H ILL IN I UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
PRODUCTION NOTE
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007.
0UTHAPp
Number 31 NMay 25, 1968
After a period of literary hibernation and organizational fermentation, Autoharp has returned. No one associated intimately with the Campus Folksong Club of the University of Illinois wanted to see Autoharp perish, and of course, the rule of thumb (as at other large universities) is Publish or Perish. Here we are.
The CFC has new officers and a new program of great material coming up. We at Autoharp hope to put out more issues this year, and larger and better ones at that. However--we cannot write all the articles ourselves. So Andy and all, contributions are hereby heartily solicited. Send them to the editor. (Autoharp without contributors would be like a unicorn without a horn.)
The CFC is still in the throes of a great upheaval. Five years ago we had about 500 members. Now we number in the low 100's. Yet the attrition seems to have leveled off. There are still a lot of people interested in something they each define as folk music. We still find, in our serried ranks, the usual "anonymous folkies," the ever-present "old- timey lovers," and the ubiquitous "popular antiquarians." All seem to find something they enjoy in the Club's activities.
And yet, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get enough people involved in the real nitty-gritty of the Club's world.
Consequently, we have come up with a modest proposal, to wit: The CFC should sponsor an annual three-day festival of traditional music. This would stimulate a great deal of interest in our Club, both on and off the campus.
We propose this idea to the members and officers of the CFC with the hope that it will be seriously considered. Think about it and let your friends (and especially Autoharp) know. Campus Folksong Club K> 1 - workshoos - f "-,,, banjo guitar
March 9,16,23,30 April 20,27
215, 217, 219 Gregory Hall
1:00 PM
jeanne mita (information) 332- 4339
A TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
Just a few weeks ago, Sarah Ogan Gunning, the outstanding Kentucky tradi- tional singer, was presented by the joint efforts of the Campus Folksong Club, the English Department, and the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations. Sarah gave three performances while she was on campus; she performed for the ILIR students, for Professor Archie Green's English class, and she gave a membership concert for the Club. All three- were superb. At the ILIR concert, Sarah presented material which pertained to her involvement in the strikes which rages around the strip-mining region of Kentucky from whence she came. In the folksong class, Sarah sang five or six songs. Her material here was varied, including childrens' songs ("Old Jack Frost") and religious songs ("Christ was a Way-worn Traveler"), as well as the stories and songs about her coal-mining labor dispute days. This perhaps was one of the best opportunities ever afforded any students of American song, since the atmosphere was informal and the possibilities for two-way communi- cation with the singer existed. Sarah's final concert was given in Bevier Hall, where she sang and talked to a crowed of about 60 for nearly 1 1/2 hours. Though the interplay between Sarah and her audience was not as close as it had been in the classroom situation, everybody present was entertained (at least), enlightened (certainly), and richer for the experience (absolutely).
It would seem to be hard to surpass a performer like Sarah Gunning...and it is. But the CFC did manage to keep up its high standards of traditional performance and at the same time expose the campus to something which has probably not been heard in this part of Illinois for upwards of fifty years. On Nay 18, the CFC presented an open concert given by the Cook County Vocal Singing Convention. This group is composed of about 20 Chicagoans who grew up in various states (mostly in the South) and learned the shape-note method of notation. After having arrived in Chicago independently, they found each other and started the group, under the direction of the Rev. Huston Emerson and the Rev. Alonzo Day.
(In the shape-note method of notation, the seven notes of the scale are assigned seven different shapes, e.g., square, diamond, triangle, etc. The notes are printed on a musical staff, exactly like the conventional "round notes", so that any person who is able to read conventional musical notation is capable of reading shape-notes. However, the reverse does not necessarily apply, as many shape-note singers are perplexed by "round" notes, which all look the same. In addition to the notational difference, many of the spirituals which were written in the shape-note system also are harmonically unusual. The musical intervals which are used are vary archaic sounding to modern ears, and the overall effect of a shape-note spiritual on the uninitiated listener is fantastic.)
The audience was one of the most enthusiastic ever seen here, and the credit for its response goes entirely to the skill and artistry of the members of the Cook County Vocal Singing Convention. Many persons began to clap on the off-beats of the spirited numbers, and the Convention members threw themselves into their music with amazing abandon, yet with genuine and impressive control. Alonzo Day, as he was leading the group, blacked out and fell stiffly into the arms of his friends, who were not particularly shocked. One of the singers later explained thif as, "getting the Holy Spirit, which Brother Day does many times." In addition to the magnificent work of the choir as a whole, there were several outstanding indivi- dual performances given. Brother Gregory sang a spiritual as a solo, and Brother Seals, a Psalmist, fervently recited two of his favorites.
The Campus Folksong Club was very lucky to have been able to present this marvelous group. The group will appear on July 4 at a Folk Life Festival sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. G0 4)
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CD ( U U' U "I'M NO PIANO PLAYER, I'LL JUST PLAY UNTIL THE PIANO PLAYER GETS HERE"
by
Mary Teal
Bukka White is a bluesman from Memphis. He came up and stayed the day with us, April 3.
Bukka entertained Archie Green's (English 360) ballad class in the morning, and set up in the Union South Lounge for the afternoon. Beta Theta Pi housed a reception for him in the evening. He went on to Knox College the next day for another round of music and fun.
"Please write my mother tell her the shape I'm in. On the next train south, look for my poor bones."
But--while he was here, we got the biggest wad of the best blues Bukka, or anybody, can dish out.
"Everybody running all over town trying to figure out where the blues came from. Know why those blues came from behind the mule? In them days they didn't know nothin' else to do."
And--because Bukka says you gotta play what they want--we got old-time boogie and jive, mean, dirty songs. He's right. We liked them. And we liked him. (Next time I'm gonna get me two, three pretty girls, so when I lose my best girl, I got two more on the line.)
We like him. Bukka's a big, round man with an enigmatic smile that gives him no trouble catching women. He told me about Callie May and Gertrude, Lucy, Miss Rhoda Lee, left out a few. He told us about Kansas City, the Delta (where the Blues come from), riding the freight trains, Aberdeen....
"Aberdeen Blues" is Bukka's Song. He does it on his secondhand steel guitar, which is his because the slapping it takes would make a wood guitar give up too soon.
There's a lady's rhinestone necklace worked into the guitar strap (Gertrude or Lucy or Miss Rhoda Lee). Its face has worn shiny like gold where fingers hit it all the time; the case is covered with hotel stickers from Kansas City and farther on.
"Sang this song for a girl in '43 She was going to Booker T."
He'd start in on a song (I'll tell y'll like it is, cause I done been where y'll are trying to get.) He'd warm up for a chorus: "She said, Daddy, maybe you want to settle down I said, Lord ! You got to wait until I've made my rounds."
He'd play a little guitar. (Now settle down, Bukka, play it.) He'd play some more words, he'd do some more guitar, maybe use the shell. (Take your time, Bukka, too much going on.)
He'd end it with a couple lines:
"Police put me in the house searchin' for the weed."
He'd tell us stuff like when he won the contest in Kansas City, when his woman killed his cat and that was it for her, it's the devil everywhere you go....
He told us church music was good music to carry you safely, but he wouldn't play much for us.
He played "Aberdeen Blues," "Gibson Hill," "Beale Street Blues" (the way they ought to be played), "Jumping Jive," "Black Bottom Blues"....
He played his guitar because he could tote it where he went; he played piano but never learned it well because he couldn't tote it, and I guess he had to go. When he started in at the Union and 500 people gathered, he said he'd only play until the piano player got there. I think the piano player was there all the time.
FIXIN' TO DIE FOUR TIMES
by Bukka White, The Country Blues, RBF, RF 1. by Dave Ray, The Blues -roject, Elektra, EKL 264. by Dave Von Ronk, Folksinger, Prestige Folklore, FL 14012. by Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, Columbia, CL 1779.
Bukka White's "Fixin' to Die"
I'm lookin' funny in my eyes an' I believe I'm fixin' to die, believe I'm fixin' to die,
I'm lookin' funny in my eyes an' I believe I'm fixin' to die; I know I was born to die, but I hate to leave my children cryin'.
Just as sure (as) we livin' today, so we was born to die; I know I was born to die, but I hate to leave my children cryin'.
Your mother treated me, children, like I was her baby child; That's why I tried so hard to come back home to die. So many nights at the fireside, how my children's mother would cry; Cause I told their mother I had to say good-bye.
Look over yonder, on the burying ground; Yonder stand ten thousand, standin' to see them let me down.
Mother take my children back before they let me down; Ain't no need in them screamin' an' cryin' on that graveyard ground.
(as transcribed from the Bukka White recording on The Country Blues album)
About a decade ago, in the early years of The Great Folksong Revival, the city-bred folknik was faced with something of a dilemma. If he attempted faithfully to reproduce the style, perhaps even the voice, of his trauitional source, critics would say, "He just mimics the way X sings the song." On the other hand, if he attempted to render a more personal inter- pretation, critics would condemn, "That's not the way X sings it."
The problem is particularly acute in the case of white singers of Negro material (blues) for the obvious reason that they could not be expected to have the proper socio-cultural background to "understand" the material one way or the other. By mid-196h, however, events beyond the control of these singers had pretty well resolved their problems. Those open to the first charge--mimickry--were relieved of the necessity of singing at all by the "rediscovery" of their models living out their lives in the towns and cities of the Mississippi Delta. Those subject to the second charge-- lack of authenticity--could progress to still less authentic interpretations and be welcomed into the burgeoning ranks of admittedly eclectic rock n roll groups.
But in the meantime, had their singing provided anything more than gainful employment for themselves and a target for puristically oriented critics? Emphatically, yes, it had! At the very least, they made thousands of people aware for the first time of such names as Bukka White, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson; just as the Kingston Trio had made millions of people aware of something called folk music.
One of the most popular songs for revival was Bukka White's "Fixin' to Die"; the reasons for its popularity are easily understood. The imagery of the text is vivid and compelling. (See transcription, above.) The bottleneck style accompaniment with its rocking tempo and ringing treble slides is one of the most outstanding for any blues song.
What Bukka's young interpreters do to the song in a technical sense is quite simple to outline. Bukka takes two minutes, forty-five seconds to sing six verses. It requires Dave Ray 3:47 to sing the same verses in the same order, accompanying himself on a twelve string guitar played bottleneck style. Most of the extra time is taken up by intra-verse instrumental breaks. Van Ronk needs the same 2:$5 to sing the song as written except for the transposing of the second and third verses. Typically, he employs a rippling, two-finger-picking guitar style. Dylan takes a few more liberties. In 2:17 he sings five verses to a driving, rock n roll type accompaniment similar to that used in "Highway 51" on the same album. Actually, however, he only uses two of Bukka's original stanzas, coming back to the first more or less as a refrain (with very slight changes of wording,) using the fifth as his second, and making up his own fourth.
As for what the recordings sound like: Dave Ray, singing in 1964 sounds almost as much like Bukka White singing "Fixin' to Die" in 1940 as Bukka White himself does in 1968. From a musical standpoint, what differences there are from the early recording may be counted as improvements. Bukka's voice was more nasal, then, and his playing more syncopated. (The date 1940, in fact, is assumed from the syncopation. Samuel Charters, who edited the RBF album, attributes the original only to "the collection at Folkways." However, the rhythmic background points to the March 8, 19h0 recording session for Vocalion with additional accompaniment provided by a washboard player, possibly Bull City Red.*) To be sure, Dave's playing is imitative; but it is an imitation done with feeling. And he does credit his source.
Van Ronk singing "Fixin' to Die" sounds very much like Van Ronk singing anything else. He is a highly competent professional musician and a flawless guitar stylist. If the performance becomes a bit more compelling than the song, that is perhaps the best and the worst that can be said of it. He does not credit his source.
Dylan does credit Bukka for his version, but Bukka might not recognize it except for the words. However, "Fixin' to Die" is the type of blues that needs to be shouted--rather than understated--and Dylan just happens to be shouting at a different audience. Of tho three "revivalists," Dylan seems to have the most feeling for the song if not for the singer. He takes away much of the lyric, story-telling quality of the original but he adds a sense of urgency which does not seem at all inappropriate.
Unquestionably, each of the modern versions differs from the others and from the original. But each is done well enough to whet the taste for the real thing.
--Ed Phillips
*Cited in Dixon and Godrich's discography, Blues and Gospel Recordings, 1902 to 1942. The original release was entitled "Fixin' to Die Blues." NORMAN KENNEDY REVIEW
by Cathy Corl
In its second membership concert of the year (November 29, 1967) the ampus Folksong Club presented Norman Kennedy, Scottish ballad singer.
Kennedy, accompanied only by the rhythmic tapping of his foot spent the 'ening providing the audience with an idea of the immense diversity and auty of his musical heritage. To this end he chose some of the many songs ,om a still living folk tradition which considers songs 250 years old !cent, and presented with each song something of its history. He communicated his listeners the feel of the times when each song appeared.
In this endeavor few men can match Kennedy's qualifications. Norman nnedy was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, thirty odd years ago. Raised a city )y, he became for a time an employee of his government's revenue service. .nce his teens an intense interest in folk music and art had led Kennedy learn a great deal in both fields. His mastery of traditional methods weaving is highly respected both here and in Scotland. He is considered some to be one of the country's best traditional singers. It is in the .tter capacity that he came to this country, for while at a folksong club i Scotland, Mike Seeger heard him sing and subsequently arranged for him to .ng at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Since then he has lived largely in ve U.S. and Canada earning his living as a weaver. He will soon be working Hr Williamsburg, Virginia demonstrating and explaining the weaving trade Lere.
Kennedy easily captivated his audience and had them singing enthusiasti- lly along with the infectious nonsense syllable choruses of many of the songs. ; if his clear robust singing style were not enough, he spent the time ýtween songs filling their minds with folklore. He told the attentive group w the great preponderence of time in pre-industrialized days had to be lent in work requiring little more than physical presence (with perhaps a nch of mental awareness). This provided ample opportunity for a great -al tradition to grow. He explained the history behind the Lothian Aires, migrant worker's songs, and proceeded to sing a few. Later he told of a oup of former tin and silver smiths called tinkers who are a counterpart occupation and reputation to the better known Gypsies. He also favored ie group with a few folk tales from his Scottish tradition.
As part of an explanation of song used as an accompaniment to work, nnedy worked at the spinning wheel, which had heretofore been only a -op, while singing "Pricklie Bush", a song familiar to many in the audience. lelast number was a fast-paced intricate conglomeration of sound that !emed to come from many voices and yet only one. This bit of music is lown as mouth music. Its' use on accompanying jigs is readily understand- le for it almost compels such energetic participation. If an evening of ich consistently superb entertainment could have a high point, that peak uld most certainly have been the last number. CLUB DONATES RECORDS TO LISTENING ROOM
During the past seven years the Campus Folksong Club has slowly accumulated a phonograph record collection by gifts from friends and by direct purchase. Since the Club has no home on campus, it has been difficult to store its records, to make them available for listening, and to guard against loss. Consequently, the Club has donated (March 1, 1968) its remaining discs to the English Department's Listening Room (Room 208, English Building). These records will be integrated into the Listening Room's collection and will be available to students and staff on the same terms as other material.
We hope to augment this pilot folksong collection and we solicit gifts from present as well as former Club members.
The list below is limited to the 60 records now deposited.
Arhoolie 5002 J. E. MAINER'S MOUNTAINEERS J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers
Campus Folksong Club 101 PHILO GLEE AND MANDOLINE SOCIETY Philo Glee and Mandoline Society
Campus Folksong Club 201 GREEN FIELDS OF ILLINOIS Various artists
Campus Folksong Club 301 THE HELL-EOUND TRAIN Glenn Ohrlin
Columbia 1664 SONGS OF THE FAMOUS CARTER FAMILY Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys with Maybelle Carter
Columbia 2255 THE FABULOUS SOUND OF LESTER FLATT AND EARL SCRUGGS Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys
County 508 MOUNTAIN SACRED SONGS Various singers
Delmar 602 PINEY WOODS BLUES Big Joe Williams
Delmar 603 THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY JOHN ESTES Sleepy John Estes Delmar 604 BLUES ON HIGHWAY 49 Big Joe Williams
Delmar 605 LONESOME BEDROOM BLUES Curtis Jones
Elektra 214 SCOTTISH BALLAD BOOK Jean Redpath
Elektra 224 LOVE, LILT, LAUGHTER Jean Redpath
Folkways 2351 DOCK BOGGS Dock Boggs
Folkways 2354 SONGS OF A NEW YORK LUMBERJACK Ellen Stekert
Folkways 2377 THE NEW ENGLAND HARMONY Old Sturbridge Singers
Folkways 2397 THE NEW LOST CITY RAMBLERS: VOL. II The New Lost City Ramblers
Folkways 2399 THE NEW LOST CITY RAMBLERS: VOL. 4 The New Lost City Ramblers
Folkways 2951 AB AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC: VOL. 1, BALLADS Various artists
Folkways 2951 CD AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC: VOL. 1, BALLADS Various artists
Folkways 2952 AB AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC: VOL. 2, SOCIAL MUSIC Various artists
Folkways 2952 CD AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC: VOL. 2, SOCIAL MUSIC Various artists Folkways 2953 AB AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC: VOL. 3, SONGS Various artists
Folkways 2953 CD AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC: VOL. 3, SONGS Various artists
Folkways 5264 SONGS FROM THE DEPRESSION The New Lost City Ramblers
Folkways 5273 TIPPLE, LOOM, AND RAIL Mike Seeger
Folkways 8760 TRADITIONAL SONGS AND BALLADS Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger
Folk-Legacy 26 GIRL OF CONSTANT SORROW Sarah Ogan Gunning
Folk Lyric 1 A SAMPLER OF LOUISIANA FOLKSONGS Various artists
Folk Lyric 2 LOUISIANA FOLKSONG JAMBALAYA Harry Oster
Folk Lyric 3 ANGOLA PRISONERS' BLUES Robert Pete Williams and others
Folk Lyric 4 FOLKSONGS OF THE LOUISIANA ACADIANS Various artists
Folk Lyric 5 PRISON WORKSONGS Various artists
Folk Lyric 6 ANGOLA PRISON SPIRITUALS Various artists
Folk-Lyric 107 NEW ORLEANS WASHBOARD BLUES Snooks Eaglin and others Folk-Lyric 108 GEORGIA STREET SINGER Rev. Pearly Brown
Folk-Lyric 109 THOSE PRISON BLUES Robert Pete Williams
Folk-Lyric 111 COUNTRY NEGRO JAM SESSIONS Butch Cage, Willie B. Thomas, and others
Folk-Lyric 117 PRIMITIVE PIANO Various artists
Folk-Lyric 118 HOT BLUES Smoky Babe and others
Folk-Lyric 122 BAYOU BLUEGRASS The Louisiana Honeydrippers
Folk-Lyric 123 CAROLINA BLUEGRASS Snuffy Jenkins and the Hired Hands
Folk-Lyric 124 BLUES WALK RIGHT IN Sylvia Mars
Folk-Lyric 126 JESSE FULLER: GREATEST OF THE NEGRO MINSTRELS Jesse Fuller
Monitor JACK ELLIOTT: RAMBLIN' COWBOY Jack Elliott
Old Timey 101 OLD-TIME SOUTHERN DANCE MUSIC: THE STRING BANDS, VOL. 2 Various artists
Old Timey 102 OLD-TIME SOUTHERN DANCE MUSIC: BALLADS AND SONGS Various artists
Prestige 1022 TROUBLE BLUES Curtis Jones Prestige 13005 THE BEST OF PEGGY SEGGER Peggy Segger
Prestige 13041 SKIPPING BAREFOOT THROUGH THE HEATHER Jean Redpath
Prestige 25014 ONTARIO BALLADS AND FOLKSONGS Various artists
RBF 51 UNCLE DAVE MACON Uncle Dave Macon
Starday 200 ERNEST V. STONEMAN AND THE STONEMAN FAMILY Ernest V. Stoneman and the Stoneman Family
Testament 201 LONG STEEL RAIL Bill Jackson
Testament 3301 BABIES IN THE MILL Dorsey Dixon and others
Testament 3302 STEEL GUITAR RAG Jimmie Tarlton
Victor 1635 THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS Jimmie Driftwood
Victor 1994 THE WILDERNESS ROAD Jimmie Driftwood
Victor 2171 THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT Jimmie Dirftwood
Washington 737 STREET SONGS OF ENGLAND A. L. Lloyd
s1941 A CHECKLIST OF ARTICLES BY JOHN I. WHITE
From 1927 to 1936 John White (The Lonesome Cowboy) sang western ballads on the radio, and helped launch the popular program "Death Valley Days." He also made many phonograph records under various pseudonyms. In 1966 he retired from his position with a mapmaking firm and returned to his early love: cowboy balladry. John White now lives in Westfield, New Jersey, and divides his time between his family and writing about western singers and their songs. Occasionally he performs in a college concert: University of Illinois in May 1966, University of Pennsylvania in December 1967.
Below we present a checklist of his "post-retirement" articles. Where the song, poem, or composer is not mentioned in the title, it is included with the citation in parentheses.
1. "The Virginian." Montana, XVI (October, 1966), 2-11. (Owen Wister's novel)
2. "A Montana Cowboy Poet." Journal of American Folklore, LXXX (April, 1967), 113-129. (D.J. O'Malley: "After the Roundup"/ "When the Work is Done Next Fall," "A Cowboy's Death," "D-2 Horse Wrangler," "Sweet By and By Revised," "The Cowboy Wishes," "Cowboy Reverie," "Cowboy's Soliloquy," "A Busted Cowboy's Christmas," "Found on a Sheep Herder's Mess Box")
3. "A Ballad in Search of Its Author." Western American Literature, II (Spring, 1967), 58-62. (Joseph Mills Hanson: "Railroad Corral")
4. "Gail Gardner--Cowboy 'Poet Lariat'." The Arizona Republic cSunday Supplementa (May 7, 1967), 24-26. ("Tying a Knot in the Devil's Tail")
5. "D. J. 'Kid' O'Malley: Montana's Cowboy Poet." Montana, XVII (July, 1967), 60-73. ("A Cowboy's Death," "D-2 Horse Wrangler," "The Cowboy Wishes," "Cowboy's Soliloquy")
6. "And That's How a 'Folksong' Was Born." The Arizona Republic cSunday Supplements (August 13, 1967), 7-11. (Romaine Lowdermilk: "Big Corral")
7. "Notes and Queries: Owen Wister, Song Writer." Western Folklore, XXVI (October, 1967), 269-271. ("Ten Thousand Cattle Straying")
8. "Portraits for a Western Album, I: 'A Busted Cowboy's Christmas'." The American West, IV (November, 1967), 78-79. (D. J. O'Malley)
9. "Great Grandma." Western Folklore, XXVII (January, 1968), 27-31. (John White)
10. "Will C. Barnes: Also a Song Plugger." The Arizona Republic cSunday Supplement: (January 14, 1968), 21-24. ("The Cowboy's Sweet Bye and Bye") JIMMIE TARLTON The Man, His Music, His First College Concert Tour
by Dave Samuelson
On April 28, 1967, the Campus Folksong Club scheduled the first college concert by the renowned old-timey steel guitarist Jimmie Tarlton. Except to record collectors, Tarlton was largely unknown during the big folk boom of the early sixties, but his songs and style have left an unerasable print on folk and country-western music.
Few people who attended the concert knew the stories and anecdotes that have filled his biography. Tarlton's seventy-five years has been marked by recording contracts and school-house concerts, freight trains and cheap hotels, prohibition agents and jails, not to mention continuous optimism.
Johnny James Rimbert Tarlton was born in a long cabin in Chesterfield County, South Carolina on May 8, 1892. His father was a share-cropper, and was constantly moving across the Southeast, exposing young Jimmie to many different styles of music.
By the time he was six, he started playing simple tunes on the banjo. To this day he remembers his favorite pieces: "Arkansas Traveler," "Ole Molly Hare," "Turkey in the Straw," "Casey Jones," "Georgia Buck." He plays them in a clean, driving two-finger picking style. He also frails a few numbers, most notably, "Cindy." In addition to the banjo, he learned to play the harmonica and a small accordion, but he has not picked them up in years.
At the age of nine, Jimmie started to play the guitar in the standard tuning and position, but after observing Negro musicians a year later, he adopted permanently the bottleneck style in open tuning. At first, Jimmie used a knife. He switched to a steel bar after meeting the pioneer Hawaiian guitarist Frank Ferera; he has been using an automobile wrist pin for the past forty years.
As a teenager, Jimmie made a few dollars playing at country dances, and he decided to embark upon a semi-professional career as a musician. When he was twenty, Jimmie bummed his way to New York, playing for room and board along the way. He soon grew tired of the big city, and traveled to the oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma, then west to California. When he was successful, he got a job playing his guitar; when he wasn't, he worked in the cotton mills.
After a few years he returned to his beloved homeland, and got a steady job in a Georgia textile mill. Settling down, he married, and added a third task to his textile and musical jobs--making moonshine; a profitable, respect- able, but illegal profession during the Prohibition era. The Feds raided his still in 1925, and Jimmie spent some time behind bars.
In the spring of 1927, Tarlton met a guitarist who lived not far from his home in Columbus, Georgia. Jimmie and Tom Darby swapped a number of songs, but neither of them played together at the time. A music store owner in Columbus heard both of them play individually, and felt they had possibilities as a team. He contacted Columbia records for an audition when their portable unit would be in Atlanta. On April 5, 1927, he drove them and several other musicians to the sessions. The other singers failed in their auditions, but Columbia was enthusiastic over Darby and Tarlton. They recorded two sides--"Down in Florida on a Hog," (i.e. "living high on the hog"), a song Darby wrote about the great Florida land boom of the twenties and the hurricanes that wiped it out; and the sprightly "Birmingham Town." Columbia signed them to a second session in November.
At the second session the men recorded the two songs that made them famous: "Columbus Stockade Blues", and "Birmingham Jail". Art Satherley, the legendary A&R man whose career extends from the old Paramount label to Gene Autry, Roy Acuff, and Little Jimmie Dickens, supervised the recording. Satherley considers "Birmingham Jail" the greatest side he ever recorded because the two performers felt their material so deeply. Darby's straight-forward singing and Tarlton's haunting wail and steel-guitar work caught the public's ear, and the disc became one of Columbia's all-time best sellers. By the time the Depression had wiped out the hillbilly record industry, Columbia had issued h$sides of the team, plus six of Jimmie's solos.
Their dependence on Columbia gone, the two men roamed around looking for work, together and separately. The team appeared in tent and medicine shows, and occasionally on small radio stations. Victor contracted them in 1932, recording two sides by the duo, four solos by Jimmie, and six sides by the "Georgia Wildcats", which included Darby and banjoist Jess Pitts. After a final session in 1933 for the ARC organization, the two men split, returning only for rare, disinterested reunions at various shows.
Darby and Tarlton never got along together during their partnership. Darby never cared for the music profession, concentrating on farming between tours and recording sessions; but to Tarlton, music was a way of life.
Jimmie continued to play in a string band that included Gid Tanner (whose famous "Skillet Lickers" had disbanded in 1931). This successful (but unrecorded) band broke up after Tarlton grew tired of playing tunes that were standard to the North Georgian string band repertoire.
Tarlton continued to play over the air as late as 1938, and performed in shows and school houses until after World War II. By then, the new, electrified Nashville and rock-a-billy sounds had set in, and older musicians had to conform or fade from the public eye. Tarlton, although he enjoyed the sounds of western swing, bluegrass, and country-western music, refused to change his personal style.
During the big folk-boom of the early sixties, interest was re-kindled in old-time country music, in part stemming from the work of the New Lost City Ramblers, and the reissues of recording pioneers, such as Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, and the Skillet Lickers. In 1963, after long and patient searching, collector Robert Nobley found Jimmie with his wife in Phenix City, Alabama. Eugene Earle and Archie Green (officers of the John Edwards Memorial Foundation) interviewed him soon after his rediscovery. Earle returned to record him in December of that year.
Earle took the tapes to Ed Pearl, the owner of the Ash Grove, Los Angeles' largest night spot featuring folk music. Pearl was enthusiastic over what he heard, and signed Jimmie to a week's engagement for August, 1965. His ragged, warm, friendly, and often bewildered stage appearance, coupled with his smooth, highly original guitar style and his clear tenor voice made him a hit with the Californians, and he was asked to remain an extra week. He had to decline the offer due to work back home. His next major urban performance was the 1966 Newport Folk Festival, the crowded annual Mecca of the folkies. Most old-time musicians cannot adapt to this type of audience, but Tarlton won over everybody with his bag of blues, ballads, and instrumentals.
In January, 1967, the Campus Folksong Club grabbed the opportunity to finance the release of Jimmie's first record in thirty-four years, and produce his first college concert tour of four midwestern colleges. With the usual amount of red tape, the schedule was arranged and the record was ready for sale early in April.
At his first concert at the University of Illinois' Krannert Art Museum Theater, Jimmie started the show with "Steel Guitar Rag," a western-swing standard made famous by Leon McAuiliff when he was with Bob Wills' Texas Playboys. In the instrumental, Jimmie uses effects that sound impossible on record, and look impossible in person. In the concert, he did his two famous numbers, "Columbus Stockade Blues," and "Birmingham Jail", plus selections both new and old to his repertoire. Among the highlights were his satire on "My Blue Heaven;" the pseudo-Hawaiian number, "Hawaiian March;" the instrumental "Vaya Con Dios;" and the ballad "Lowe Bonnie," which he learned from his mother. Another high point of the concert was his stories of the "Hooverbuggies" of the Depression and his cross-country rambling.
The day after the concert, Jimmie and I traveled by bus to Crawfordsville, the first leg on the way to Indiana University in Bloomington. To keep things in order, a few cans of Miller High Life and a few sandwiches were provided.
At the first stop on the route--Danville, Illinois--everyone got off the bus, and we followed suit. Checking for police outside the terminal, I gave Jimmie a beer. Realizing the trouble that could occur if someone is caught drinking on a public street, Jimmie chugged it down in four seconds flat I
A few seconds later, the bus was starting to fill up again, and I flashed out our tickets. The bus driver, a surly guy who reminded me of the villains in the "Our Gang" comedies, roared: "You weren't supposed to rest here I"
Jimmie replied, "Well, we rested ."
The bus driver gave a CTA-ish growl as Jimmie turned to me and said: "I told him off, didn't I?"
After an hour of driving through boring Indiana cornfields, the bus pulled into Crawfordsville, an old city that makes Champaign look new. Although the car that was to take us to Bloomington was an hour and a half late, Jimmie kept me entertained at the bus station by buying a pack of Kools, slitting the paper open, and chewing the tobacco.
We arrived in Bloomington a few minutes late for the concert, but Neil Rosenberg and Dan Gellert were entertaining the small audience with their wide bluegrass repertoire. Jimmie was soon ready, and came on stage introducing himself. "I can't see very well anymore," he said, "I've got a brother who can't see at all...he's dead " And he started into "Columbus Stockade".
A large number of requests helped fill the Bloomington concert with more blues than usual. These requests varied the concert from the set program Jimmie had in Champaign, and gave him a chance to do numbers he hadn't per- formed in years. After the concert, the club had a small reception for Jimmie that was filled with imprompto bluegrass and Jimmie's anecdotes. At the party, Jimmie was "tricked" into playing his pieces on the banjo, which for many was the most memorable part of the evening.
The next day, April 30, Jimmie was taken to the Brown County Jamboree in Bean Blossom, Indiana, where some of the world's toughest audiences go to hear the country's finest bluegrass bands. The Jamboree featured Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, which included guitarist and singer Red Allen and fiddler Byron Berline at the time. The superb house band, Bryant Wilson and the Kentucky Ramblers, also performed, as did Shorty and Juanita Sheehan, and another of Neil Rosenberg's bluegrass bands.
During the intermission, Jimmie met Norm Carlson, Pete Rollet and several other members of the Purdue Folk Song Club, and played a few numbers for them in the parking lot.
Bill persuaded Jimmie to play that afternoon, and just before starting his second set he announced: "We have a special guest with us today. A man who recorded for the Columbia folks back in the twenties and wrote many good songs. His name is Jimmie Charlton, is it?"
Somewhere in the back row you could hear Jimmie say: "Tarlton--T-A-R-L-..." The Audience broke up laughing, and Monroe's introduction was ruined.
Jimmie went on stage a half-hour later, performing "John Henry," and "Lowe Bonnie." The audience response to his performance was so enthusiastic that Bill promised to have him return someday. At the end of the concert, Jimmie went back to Bloomington with Neil, and I started hitching back to Champaign.
He returned to Champaign on May 2, but was on his way again for a concert at the University of Chicago. I heard that when a girl came up to Jimmie in Chicago asking him to autograph his record, he replied, "I can't see too well... you sign it ."
Jimmie's last stop in the concert tour was in Carbondale for Southern Illinois University's Folk Arts Society. A friend of mine wrote me of this incident:
I saw Jimmie Tarlton in concert a few days ago. Was he great ! One thing everybody liked was at the end of a set when, in full view of the audience, he pulled a bottle of whiskey out of his coat pocket and took it back stage. It was the most unintentionally funny thing I have ever seen I
From there, Jimmie returned home. He appeared at the Berkeley Folk Festival on July h, which was later televised across the country on various educational outlets. It is said that he drew more applause than the stars of the festival--Doc Watson and the hippie protest groups.
Jimmie returned to Phenix City after the Berkeley Festival, and has been inactive for the past eight months.
However, to the many people who met and saw him during the midwestern and California tours, Jimmie left behind a lot of stories, a lot of music, and a lot of friends--friends who realize they will never see his like again. ADDENDA
1. It has been said that Tarlton's old partner, Tom Darby, died in the spring of 1967. This was mentioned in a letter to me from collector Jim Evans, but has not been reported in any scholastic or "fan" journals. Therefore, the notice of his death is unconfirmed.
2. Jimmie Tarlton on Record:
Jimmie's first LP record was recorded in 1963 and 1965, and was released in April, 1967. The disc, STEEL GUITAR RAG (Testament T-3302), is still available from the Campus Folksong Club, 284 Illini Union, Urbana, Illinois, 61801. The price is $3.50. The titles included are: John Henry, Banks of the Ohio, Steel Guitar Rag, Jimmie's Blue Heaven, Al, Bound Down in Birmingham Jail, Put-Together Blues, Pretty Little Girl, Fort Benning Blues, Lowe Bonnie, Uncle Joe and his Hounds, Ain't It a Sin to Gamble on a Sunday, Joe Bowers, Hawaiian March, Administration Blues. County Sales considered this record to be the finest new old-time record of 1967.
Three currently available LP's include Darby and Tarlton's early Columbia recordings. The are: THE STRING BANDS, Vol. 2 (Old-Timey 101); Includes "Alto Waltz" from Co 15319 (4-12-28). BALLADS AND SONGS (Old-Timey 102); Includes "Frankie Dean" from Co 15701 (4-16-30), and a Tarlton solo, "Roy Dixon" from Co 15629 (12-3-30). MOUNTAIN BLUES (County 511); Includes a Tarlton solo, "Careless Love," from Co 156$1 (12-3-30).
Later in 1968, Old-Timey will release the first reissue composed entirely of Darby and Tarlton's old 78's. The titles have not been decided.
Eugene Earle is planning on editing a sequel to Jimmie's first Testament LP sometime in the future.
One of Tarlton's wishes is to record a 45 RPM single with bluegrass accompaniment. Exciting as it seems, a record of this type will probably never be made.
3. Further information on the life and works of Jimmie Tarlton:
Cohen, Norm and Anne. "The Legendary Jimmie Tarleton (sic)," SING OUT1, Vol. 16, No. 4 (August/September, 1966), pp. 16-19. A superb, objective biography by two well-known folklorists.
Nobley, Bob. "Bob Nobley Finds Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarlton--1962," BLUE YODELER, Vol. 1, No. 17 (January, 1968), p. 36. A short piece by the team's rediscoverer on the search for their whereabouts.
Wickham, Graham. DARBY & TARLTON (Denver, 1967). Copies are available from Doug Jydstrup, Box 772, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55440. Price: $1.50. The definitive biography and discography of the duo. Pays more attention to the group's records than the Cohen article. A must. 28 pp.
4. Acknowledgements: We of the Campus Folksong Club would like to thank Neil Rosenberg of Indiana University, Mark Greenberg of the University of Chicago, and Philip Tedrick for their help in promoting the tour and records; Pete Welding of Testament records for allowing us to produce Jimmie's record; and most of all, Doug Jydstrup of the BLUE YODELER for his many efforts in advertising and boosting Jimmie's album and concerts. GLE 1 N OHRLIN
by
Tom Adler
Though I had, of course, heard Glenn Ohrlin's LP, The Hell-Bound Train many times, I was uncertain about what to expect at the concert given by him on March 9 in the Commerce Building auditorium. Since my only previous contact with Glenn had been a night of drinking in Dundas, Minnesota (the rural town's rural town), I knew that the audience was going to be admirably conversed with--not talked down, or up to.
But I was totally gassed, turned, freaked out and worked over by Glenn and his singing that night.
I have no great memory for song titles. Yet "The Gol-Darned Wheel" will remain with me for a long time. This song particularly seems to show the old-time working cowboy's resentment of modern "sissified" labor-saving inventions. Somehow Glenn manages to bring the audience right in on the story he is telling or the song he is singing, and this was to me the grooviest aspect of his performance.
I find it impossible to totally describe the feeling; I can only say that when Glenn sang about a cowboy trying desperately to warn his girl of an impending Indian massacre, I was there, I was the cowboy, and I felt as frustratedly involved as the cowboy must have, knowing there was no way to reach his girl in time. I don't know how to describe Glenn's ability to put a song across without sounding like a badly-paid liner-note writer. Glenn sort of makes you a part of his thing, when he does it on stage.
His guitar style throughout was very simple, and I found myself unconsciously adding the bass runs that any Bluegrass guitarist would use. It finally occurred to me that fancy runs would be totally inappro- priate here, and that by not distracting the audience with his guitar, Glenn made us all listen to the words of his songs, which is, after all, where it's at.
I don't really know how to sum up a review like this. I've tried to say that Glenn Ohrlin was GREAT, and I guess it's because he sincerely likes his music. Since nobody listens to you if you use the word, "sincere", the only thing to do is make sure everybody gets to hear Glenn sing at some time or another. After than you can all decide for yourselves. RECORD REVIEWS
I. PRISON WORKSONGS, by Sue Wasserman
Any discussion of Prison Worksongs, Folk Lyric A-s, recorded by Harry Oster in 1959 at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, must involve several questions which arise from the fact that these songs are now dying out. By 1959, because of improved work and living conditions at Angola and the association by young inmates of worksongs with slavery, they were sung only by those over forty.
How valuable in trying to recreate the earlier function of worksongs is the necessarily artificial recording situation? Some of the cuts are credible, others are not. The introduction to "All Teamed Up in Angola's Mule Lot" (side B, 1) consists of running dialogue on mule-catching. At the cue, "We're going to walk away," the men begin to sing, not at all out of breath. This artificiality in turn reflects on the preceding dialogue. Does it give an accurate picture of the men's former feeling as they prepared to plow? Or is it a bit of cuteness for Mr. Oster's amusement?
A second problem concerns whether the songs on this album are traditional to the people singing them. Thrown together only by the accident of having been committed to the same prison, what body of songs did they have in common on the outside? Were worksongs part of that experience? Or, since only people over forty now sing them, and since some members of the various recorded gangs must have been younger, does transmission occur largely inside Angola? The only information given about the singers is that they are all prisoners and presumably all Negro. Probably the lead singers, at least, are older than forty, and all except Odea Matthews are men.
Given the possibly quite diverse backgrounds of the singers, how is it that they sing songs which are remarkably similar in style, text, and function? Stylistically, the songs tend to fall into two groups. The first appears to be one of "traditional" worksongs, sung traditionally. Melo- dically monotonous, with a heavily accented pounding rhythm, these songs are obviously suited to accompany rhythmic heavy labor. There is in all of them a lead singer, backed by from two men to a "gang." Background accompaniment ranges from simple humming to harmonizing repetition of a single line, generally the first and/or the last in each stanza, to unison singing on a refrain. There are no instruments played anywhere on the album.
The second group of songs consists of four cuts, two of which--"Five Long Years for One Man" (A,h) and "Somet>-ing Within Me" (B,6)--are sung by Odea Matthews. "Jesus Cares" sung by Murray Macon (B,7) and "John Henry," sung by Guitar Welch, Hogman Maxey, and Robert Pete Williams complete the group. These four songs are like each other and unlike the rest in that there is much less attention to harmony--three are solo and in "John Henry" it is primarily Guitar Welch who is heard; the others merely interject a word occasionally or sing almost inaudibly the last line of the verse. This simpler arrangement may derive from the fact that the songs themselves are more complex, both melodically and rhythmically. There is a much wider range of notes used and the rhythm is less obvious. All four of these songs actually seem to show some borrowing from popular music. "John Henry" is sung to the same tune widely recorded by commercial singers. Odea Matthews' "Five Long Years..." shows blues influence; "Something Within Me" sounds like gospel and has, in common with "Jesus Cares," a religious content. All of the worksongs in the first group are, on the other hand, strictly secular. None of the second four seem to be necessarily worksongs; rather, they may have been adapted to this use. Could they have been brought into Angola from the outside while those songs of the first group, no longer sung, tend to remain inside the prison environment and are, therefore, less subject to popular influence?
According to Oster, these songs as a group performed three functions for the prison inmates: They made labor progress smoothly, they served as an outlet for frustration and hostility, and they were a means of express- ing desire. In the face of the tremendous difficulties imposed by the system at Angola, worksongs seem to have been a way of keeping life, as well as work, progressing. Such questions as tradition and transmission may be useful in understanding how they became an integral part of the prison experience.
II. MOUNTAIN SACRED SONGS: A Sacred Scandal Sheet, by Margaret Tucker.
The record under review is somewhat similar to a newspaper, using songs instead of news items. Like a newspaper, this album is a chronicle of the lives of people--in this case, the people of the Southern Mountains. It is at times preoccupied with bloodshed and battlefields, it offers advice to sinners and drunkards, and it describes in great detail the plans of the people involved.
Mountain Sacred Songs, County 508, is concerned with blood and immorality, rather than theological abstractions such as transubstantiation or the Holy Trinity. In it religion is "told" in the vernacular of the people for whom the record was made in terms comprehensible to them. Unlike any other disc of spiritual songs I had previously heard, Mountain Sacred Songs showed me the humanity of religion and the failing of the people involved. Instead of saying abstractly: "One must be good to attain the Everlasting Life," this record states quite emphatically: "No Drunkards Can Enter in There." Those who shirk their religion are reprimanded with "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?" and those who are presumptuous about their faith are asked "Are You Sure?"
Some of the numbers on this anthology fall in the category of songs of instruction but there are two other types: those with military overtones, those of rejoicing. The songs with military overtones concerned with "fighting for the Lord" include "Called to Foreign Fields" (by Alfred Karnes) and "Ain't Gonna Lay My Armor Down." The rest are songs of rejoicing: "Going Down the Valley," "I Am on my Way to Heaven," "It Won't Be Long Till my Grave Is Made," "Don't Grieve After Me."
The style in which the sacred songs are presented is unconventional. Guitar is used, but the tonality is strange. The singers utilize close harmonization in singing and often the chorus echoes the words of a leader, similar to many of the popular groups today. The aspect of Mountain Sacred Songs which especially impressed me, was the familiarity of the tunes. It seemed to me that I had heard some of the songs in a different context. "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?" has the same tune as "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain," which I first heard in Kindergarten.
I would recommend this album to those people who are not satisfied with the knowledge obtained about other American subcultures from newspapers. This record is a chronicle of sould which reveals not only the poetry of an American people, but also their mannerisms, beliefs, and the life they lead in a manner no newspaper could duplicate.
III. IN THE SPIRIT NO. 1, Origin OJL 12, by Mimi Rodin.
In the Spirit No. 1 is the first volume of a two-part survey of sanctified and country gospel music. Sixteen "vintage recordings" are included in the album. Unfortunately, my copy did not contain the explanatory brochure and I was unable to date the selections. The quality of sound reproduction, however, indicates that they were pressed during the '20's and '30's.
The most outstanding feature of the LP is its comprehensive representa- tion of the range of folk styles encompassed by a limited folk form. With two exceptions (side 2, band 5 and side 2, band 7), all the performers are Negro, most of them unfamiliar to the reviewer. For purposes of analysis I have subjectively selected four stylistic categories and a final catch- all group. Each category is based upon the vocal and instrumental style of well-known performers of a given musical genre. For example, "Hill- billy" style is defined as sounding like the Carter Family, or Dock Boggs.
The first category, Hillbilly, is characterized by the comparative lack of blues influence. A pleasant gospel by Duckett and Norwood, "I Want To Go Where Jesus Is," (2,5) is marred by a singularly unattractive vocal. But this is balanced by the spirited rendition of "I Am Bound For the Promised Land" by Alfred G. Karnes (2,7).
I have taken two traits to be definitive of the Gospel sound, at least as it is currently popularized (ex. Clara Ward Singers). They are jazzy piano accompaniment and lively, blues-inflected choral singing. In this vein is "Take A Stand" by McIntosh and Edwards (1,7). Rev. F. W. McGee leads an enthusiastic chorus through "He Is The Savior for Me" (2,1), supplementing the piano with a trumpet. Mideay between Hillbilly and Gospel styles are "When I Take My Vacation in Heaven" by Mother McCollum (2,6) and "The Storm is Passing Over" by Blind Joe Taggart (1,4).
Two "blues" selections form a third category. Skip James sings "Jesus Is A Mighty Good Leader" (1,2). The performance by Blind Mamie Forehand of "Honey in the Rock" (2,4) offers an uncanny blend of blues vocal and slide guitar. A tingling sense of impending judgment is added by a triangle. Each ring seems to be the passing of another moment of our limited time on earth. Halfway between Blues and Gospel styles is a tight performance by Bukka White in "I Am in the Heavenly Way" (1,1). Charlie Patton sings "You're Gonna Need Somebody When You Die" (1,3), a version of "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond." Patton and Lee do a two-, or is it three-, part rendition of "Oh Death." (1,5)
Jug band music--a fourth form--is genetically related to the blues. This distinctive instrumental style is joined with Gospel-style choral singing in two selections. Elder Richard Bryant leads a lively female chorus in "Watch Ye, Therefore, You Know Not the Day" (1,8). In "Sinner I'd Make A Change," The Holy Ghost Sanctified Singers (2,2) embellish a low-key gospel-jug band blena with infectious clapping patterns.
My final category is a catch-all to cover types not touched above. Rev. D. C. Rice is represented by two arrangements. "No Night There" (1,6) is accompanied by an incredibly off-key trio of trumpet, trombone and piano. It begins as a singing sermon and reels into the realm of the vaudevillian. "Sure Foundations" (2,3) displays the same touch of showmanship. Singing serman shades to a gusty solo, fortified by a string band instrumental. The LP concludes with an oddly baroque piece, "I Had A Good Mother and Father" (2,8) by Washington Phillips.
The last selection symbolizes the purpose of the album. It is an illustration of the adaptation of a musical form to meet new demands. The process at work here is one of the secularization of sacred music to satisfy the need for a viable religion in a changing social context.
CLUB RECORDS STILL AVAILABLE
All three of the Club records are in print at $4.00 each to the public and at $3.50 each to Club members. Please remember that these albums make excellent gifts for relatives and friends. We mail records on request.
CFC 101: PG&MS CFC 201: GREEN FIELDS OF ILLINOIS. CFC 301: HELL-BOUND TRAIN SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY FOLKSING, MARCH 1, 1968
Once again this year the CFC grooved to a highly sophisitcated, talented, and little known group of people--the singers of folk songs who come from our own area and our own experience. The evening was variegated. We saw everything from sparkling blue- grass to lilting balladry. There were even some intensely impersonal blues. Rather than trying to give AUTOHARP readers a twang-by- plunk account of the evening, we commissioned Sue Wasserman to reveal the "highlights" of that evening to the Western world. Her penetrating analysis follows. T.A.
Brocade-vested Doyle Moore, though not a basic Methodist, entered clutch- Lng a basic Methodist hymnal, and made love, on stage, to the Ten Commandments. 'You know how those old folks are when you get them started."
The Friends of Greasy Greens--Neil Rosenberg, Richard Blaustein, and 'eter Acevez--played not bluegrass, but "old-timey delta rock," a concoction 'based on traditional things--like life." They did it very well, considering that their minds were in a zither.
John Rutherford, unaccompanied but "suitably tanked up" on English ale and fish and chips could not under the circumstances perform otherwise that >rilliantly.
Although George Wilson had slight technical difficulty with his balalaida, 'If I hadn't started you wouldn't ever have known the difference." His groundhog also had trouble with his (or her) hole.
Lyle and Doris Mayfield, having gone ape over the Carter Family, played several of their favorites and ours on guitalin and guitalin guitar. They were impressive.
Next to play was Surie Bangura, the "little frog" with the liquid voice mad seven or eight fingers on each hand.
Suzie Paulauski had more difficulty because, "The trouble about being a yirl banjo player is that none of the boys' banjoes fit on you." But it was ill right because she played "Santa Claus".
Lane Mayfield, displaying more showmanship than any other performer of bhe evening, stopped singing after he forgot the words during his powerful rendition of "Here, Rattler, Here."
Ray Perlman followed hard-to-follow Lane--and survived by virtue of his rull, rich voice.
Tom Adler, R. Buck Sayers, and Snake River Lee came, saw, and conquered, iespite the fact that R. Buck could only play in one key.
Sarah Ben Abraham, as the last performer of the program, provided in the Israeli songs which she sang unaccompanied and movingly, a happy ending to i complete and satisfying evening. THE TALKING STUDENT MOVEMENT
If you want your rights, let me tell you what to do, You've got to talk to the students in the class with you. You've got to build you a movement, got to make it strong, And if we all stick together, well it won't be long-- You'll have freedom of speech ' Unlimited hours 1 Might even learn something I
Now it ain't quite this simple, so I'd better advise Just why you've got to organize, Cause if you wait for the Dean to treat you right You'll be middle aged and out of sight- Graduated! Gone to Vietnam. Westmoreland will be the Dean of Students then'.
Now you know you're pushed around but the Dean says you ain't, And they sneak out at night and cover up your paint. You may be down and out but you ain't beaten-- Pass out a leaflet and call a mass meeting-- Talk it over; speak your mind; Decide to do something about it.
Of course, Tom Morgan will persuade some stupid fool To go to your meeting and act like a stool, You can always tell a stool though that's a fact, He's got a yellow streak a-running down his back. He doesn't have to stool. He can always get deferred... By having a baby or going to graduate school.
You've got a Movement now and you're sitting pretty, Put some hard-core types on the executive committee. The Deans won't listen when one guy squawks But they've got to listen when the Movement talks. They'd better! Get mighty lonesome If everybody decided to walk out on them.
Now they're pushing you around and its just not right, And they won't let you entertain your girl at night. You go to the Dean and the Dean will shout, That you'd better shape up or he'll ship you out. While he's bragging to the Trustees and feeling mighty slick Because he thinks he's got your movement licked. When he looks out the window, and what does he see But 10,000 students and they all agree He's a bastard I Tool of the Establishment I Unfair I Bet he bought his dissertation.
And now you come to the hardest time. Administration will try to break your picket line. They'll call out the police, the National Guard. They jug you for spindling an IBM card; They'll bug your rest-rooms, they'll hit you on the head, They'll call everyone of you a "God-damned red'." "Flower children " "Betraying our boys in Vietnam."
But out at Berkeley, here's what they found, And up at Madison, here's what they found, And up in Ann Arbor here's what they found, And out in Brooklyn here's what they found; That if you don't let the cops break you up, And if they don't let the Deans break you up, And if you don't let security officers break you up, And if you don't let the draft board break you up, You'll win--what I mean... Is take it easy...but take itI
An anonymous contribution--with apologies to the classic "Talking Union."
The text and tune of "Talking Union" are found in SONGS OF TDRK AND FREEDOM by Edith Fowke and Joe Glazer (Chicago: Roosevelt University, 1960), pp. 22-24.
The song is recorded by the Almanac Singers on THE ORIGINAL TALKING UNION (Folkways FH 5285).
WHAT SOURS THE WINE?
by Lyle Mayfield
Lyle Mayfield, a former Daily Illini printer and Illinois folksinger now living in Greenville, is known to Autoharp readers as a performer on the Club's second LP: Green Fields of Illinois. Below we present a sketch of "a musical failure" known to Lyle.
The dropout percentage amongst musical students must be as high as the purity content of a famous soap...99 and hh/100 percent. If it weren't, they would be thicker than fleas on a dirty dog's back. Hardly anyone gets through this life without giving thought or effort to mastering some type of musical instrument.
Perhaps it is just as well, but we can't help but feel a little sad about the potentially great musicians who are detoured through no fault of their own. Many, many a great talent is wasted because of simple little things done inadvertantly or out of momentary spite or jealously. Environment is a tremendous factor in the shaping of musicians...perhaps the strongest single factor.
No one can say exactly what it is that separates the wheat from the chaff or, makes chaff out of what might have been wheat.
We could name dozens of musicians who have taken long strides with little or practically no talent. The longest list is made up, though, of those who have been blessed with above average talent and, for one reason or another, have never developed it. Perhaps in examining the stories of some of these people we will help bring future folklorists to a better understanding of the persons they will be dealing with. Before discussing individual cases let's generalize a little about what early environment can do to the future of a musician...what situations and parental acts cause a future performer to lean this way or that.
Usually the type of music a parent leans toward will find a soft spot in the heart of the child. The child will not necessarily prefer the same type of music as the parent, but, if it is presented to the child in a proper manner, he will grow up with a tolerance for it. If the music causes a hardship on the family the child may tend to dislike it.
Secondly, the quality of music that a young person is exposed to is important in the forming of his or her musical traits. A person exposed to good, rythmic music will develop a good sense of timing and syncopation. The same is true of harmonies. We do not believe you can develop an ear for tones and harmonies unless you hear them. Inherited musical talent may play a large part in one's ability to play but, not as much as many believe. Third, and this is more important than many realize, is the mental attitude towards music in general. Parents can do nothing better for a future musician than to instill in them an honest, sincere approach to music. It is an art that comes to the highest pinnacle of excellence when performed because one loves and understands it.
With these basic thoughts in mind let us examine the histories of a few potentially great musicians and find out why they never made it over the hump of success. These stories are the true accounts of musicians we have known down through the years. For obvious reasons we will use ficticious names.
Jimmy was a fiddler. Perhaps it would be nicer to say violinist but, Jimmy wouldn't like that. He had the fingers of a violinist but the mental attitude Df a fiddler. He would have rather cut off his fingers than play classical music.
At 13 Jimmy was the surest fingered fiddler in his home county. At 17 he was married and a prospective father. At 20 he was a drunk. At 30 he was a human failure drifting from job to job. He could not even retain ownership of a violin. Today he will play only when someone takes away the bottle and puts the fiddle there instead.
It would be simple to say that booze ruined Jimmy...that he drank away his talent. Perhaps liquor had a hand in putting the finishing touches on Jimmy but that was only a small part of it. His future was ruined before he even graduated from primary school.
The son of poor whites that moved out of the Tennessee hills in hard times, he was raised in a home filled with hardship, profanity, crying babies, resentment and country music. His father and brothers all played fiddles, guitars, mandolins, banjos...anything with strings on it. He couldn't help being a fiddler. He learned music as most people learn to talk. When he struck bow to strings they did talk. In our years of associating with country musicians we have never heard anyone play more from their heart and soul.
In Jimmy's case the instrument was a pastime and a tool. A tool used to open doors that would have been better left locked. It opened the swinging doors to taverns and dance halls where easy money, easy liquor and easy women resided.
Perhaps the single greatest destructive factor in Jimmy's boyhood environment was attitude. His was a home that lived on this philosophy: "Other folks got it. We-uns ain't got nuthin' so, let's take anything we can git...anyway we can git it."
Jimmy learned to practice this philosophy quickly. When a well meaning friend offered an instrument as a gift he accepted. Because of his talent these gifts were frequent. He gave no thought to care of an instrument. Why should he...someone was always ready to give him another one. A banjo wound up as a window prop. A rainstorm finished it off. A fiddle became a pawn for a bottle of booze. A D28 Martin guitar was dug out of the trunk of a car he wrecked while on a drunken spree. Someone had given it to him so why should he care if it got scratched and cracked a little. Cornered by inherited poverty and a built-in inferiority complex, Jimmy was painfully aware of the feeling more affluent members of the community had for him and his family.
"To them folks we just them hicks out on the ridge," was the way he would put it. To counteract what he thought was the attitude of "them other folks" he began to carry a bigger and bigger chip on his shoulder. He took his pleasures when and where he could find them.
One night a pretty little filly became enamored with his music and wished to show her appreciation. She had nothing to give except herself. She did.
The result was an unwanted pregnancy and an unwanted marriage. At 17 Jimmy was on his own in a hostile world with a pregnant wife to support. Then things really changed. Now he was just another married man. He had lost his singular appeal. He had gotten that "innocent little girl" in trouble and society was ready to make him "pay for it." No one believed his devil-may-care attitude anymore. Who wanted a 17-year-old without an education and with a bitter, resentful outlook on life.
Resentment bred resentment. Bitterness bred bitterness. Inferiority bred inferiority. One-time friends began to remember those unappreciated gits. The easy money made playing for tavern dances was no longer forthcoming. Jimmy couldn't stay sober long enough to play. Any job now to earn a living...more babies...a quarrelsome wife...fingers roughened by the type of jobs that fell his lot...booze to ease the pain and blot out the defeat and frustration...The Wine Had Spoiled!
Jimmie Tarlton Brochures Available
In the spring of 1967 the Campus Folksong Club sold a number of Jimmie Tarlton's LP album (Steel Guitar Rag, Testament T 3302) to Club members and friends. At that time the album brochures were not ready. They are now available I We shall be happy to mail single copies of the brochure to album purchasers who drop us a note:
Campus Folksong Club Room 284, Illini Union Urbana, Illinois 61801
The LP is still available from the Club for $3.50. ws Folksong Club presents an 41 at C---ý in a concertS of
'A S a S F a a Sb & a
rday March 9 »8:00 pm I Commerce West ion by membership only- rship available at the door