FOLK LIFE

FREE -s-;-- FREE *SSH,- FREE -;-*s* FREE

on the National Mall, Washington, D.C., July 2-5, 1970 INSTRUMENT FADS AND FANCIES

(A loose adaptation of "Fiddle Fads and Fiddle Fancies" by Alfred Sprissler, published in JACOB'S ORCHESTRA MONTHLY, December, 1929.)

You enter a neat and elegant shop, whose furnishings are in walnut, black velvet, and plate glass. Repair work is done in an isolated building, into the further reaches of which the customer never penetrates. In the finest of show- cases are displayed, under lock and key, banjos, mandolins, and guitars of all vintages and grades. In the glass-topped counter reposes on exhibition an engraved, gold-plated, top-tension custom Gibson Mastertone banjo.

You take your own guitar from its own case and place it on the counter. Before it touches the glass the urbane and exquisitely dressed clerk slides a piece of black velvet beneath it.

"Where did you get that priceless instrument?" he rhapsodizes. After several more inarticulate dithyrambs, he finally asks you what sort of artist repairing you wish done to the priceless instrument. You feel rather ashamed of yourself, after the nice urbane young clerk has called your inexpensive guitar a "priceless instrument," to have only an end pin set in it, so you order a new bridge, new tuning machines, and all cracks re-glued.

And when you return for the guitar you receive a bill that causes a momentary fog to settle before your eyes.

Repairmen...pardon...luthiers have learned that a guitar owner, especially one who has a suspicion that he has been bilked, wants flattery and is prepared to pay for it. The number of dollars spent yearly on the rehabilitation of tuneless old wrecks is incalculable and worthy of a better cause. A small fraction of the money expended in the upkeep of one of those senile fourflushers would buy a fine modern guitar that has the only requisite a guitar needs: a good, full, rich tone that is easily brought out. But should everybody subscribe to this revolutionary doctrine, we would have no luthiers. However, if one has a genuine old master in good preservation, and it has tone and playability, no sacrifice is too great for it.

And although the amateur with a fine (alleged) old guitar or banjo goes a considerable way to make up the composition of the repairman's paradise, the amateur who wants an old master instrument, and is well prepared to pay for same, is nectar, ambrosia, and the laughter of the gods to the proprietor of a modern guitar shop. The musicians seeking old guitars are of two general types (though exceptions do exist), one class of which is filled with musicians too learned to be bilked but who always are; while the other group is made up of men too cautious and timid to be caught, yet who inevitably are. And both classes usually fall before the romance of some weird tale of the guitar's origin, either invented for the particular customer or which goes along with the instrument.

Chief among these stories was the one about the guitar's finder, a famous guitarist who, vacationing in or Tennessee, was rambling about the wreck of a small house up at the end of a "holler." Somehow or other he found the priceless old instrument down an old well or up in the attic and carefully wiped it off (the guitar, not the well or attic). But the guitarist soon afterward becoming deaf, or blind, or having fallen arches or something equally terrible, was forced to sell his guitar to a dealer who, after consulting the College of Heralds and Sister Ethel (Reader and Advisor), solemnly, and with appropriate ceremonies, declared the guitar to be the free-lance work of an unfrocked Martin craftsman.

The other most popular theme is that of the widow whose deceased spouse was a wealthy collector of banjos. To the sale of such banjos as he had garnered, flocks everyone in ten counties to paw and drool over the banjos and to take advantage of the widow's grief and inexperience in banjo matters.

And yet another popular story is attached to the guitar purchased in 1927 by a very wealthy broker for his beautiful and talented daughter, who, after the manner of beautiful and talented daughters everywhere, ran off to marry the man who had installed the iceless refrigerator, thereby ruining another career on the treacherous rocks of romance. Then the disappointed father in mingled desperation and choler gives the guitar away at the absurdly low price of five hundred dollars. Inasmuch as the remains may be worth forty, one can see that this form of literary endeavor pays very well.

There is only one gauge to use in buying a string instrument. Price is obviously no criterion, nor is appearance, nor label, and especially not the instrument's history. The only measure is that of tone and playability. If you can get a good tone ("good" being a subjective and highly personal appraisal) at every location on the fingerboard, and if playability is all that you feel it should be, the instrument is a good one. It is worth whatever you are willing to pay for it.

Experts can fix up cars by means of sawdust in the transmission, ether in the gasoline, and various other aids, so that they may deceive the wariest customer into buying a wreck fit only for a soft and comfortable spot on the nearest junk pile. No one can do that to a guitar, banjo, mandolin, or fiddle. It either has the tone or it has not. If it has not, and unless you yourself are an expert repairman and know where the trouble is, the chances are that it will never have any tone. And if, by a rebuilding process entailing the jacking up of the bridge and building a new instrument thereunder, it is forced to undergo a costly set of repairs, it is extremely doubtful if it will ever be worth a two-hundred ton statue of a dead dog.

-- Tom Adler 1968

KNOWN SUMMER CONCERTS (If you know more, please announce them at Folksings)

June 18-21, 1970: Bill Monroe's hth Annual Blue Grass Music Festival, Brown County Jamboree Park, Bean Blossom, Indiana

July 3-6, 1970: Carlton Haney's 2nd Annual hth of July Weekend Blue Grass Music Festival, Watermelon Park, Berryville, Virginia

September 4-7, 1970: Carlton Haney's 6th Annual Labor Day Weekend Blue Grass Music Festival, Camp Springs Blue Grass Park, Camp Springs Community, North Carolina JOLLY )LD ROGER TiE TIN-.MAKER MAN

(A letter to the Campus Folksong Club from Dave Steere, graduate student in Mathematics)

Dear Sirs:

Enclosed is an old song--not strictly speaking a folk song--which, as far as I can tell is virtually unknown outside of my immediate family. I learned it from my father, who learned it from his mother, who learned it from her grandfather. She died at age 88 before 1940. It must be at least 100 years old, though I don't think it is much older.

It seems such a jolly song that I hate to see it perish. My father is in his late 70's and fails to remember the words of the verse, although he says it starts out: "It was jolly old Roger the tin-maker man, who lived in a garret in New Amsterdam . . ." The song is supposed to have three verses, the last one ending with him ". . . stumping around on his stiff timber toe." (Jolly old Roger had a wooden leg, for some reason; one verse mentions his success with the ladies.)

Perhaps the song is not so obscure as I think and someone in your group may be able to supply the missing words. I have looked through the catalogs of old songs in the Library of Congress and the BBC, which are in the Smith Library and find no record of this song. I suspect it is not really early 18th century as it tries to be, but is from some mid-19th century song book.

It can be rendered in various ways, I have written it down in 3/8 because it is easier to write that way and it comes out as some kind of "Irish Flute" arrange- ment. It sounds better sung in a strong 6/8 rythmn. It probably would go well with audience participation in the chorus; especially if the audience were in a bar-room. Unfortunately, my sainted ancestors were teetotalers and I was never treated to a rendition in the proper style.

Dave Steere 1004 South 4th Champaign, Illinois 61820

An excellent collection of recorded songs similar to "Jolly Old Roger the Tin-Maker Man" is found on CAEDMON LP 1144: The Folksongs of Great Britain, Vol. III, JACK OF ALL TRADES. This LP collected and edited by Peter Kennedy and Alan Lomax contains twenty-five pieces about jolly tradesmen in , Scotland, and Ireland.

RECORD REVIEW

The Memphis Country Blues Festival 1968, on

Sire 97003 (distributed by London), The Memphis Country Blues Festival 1968. If an album is extraordinarily good, or bad, a detailed analysis is hardly necessary to the potential customer. It's albums like this, however, which are tricky, and on the assumption that our readers, if sensible enough to read Auto- harp, are sensible enough not to buy records out cf mere curiosity, we would like to indicate for them what they can expect on this record, and then let them decide for themselves if this record is for them or not. Sire 97003 is a selection of concert performances from last summer, issued by somebody eager and shrewd enough to exploit the names (and talents) of several well-known older bluesmen in a record market where the demand for older blues styles has still not been anywhere near satisfied, either by the plethora of Race Record reissues or by the latter- day recordings of certain recently relocated artists. An example of what I'm talking about is provided by one of the singers on this album, the Rev. Robert Timothy Wilkins. Everybody I know, and whose opinion on blues I respect, admits to being, well, if not exactly awe-struck, then pretty damned impressed on their first hearing of a Wilkins song (for many of us it was "That's No Way to Get Along," on OJL-5, or its religious reworking "The Prodigal Son," on a Vanguard Newport Festival album). For some of us, a Wilkins song is sufficient reason to buy an entire album; indeed it was just this that drew me to The Memphis Country Festival. Oh sure, there are other singers on the album, Booker White and Furry Lewis who are legends because of their past work and pretty consistently depend- able performers in the present day. And there is exotica, a 102 year old singer named Nathan Beauregard, plus the relocated Mississippi Race Record artist Joe Callicott. That's a pretty impressive list in fact and one that would seem to have much of that fascination peculiar to singers who still perform in the style forty years ago; this should be, apparently, an ideal album for those whose in- terest in White, Lewis, Callicott, and Wilkins has been aroused by the Origin Jazz Library and Belzona/Yazoo reissues.

But then you submit to temptation and buy the album. You take it home, play it, and find that Nathan Beauregard is a very hale old gentleman--for age 102-- and there the fascination ends. You realize--if you know his other records, or better yet, have heard him in person--that Booker White had an off night, because, one is tempted to say, he was as demoralized as this reviewer was by the accompanying washboard player. And so to Furry Lewis. Again an off night, though you do get something from his short selection here that you don't get either from his old Race Records or the contemporary Folkways and Prestige releases, to wit, an idea of the one man carnival that Furry puts on in front of an audi- ence. Well do I recall him cackling, joking, waving his guitar like a cutlass, and jumping around with a zeal positively unnerving in a one-legged man in his sixties. Here Furry punctuates "Furry's Blues Number Two" with jokes, a little doggerel, and a guitar solo played with his elbow.

Then you turn the record over and it happens. You forget the lukewarm songs on the other side, you ignore the medieval sound quality, and the moronic notes which you read in desperation while waiting for the next song and hoping it would be better. With no introduction, on comes Rev. Wilkins playing beautiful electrified slide guitar in D. Then, when the initial shock has passed you realize that he is not alone: a marvelous bass player and a maniacal tambourine player are in this too. And then he sings, not with the odd,.nasal, almost faggy voice of his old records, but with a darker growling tone in the Willie Johnson tradition, "0, I wish I's in Heaven sitting down." ... I don't with to overstate my case, reader, nevertheless, comfortable though I am in my paganism, I think if anyone could covert me, it would be Robert Timothy Wilkins.... Then he drops down a fret and asks you, over a very blue guitar figure, "What do you think about Jesus?" and one of his two sons accompanying him asnwers in his beautiful clear voice "I know that he's alright" and the song goes on, getting louder and faster and ending in a scream. It surpasseth rubies.

Wilkins is impossible to follow, so I suppose it's just as well that the next two tracks are in a vastly different style, a slow funky ironic style not unlike Jim Jackson's original "Kansas City." Joe Callicott is a fine old gentleman, his music is very digestible stuff, good though not great (but just how much of that is going around just now anyway?). The disc ends with Booker White again and just about this time the urge becomes irresistible and you lift the arm and go back to Wilkins. At any rate, consider yourself adequately briefed: this album is not for everybody--those for whom it is proper will presumably have realized that fact by now.

Author lost, 1968

THE BOMBARDE

The Breton had met two of our friends and invited all six of us Americans out to his country house near Brest, France, to show us what a real Breton meal was like. In January his farm yard was deeply rutted and partially frozen mud, and his stone house, which could have been one or five hundred years old, was frigid in the center, very hot near the fireplace, and smoky in between. As we sat down to the first course of mussles, shrimp, clams, oysters, sea snails, and I don't know what else, he started to tell us all about the history and culture of Bretagne. He was drinking customary amounts of "cidre" (usually between four and twenty proof), and by the time his wife brought out the second course of rolled pork intestine sausage, mashed potatoes, and more mashed potatoes, his lecture was getting pretty interesting. He was a patriotic Breton, and he wanted to be sure his American visitors understood the difference between Bretagne and the country which claims to rule it--France.

As his final exhibit, he brought out a record of Breton folk music. It sounded like bagpipes and drums playing very non-Scotch tunes, but the record was scratched, the record player quite incapable of playing at the volume he had it turned to, and the room noisy. He said the instruments were binious, drums, cornemeuses, and bombardes. I understood that binoius and cornemeuses were types of bagpipes, but he couldn't communicate to me what a bombarde was, having nothing to compare it to. It was a "medieval instrument", a "sort of trumpet," a "sort of oboe," etc.

A month later I was talking to an English teacher, also a loyal Breton, and I mentioned this curious instrument whose name I had already forgotten. He caught enough to know I meant bombarde, took one down off the shelf, and sent his wife to bring his reeds. As he was sucking the reed, getting ready to play, wishing he had some cidre (the reed won t t perform to capacity unless soaked in cidre; the player generally soaks up a few liters of it too.) He explained that he had a hobby of Breton music, and that he was going to play us a song about a bird. The music, when he started, made me think of a lot of things, but not about a bird. It was really too loud to hear anyway. It sounded a lot like a scrathy record of bagpipe music on a forty watt hi*-fi trying to put out one hundred watts in a noisy room. I had to get one of those things.

Down to the local music store, where they actually sold the things. I managed to round up twelve dollars for the super delux model made of Ebony (more sonority, the man said) and seventy cents for a reed. Then out to the country to practice. The fingering is easy, but blowing through the reed is like blowing through your thumb. After two hours I was a tired, purple skinned, neophyte but sufficiently experienced bombarde player.

The bombarde is a primitive oboe with seven holes and one key, with a trumpet shaped bell and a double reed; about twelve inches long. They were once common all over Europe, East Asia, and North Africa, but eventually were crowded out by more sophisticated instruments. They once came in a variety of keys, in soprano, contralto, tenor, bass, and contrebass. The soprano became a folk instrument in the twelfth or thirteenth century in France, with every- body making his own and no two alike. They were the principal instrument of military bands; bombarde means cannon. With the advance of more civilized music, almost everyone forgot about these noisy little weapons. The Yugoslavs still play the sopci, a lower pitched and quieter cousin. The North African raita is about as high pitched as the bombarde, but nowhere nearly as powerful. Only the traditionalistic Bretons (to my knowledge) kept the bombarde as it was.

In the fifteenth century Bretagne became part of France, much to the dismay of the natives, Who still dynamite an occasional government building to express their individuality. The French government has done all it can to force them to become Frenchmen--outlawing Breton names (no schooling, no social security unless your name is on the official permitted names roster) and not allowing the Breton language (old celtic--very similar to gallic) to be spoken in schools. Many Bretons are still potato farmers. Many are moving into Paris and other big cities to try to find work. In order to fit in, many try to shed their Breton "nationality" and become like other Frenchmen. Does the story sound familiar?

Well, some are finally organizing to protect their language and culture. Most different countries speak different dialects of Breton, and play different sorts of bombardes. In South Cornouaille, the bombardes are tuned (if that word can be used accurately) in the key of C. They have a brilliant tone, and are good for dancing. In the area of Vanves, the bombardes are tuned in A, and are said to have a more calm sound (less raucous?). They are typically made by old men who carve them according to the local tradition. When the old men die, the traditions may die too.

A Breton named Doring Le Voyeur (whose first name may keep him off welfare rolls some day) had tried to do something about all this. He has designed a compromise bombarde in B and has made reeds commercially available. Mass produced bombardes can be bought in music stores in most of Bretagne, though people in other parts of France still don't know they exist (or don't care). There are yearly bombarde and bagpipe "contests" in the major cities of Bretagne, and Bretons in other cities are forming Breton "circles" where they learn folk dances, and how to play the folk instruments. Books of Breton music are becoming available, with songs sporting titles like An hini a Garan (She who I love), Va Bouton Koad (My Wooden Shoes), An Oc'h (The Wild Boar), and Bale ar Gourinerion (The March of the Warriors).

For parades and contests, the players form brigades (bagads) of twelve to fifty or more pipers, drummers, and bombarde players. For small festivities, the couple is traditional--a piper and a bombarde player who improvise freely, and wildly stamp their wooden shoes on the floor in an unheard attempt to make up for the missing drums. The bombarde only plays half the time, frequent bouts of gasping for air being necessary to sustain the life of the player. (The cidre is also helpful.) The bombarde and bagpipe play the first phrase together, and then the bagpipe repeats it while the bombarde player recovers. Occasionally the bombarde will play in harmony with the bagpipe, or an octave higher in unison. The bombarde has a much more intense sound than the bagpipe, and the two of them together sound like a whole orchestra (if the word can be applied). The music is overwhelming, if only for its sheer noise. The bagpipe with its drones gives the music continuity, and the bombardes, blasting in intermittantly with all their overtones (including some which really shouldn't be there), give it a vigor and variety never found in Scotch bagpipe music.

I am trying to introduce Breton music to this part of the country--trying to find a Scotch bagpiper or two who will "convert" and to get a few more people to play bombardes. Anyone who is interested can try to contact me through the Campus Folksong Club (good luck). Bombardes, bagpipes, drums, and music can be ordered directly from France. The only manufacturer I have done business with is Lanig in Nantes. They are generally regarded as one of the best. If anyone is interested, their address is: A. Laurenceau/12, rue Jean-Jaures/Nantes, France.

Kenave I

-- Charles Van Valkenburg December, 1969

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1970 CAMPUS FOLKSONG CLUB OFFICERS

President: Peter Lippincott Treasurer: Linda Teal

Vice-President: Rich Warren Concerts: Goddard Graves

Secretary: Chrissie Clayton Membership: Andrea Friedman

AUTOHARP Editor: This issue, Mary Teal Next issue, the position is vacant and available.

THE PRESIDENTIAL RAMBLE

(A recollection of the Midwinter Festival of Traditional Music, the Grinnell Folk Festival and the University of Chicago Folk Festival, travels, several lunches and the weather of January and February, 1970 as dictated on tape by the Campus Folksong Club Executive Administrative President while enroute from Chicago to Champaign and faithfully transcribed insofar as possible. All this is contained herein is supposedly true.)

Wherein Chrissie Spurs

"As I was saying, during the first semester w'e more or less laid low, tried to open up lines of communication with various offices and places where we might possibly get some funding. At the end of the first semester, things more or less broke wide open and we got some real fine opportunity to further the cause of traditional music. Hardily spurred by our secretary, Chrissie Clayton's impetus to get a Cajun band up here, and from her discussions with Ralph Rinzler, director of the Smithsonian Folklore Division, we took as ammunition a Cajun Band, which we could have come here for a reasonable price, as well as blues musicians in the person of Bukka White and Shirley Griffith and Yank Rachell.

We took this package, oh and cowboy singer and long time folksong club friend, Glenn Ohrlin, we took this package to C.C. DeLong, the Bursar of the University, who is in charge of Star Course and the Concert and Entertainment Board. Because we could do all this for a very modest sum of $600, which was our initial request, whereas most groups start asking him for $6,000, he was willing to go along with the idea. Not only was he willing to go along with the idea, but his senior managers of Star Course, ranged from very excited to willing to go along with our plan because it would mean that they could both plan something and see it happen during their time in office in the Star Course organization, something very unusual for them. So we planned our festival and had everything arranged so that we hoped it would work out to best advantage.

The Midwinter Festival of Traditional Music

We got some publicity on the wires and talked to a lot of people about it, trying to get them to make sure that they'd come and to be part of the festival, get them interested, get student groups who were doing things for students together to do a job. The one drawback of starting this festival, which we decided to call the Midwinter Festival of Traditional Music, hoping that there would be a spring one, and possibly another one in the fall, on and on, ad infinitum. The original problem that we saw with this was that it was being worked out over a semester break and that it was going to be held very early in the second semester, on the second or third day of classes. We were some- what concerned that possibly people wouldn't get the word about the Festival, that it would be possibly poorly attended because advertising couldn't successfully be done on such short notice. We primed the pumps before the semester break began and went into high gear when the semester started again.

The outcome was highly successful, two packed nights at the Krannert Center. In order to make the festival work out, a few of us did a lot of driving, stayed up late nights, made a lot of phone calls, did a lot of advertising, and put on some singing events in the Illni Union to help advertise, as well as guide the performers around, making sure they were kept either entertaining or entertained during the time that they were on campus. While they did some entertaining, a very conscious effort was made to keep them from having to be (in a sense) exploited as our artists have been in the past by doing three gigs all over the campus for what turns out to be no money at all.

The first night of our two night Festival, we started off with Bukka White, who really got to the audience, turned them on. His playing is extremely intense, very vibrant and vital, and he has a kind and gentle manner that breaks through the barrier of his intensity to the audience. The second performers on the first night were the Balfa Brothers from Louisiana, playing some real footstomping Cajun music and they accomplished nothing less than bringing the house down. They were fantastic! The music is so exciting, the men are so humble about their music, and yet they really put on the style and perform. Their performance is punctuated by a few of the antics of Nathan Abshire, little clog dancing and by the younger of the Balfa Brothers, Rodney.

The third act of the first night was Shirley Griffith and Yank Rachell, bluesmen from Indianapolis. The two of them gave everyone a sort of a shock when they showed up late in the afternoon (they were going to do a gig out at one of the men's residence halls and have dinner out there) but Yank Rachell informed us, out of the blue, that he had just gotten out of the hospital on Sunday and he had to have a salt-free diet. We were certainly glad to get that information, didn't really know what we'd do in response to it. I guess he went ahead and ate the rather bland fare out at the men's residence hall in spite of his condition. They played out there and evidently put on a pretty good concert, but there were some technical difficulties involved in their concert at Krannert. They kept wanting to turn up their instruments louder and louder, so that they could be heard the way they wanted to, but the vocal mikes and the p.a. system couldn't handle the power that they wanted to put out; it couldn't be heard above their instruments. So I tried to convince them, or to just do it for them, to keep the emplifiers turned down to a reasonable level, but they insisted they be turned up and the result was a rather con- fused ard vaguely dissatisfying 40 minutes of Indianapolis city blues. After packing Bukka White on the train back to Memphis in the morning, we somehow lived through another day, and on Wednesday we had the second night of the Midwinter Festival of Traditional Music.

The Morrow Plots Scathed

Leading off the second night of the festival, we had a local experimental string-band-and-Blue Grass-combination group called the Morrow Plots. Their style is decidedly not Blue Grass, although they play Blue Grass music; part of the problem stems from the rather heavily-sung vocals of Fred Rubin, which aren't at all in the Blue Grass tradition. If he'd slow down on his mandolin- playing and play some sweet little Blue Grass licks, or even country licks (which are hard to distinguish in my mind) rather than the sort of frenzied mandolin playing that he does, it would come off a lot better. Including the high voice of Claudia Gray is a good addition to the group sound, and they've got one fine instrumentalist Bob Whalen. As long as their other musician, Roger Taylor, is always playing the guitar, it would probably do just as well for Fred to stay on the mandolin. He could tilt his white hat back a little bit and smile demurely, talk southern, .and possibly come off at least looking like another kryptonite Bill Monroe. The second act of the second night of our festival was Glenn Ohrlin. He came out and literally charmed the audience off the edge of their seats. I don't know if everyone was as wrapped up in his songs and tale-telling as I was, because I understand all too well that peoples' tastes in.entertainment vary widely and that Glenn's performances can't be called exciting in the sense that you would call Bukka White and the Balfa Brothers "exciting," but he's got a style for telling a story--he tells good stories--that are really unmatched in my experience.

The Saga of the Little Old Gentleman with the Cane, A Favorite

The third act on our Traditional Festival was the triumphant return of the Holy Zioneers, electric gospel group. As usual they were quite nervous before going on, but by the time their stint was over and there was some minor confusion toward the end about whether they were going to take a break or a bow. They put on a very exciting performance; the one part of their act that was missing from the time that we: had first seen them at the Channing-Murray Foundation was the older gentleman with the can who really threw himself into his performing, and at the time of their first festival brought the house down, reduced us all to a stomping and clapping mob...(it goes on)... With the Holy Zioneers, thus ended the First Annual Midwinter Festival of Traditional Music.

The Sun Sets, but a Vital Club Hopes

Our hopes as a club are that we can make traditional music vital enough for our campus and bring in performers that are interesting enough at a price that can be borne by the students, that we should be able to put on a festival of this scope three times a year. Our hope is that we can have the next festivals on weekends, and that they can include the usual accompanying work- shops and lectures to help bring greater understanding to the uninitiated in the field of folklore and folk music. As the sun set on the last night of the concert, we had already had offers from various high-ranking deans and offices with some money and also from the exuberance and joy of the people that we worked with in putting this on (the Star Course Board) that there would indeed be a spring version of our festival. So the possibilities for traditional music on the U. of I. campus have been strongly encouraged in the last couple weeks.

All of us in the club are feeling a great sense of vitality over the success that we had, and we're already hot on the trail of a new group of performers for the spring fest. The possibilities that we're considering include (as usual there's some high-powered bickering between the various interests represented in the executive committee) but some of the names being thrown around are, well, the Balfa Brothers are almost guaranteed, if they'll come, of a return engagement because they'll sell a lot of tickets and womp up a lot of interest for the festival. Other people that we t re thinking about include Carl Martin and Ted Bogen from Chicago whom we saw at the Chicago festival, Big Joe Williams from Chicago, all bluesmen. We hope for some ballad singers with the possibility of Almeda Riddle or Sarah Gunning or maybe Sarah Cleveland, although being from upstate New York, she's slightly out of our range. We're hoping to find another nationality group string band, like a mariachi band or a bazouki band. Other possibilities include people like Mance Lipscomb, Fred McDowell, Ike and Margaret Everly and in addition we welcome any suggestions from the slightly numerous but largely lethargic membership of our club. (At this point in the transcript the president discusses the April elections for next year's officers of the club and recommends with reservations each, Rich Warren, Chrissie Clayton and Goddard Graves for the presidential spot, but the Autoharp is no soapbox for electioneering, says the heavy-handedly independent editor, deleting these upaid political announcements)...So I hope people from the membership and also from without the membership who are interested in traditional music present themselves to us to make their willingness to work known.

The Chicago Festival--Clicks and Sags

Other things that I want to rap about include the festivals at Chicago and Grinnell which came back-to-back just before ours during our semester break.... The Chicago festival is in its tenth annum this year, if that makes any sense, and as usual they had the money and the know-how to put together a very big-looking array of superstars in'the folk field on their bill. The ones who were there included such names as Bill Monroe, Carl Martin, Roscoe Holcomb, The New Lost City Ramblers, a group of Indians who did dances, a Chicago Blues-Style band that hails originally from Peoria and undoubtedly many others that I'm leaving out at this time. Chicago has its good and its bad points. Since at least this time they tended to start off with bad points and end up more with good points as the people directly in charge this year got their festival legs under them, I'll start with a few of the problems that they had at the beginning. It was really very instructive to be able to see the festivals and the performers that we were going to be dealing with, most of them anyway, as they performed at Grinnell and at Chicago.

The first night in Chicago started out with a blues band and I'm not going to try, nor would I be able to give a precise run down, in order, of the performers on the two nights, but I'll hit a few of the things that stick in my mind. The first night blues band got things off to a good start. The leader, whose name I never really knew, was a very exciting performer, somewhat in the style of Chuck Berry, though his guitar playing is in a more modern Chicago blues style, including fuzz and wah-wah attachments to his sound, but he's included some of the old Chuck Berry tricks of playing behind his head and behind his back and leaping up to do splits in the air as he's playing. Also on the first night was the New Lost City Ramblers who seemed to me to be a little bit tired out this first night, they weren't quite clicking but there was one good instrumental number that they did on which Tracy Schwarz played the spoons to end off their set. That was a very exciting number and sort of brought the idea 6f spoon-playing alive to the audience. The Friday night concert was beset with technical difficulties, the worst of which was .that the sound system there, which might have cost $1,000 when it was first installed or probably even more, sounded like it had decayed in value to a slowly- writhing $50 heap of equipment. Our seats were reasonably close to the stage and so we got benefit of hearing some pretty good sounds for that reason, but on the whole I'm sure that the sound system didn't carry the day for anyone who was sitting up in the back of the balcony, where we have had to sit on previous occasions in Chicago.

Peter Begins to Lunch A Lot

Due to being located quite a distance north of the Chicago campus, I wasn't able to get in on all of the workshops that were held on Saturday, but the ones I saw were very good. One of them was essentially a workshop on blues, which took in both the disciplines of white and black blues. Of course each musician gets only a very short time to put down his own style of playing on the strings but it was a very good overview of the blues tradition. I had lunch with Mike Seeger; after that, workshop, and talked to him about how he made his living through singing and the sort of things he got to do in addition to just being on the road singing with the Ramblers or by himself. And also we talked about the possibility of his coming to the Illinois campus somewhere in the end of April. We had talked about some earlier dates than that but we decided that it would be too much hassle trying to organize things, cause the time that he could come turned out to be very near our Easter break and there wasn't any point in pushing our luck around the break again like we had with our festival.

Peter Gets in Free

The afternoon consisted of talking to various noteworthy people and seeing the Saturday afternoon concert. I didn't have a ticket for the Saturday afternoon concert, but I gave the people backstage an official-looking smile and managed to spend the rest of the time of that concert sitting up with the performers, or backstage taking pictures, or again being part of the scene which is very exciting for me. I drove up to the loop after the Saturday afternoon concert and had lunch withthe club vice-president, Rich Warren and drove back down.to the Campus to see the evening concert on Saturday. This concert went much more smoothly than the previous Friday night concert, except for the chain reaction catastrophe of Plummeting microphones that must have done pretty good damage to the WFMT recording mides, the technical side of the program went a lot better. Some of the people on Saturday night included the Indian Group again who virtually delighted no one with their dancing--well, I can't say that, they didn't delight me anyway (with their dancing)(at this point in the dialog, the assistant transcriber went insane.)

And, I really enjoyed the performance of Ike Everly, playing what could be called Travis-style guitar, with the funky deadened bass, and Roscoe Holcomb had showed up by that time he was on, singing his strident style; Kilby Snow made what I guess was an unexpected appearance and did some autoharp numbers. Every performer got to play to his heart's desire, I guess, because the concert went from 8:30 to one o'clock at night when the musicians' union all but closed the place down--not literally but as far as the musicians were con- cerned. Bill Monroe came on about midnight and played to one o'clock and that was the end of the concert. Bill's part was very good. Most of the songs that they played were shouted requests from the audience. Evidently they're playing their music enough that they all know what to expect. There's one song that they played which is an instrumental, called "Land of Lincoln"-- Wow, what a number? It was really fantasticI A new; song that I guess Bill and Kenny had gotten together on to write. When I hear that song playing, I can just picture it being the theme music of some movie in the tradition of what I don't know, but some--while they're giving the credits at the beginning, somebody's going on a motorcycle or in a train or in a car and watching that old country-side whip by, across the praires of the "Land of Lincoln"--time that's the music that would fit behind it. After a long and late drive back to Highland Park, and up the coast there, finally turned in about three o'clock in the morning. Was up pretty bright and early the next day, did a little furniture hauling, and made my way down to the U of C campus again and attended some more workshops although they were a little bit more sparse on Sunday, and some of them were cancelled, took a lot more interesting pictures, finally packed myself in the car on a very sunny and beautiful day and headed back to Rockford. The Grinnell Exodus Complete with Suffering and a Fine Lecture

The Grinnell story is altogether a very different one. On Friday I drove down to Illinois to register and then the next Saturday morning I took off by myself to Grinnell, that's a pretty long haul to Grinnell, to be doing it solo. That's over 300 miles I guess. It was pretty slushy and foggy and cloudy and gray, pretty unexiciting, essentially, nothing to look at around the countryside except a gray blur coming at you. Since that wasn't bad enough by the time I got to Iowa the weather was nothing but pea-soup fog which you could see about 100 yards in at best. So I did a little bit of slowing down and on a throbbing glutius maximus I made it to Grinnell and found Grinnell College. I had missed all the workshops in the afternoon except for one that was being put on by one of the folklorists who has been invited to be with them there at the festival, who was none other than our own advisor, Archie Green. The topic of his talk and the musical examples were designed to lay open at least a portion of the folk mind and to let the students in on what folk values were. They included songs like "Okie from Muskogee" as a final song and old minstrel songs like "Who Broke the Lock on the Hen-House Door," which ranged from highly inflam- matory to something which would make at least some group uncomfortable. He gave very thorough descriptions of all the songs that he was going to play and then just- played them right on through and I was very pleased and stimulated by his lecture, and I wish he had given a similar lecture to our class in folklore last semester but he assures me now that I'll be much more interested in the folk song-folk ballad class and that there will be a lot more for me to sink my teeth into this semester than there was last semester.

So back to Grinnell: After Archie's talk and a little discussion with some students and all, we went over to one of the dormitories and had dinner vwth al3 the organizers and performers and folklorists and all, sat sort of together at a few tables, and then after dinner there was an informal country music session, which was more-less led by Ralph Rinzler of the Smithsonian and by Art somebody whose last name I only heard once and don't remember, on the banjo, Ralph was playing mandolin, and Ron Stanford, who organized the Grinnell Festival, played a little guitar. After that, informal session where they took requests and the like, it came time for the evening concert, which was held across campus. So we wandered off across campus, Ron Stanford and I discussed the Beatles and that sort of thing on the way over there. The concert had a gospel group, that sang unaccompanied, and had some old favorites like Glenn Ohrlin, Bukka White and the Balfa Bros. As well as a made-up string band with the same people that were playing over at the informal get-together after dinner, and Mother Maybelle Carter was.on the program.

The concert was good, but what turned out to be even better was the party after the concert, and quite a few of the performers went and played some music and there was just a lot of good people getting together playing a lot of really good music. Harry Oster, a folklorist from Iowa City, was really kicking up his heels and having a good time and Harry's a pretty reserved man, so a lot of people thought it was quite a feat to have him that involved in what was going on. Well, 'long about four in the morning, a few of us decided that we were tired and ought to head for bed, which we did then and got up again about nine o'clock, which isn't a great deal of sleep considering that we had to drive back to Illinois the next day. On the Subjest of Breakfast

So we got ourselves off what sleep we could, a little breakfast in the morning was very kindly given to me and the Balfa by one of the students there, and I went over and rounded up Bukka White from Grinnell house where he was staying and he had had coffee and a roll and we piled in the great blue wagon and headed off through prairie, no actually it snowed all the way back to Illinois, very delightful weather for driving. Bukka slept a good deal of the way so I imagine he was raring to go when we got him back into town that night. The Balfa Brothers stayed awake and kept me awake and we talked about a lot of things on the way down. It was a pretty good trip, took us about 6 hours, stopped off and had a little lunch in Peoria, and had a little minor car difficulty in Farmer City but without too much event we got into Champaign-Urbana okay, that by about 5 o'clock in the evening. We went to Archie's house, Archie wasn't there yet; he had left with Glenn Chrlin and his wife in Glenn's pick-up truck much earlier in the day. But by this time he had still not come in yet. Glenn is noted for not .having very fast vehicles or very practical ones, for that matter. So Archie's wife, Louanne, fed up a very good meal and we watched a little television which had some news on it about Louisiana, which-the Cajuns were interested to see. And then Goddard Graves came over and still no Archie but we decided we better take our guests to the places where they were gonna stay.

Bukka White was all.set up to stay in a fraternity house so we took him there and then we took the Balfa Brothers over to Bromley (haven't got my brights on, have I?) where they had very plush quarters. When I got back home about ready to imagine doing a little relaxing when right away I get a call, even before I'd gotten home, I'd had a call from Goddard saying there was tragedy at the fraternity so we had to go and rescue Bukka White from some surroundings that he couldn't quite be satisfied with, including some sleeping in the open air, which they do at this fraternity, we took him back to Richard Korst's house, where he stayed for the rest of his time in town and was very happy. It's very important to get men like him among people who enjoy music and understand him better than the kids at the fraternity do. I imagine that they are probably just as delighted to have him out of their hair as well. So that's a read-out on the events of the 10 days or so that encompassed the beginning of the Chicago folk festival and the end of ours. (The tape ends with something like a police siren, and at this point the head transcriber went insane.)

Greetings,

Your Travelling President Peter Lippincott

PL/mct