2 Table Of Contents / Welcome Where To Find Us 3 Table Of Contents Arhoolie Welcomes You How To ORDER Arhoolie’s History. 4 to the best authentic, and pure roots & You can order ALL items in this ARHOOLIE CATALOG and most items in the Arhoolie Foundation . 12 NEATWORK Catalog by filling out the enclosed ORDER FORM and enclosing the 40th Anniversary Box Set. 14-15 vernacular music on records! In the fall of correct amount, or you can order by phone TOLL FREE with VISA or Blues . 16-48 MASTERCARD by calling 888-ARHOOLIE (888-274-6654). (This is an order Cajun/Zydeco . 50-77 2005 Arhoolie celebrated its 45th year of number only – for all other Arhoolie business, please call 510-525-7471.) Or, you can order via our website, www.arhoolie.com. Mexican-American/Tejano/ presenting these traditions. Tex-Mex/Conjunto/Mexico . 79-115 Thank you, World Music . 116-130 This 2007 ARHOOLIE/FOLKLYRIC The ARHOOLIE staff Afghanistan . 116 CATALOG lists all items released through Caribbean/Bahamas . 116 Where To Find Us Caribbean/Belize . 117 JULY 30, 2007. For details about releases ARHOOLIE RECORDS ARHOOLIE WEBSITE: Caribbean/Dominican Rep. 117 10341 San Pablo Avenue Caribbean/Martinique . 117 after July 2007, please request our www.arhoolie.com El Cerrito, CA 94530 Keep up to date with our latest releases Caribbean/Trinidad . 118 CATALOG SUPPLEMENTS or visit our Carribbean/Puerto Rico . 119 Phone: (510) 525-7471 and news by visiting our website. You’ll Colombia . 119 WEBSITE: WWW.ARHOOLIE.COM. Fax: (510) 525-1204 find our complete catalog with full color Cuba. 120-121 E-mail: [email protected] pictures of every CD cover, songlists, Greece. 121-122 Orders ONLY call toll free: artist information, reviews, audio samples, and our artist tour dates. You can also Hawaii . 123 Our special (888) 274-6654 we accept VISA or MasterCard only! order directly from the site and e-mail us: Hungarian/Gypsy. 124 CATALOG [email protected]. Ireland . 125 Klezmer/Yiddish. 125 SUPPLEMENTS: Retail Stores: Laos . 126 Most good record shops in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Japan stock many Peru . 126-127 1. The Spanish Language Catalog – Bilingual catalog includes all our if not most of our CD releases. The ONLY store, however, where you can find ALL Poland/Polka/Texas. 128-129 ARHOOLIE releases as well as all Neatwork in stock (as well as all books & videos) at all Spain . 129 Tejano/Conjunto and other Spanish times is: Ukraine . 130 language recordings. Country/Oldtime/Bluegrass . 131-145 2. Special SALE list of close-out cassettes. Folk. 146 Jazz. 146-150 3. Special SALE list of close-out CDs. Gospel . 151-159 4. Special vinyl LP list – includes close- Flower Films . 160 out specials and rare collectors items. Publications & Periodicals. 160 78 rpm Records. 161 5. NEATWORK catalog of Jazz CDs. Numerical Arhoolie Catalog. 162-169 6. THE ARHOOLIE FOUNDATION Brochure – Find out how you can help Books . 50, 76, 79, 110, 122, 139 preserve traditional roots musics! DVDs & Videos: 10341 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, CA 94530 Arhoolie’s 25th Aniversary . 49, 78 Phone: (510) 525-2129 J’ai Été Au Bal (I Went to the Dance) . 53 NOTE: Books listed in this catalog are www.downhomemusic.com NOT available to retailers from us – Clifton Chenier, “The King of Zydeco” 64 Open Daily from 11am - 6pm (Wed. & Sat. until 7). They are in the same building as Everything But The Squeak . 77 available only to direct customers. ARHOOLIE RECORDS. Located east of San Francisco, across the bay, between Berkeley Chulas Fronteras & Del Mero Corazón . 83 Sacred Steel . 155 All contents © by Arhoolie Productions Inc. and Richmond, a few blocks north of BART’s El Cerrito Plaza station. 4 Arhoolie’s History Arhoolie’s History 5 “Down-Home Music Louisiana in the summer of 1960. Mack THE NAME ARHOOLIE: form of record at that time, and searched Since 1960” McCormick, who had introduced me to for distributors and stores to reach that THE FIRST ARHOOLIE LPS: my idol, Lightning Hopkins (via Sam I had thought of names like Delta, market. By the early 1960s “down-home” Charters) in Houston the previous sum- Gulf, Down Home, etc., for my label blues were pretty much passé for African On November 3, 1960, 250 copies mer, was a very informed and generous when Mack suddenly suggested Americans, only “Rockin’ Lucky” on San of the first Arhoolie LP (LP stands for host and also came up with the name ARWHOOLIE! My initial response was: Francisco’s KSAN-AM, “Gabriel” in St. Long Play, 33 1/3 rpm record, for you ARHOOLIE for my new record label. “AR what?” But its unique sound and Louis, and Wolf Man Jack on border- post-record, CD, & iPod folks!) arrived My main reason for starting a record apparent synonym for a field holler, blaster XERF from Villa Acuna, Coahuila, from the pressing plant. That was Mance company was the hope of documenting seemed rather appropriate for the music I Mexico were still playing the blues along Lipscomb: “Texas Sharecropper and Lightning Hopkins at his inventive best, wanted to record. The word appeared on with Houston’s KCOH which helped spin Songster” - Arhoolie LP # 1001. Wayne live, at the beer joints where I had heard a Library of Congress disc made in local favorites Clifton Chenier and Pope, his wife Alice and I sat around his him the previous summer. Unfortunately Mississippi and apparently was the Lightning Hopkins. I was lucky to find kitchen table spunging printed cover I did not have the capital to satisfy response of the singer when asked what some honest distributors like W. Daily in slicks which we had printed on gummed Lightning’s demands nor the recording he called the selection just recorded. I Houston, Floyd Soileau in Louisiana, label stock onto black jackets. We stuffed equipment to make such a “live” album. have since heard the word “hoolie” in ref- K.O.Asher in Chicago, along with a few the discs into the jackets and inserted a At these bars in Houston’s black ghettos erence to a field holler but I think the “ar” others and somehow Arhoolie survived, booklet with Mack McCormick’s inform- the audience egged him on, danced, and in front of it was simply the man stutter- struggled and grew - very slowly! ative notes and texts of the songs, a la conversed in a lively manner – this was ing a bit in Mississippi fashion when Folkways Records style! After a lot of hard the real blues audience. A few years later, somewhat nervous! FIRST RECORDING TRIP - 1960 work we finally had 250 “homemade” Lightning had become a “professional” At that time most African Americans copies for sale! performer who was soon appearing at I met in record shops, taverns, dance halls, I had made a few attempts to record I had recorded Mance Lipscomb, night clubs, concerts and festivals for a etc. would refer to the kind of low down, blues in California (including Jesse Fuller then an unknown but remarkable, very different, mostly white audience. I rough, gut-bucket type of rural based and John Hogg etc)on a very amateur regional songster, blues singer and gui- eventually did record Lightning on sever- blues I especially liked as “down home basis before meeting Lightning Hopkins tarist whom Mack and I had met in al occasions in the years to come, but the blues” or “alley music”. The music biz’s in 1959. I had kept in touch with Mack Navasota, Texas, during my first record- atmosphere and environment was never trade journal “Billboard,” included this in Houston and also had corresponded ing trip to Texas, Mississippi and to be the same again – ever! genre under the recently coined category with Paul Oliver about our mutual fasci- of “Rhythm & Blues,” having dropped nation with the Blues. It was during the the term “Race Records” (meaning music summer vacation of 1960 while I was of the black Race) which had been in use working as a high school teacher in Los since the 1920s. My main aim was to doc- Gatos, Ca., that I got the chance to take ument the best authentic down home off and drive to Texas. Paul Oliver had In the fall of 1960 blues singers in their most creative envi- been hired by the BBC in UK to take a Chris Strachwitz, ronment and sell the albums to anyone trip to the USA in order to document the left, and designer Wayne Pope who would listen! Long Play records were Blues and he offered to meet up with me glued slicks to the still in the early stages of acceptance in Memphis and jointly explore first 250 LP covers among regional and vernacular audiences Mississippi and then head back through for Arhoolie’s but I quickly became aware that a new, Louisiana and Texas, back to California. first release, “Mance Lipscomb: mainly young, white “folk music” audi- Luckily fellow record collector, the late Texas Sharecropper ence was developing and growing here in Bob Pinson, wanted a ride home to and Songster.” the USA, as well as in Europe, Australia, Forth Worth to visit his relatives. Bob and Japan. I tried to reach the African- turned out to be a very able and enthusi- American audience by releasing 45 rpm astic fellow “music detective” who helped singles, which were still the most popular find Lil’ Son Jackson and interviewed 6 Arhoolie’s History Arhoolie’s History 7 “Sleepy” Johnson of the Bob Wills band. WHAT GOT ME STARTED managing Country Joe (McDonald) and Denson, for teaching me that there is We were also armed with an amazing list MAKING RECORDS the Fish, had me record a tape in my liv- potentially more money in publishing of names of blues artists who had record- ing room which resulted in this group’s songs than in making esoteric authentic ed in the Dallas – Fort Worth area in the The idea of making records grew out first record, which included “One, two, folk music records! But putting out those past, courtesy Paul Oliver.