Download or read book Arhoolie Records Down Home Music written by Joel Selvin and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2023-11-14 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A visual storytelling celebration of American roots music in its rich variety through unseen and newly scanned photographs by the founder of the legendary Arhoolie Records. Founded in 1960 by Chris Strachwitz, the one-man operation Arhoolie Records eventually produced more than four hundred albums during more than forty years in operation, exploring the far corners of American vernacular music—blues, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, hillbilly, Texas-Mexican norteño music, and more. From the very beginning, Strachwitz brought his camera along with recording equipment as he met and recorded now-legendary artists such as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Clifton Chenier, and Big Joe Williams. This book collects more than 150 of his best, most intimate, and exciting images—many never-before-seen—each with rich captions by Strachwitz and award-winning music journalist Joel Selvin, along with a substantial 20,000-word essay by Selvin about Arhoolie, Strachwitz, and the music. INTIMATE AND AMAZING PHOTOGRAPHS: Although Strachwitz would always self-deprecatingly claim that the photographs he took while meeting and recording musicians were strictly documentary, and *maybe* of some use for a record sleeve later, they are much more than that. Lyrical, candid, real: His rapport with the musicians and their families is glowing and evident in these photographs. RIVETING MUSIC HISTORY PHOTO BOOK: These are never-before-seen photos, and photos like you’ve never seen before. Every image is from freshly remastered scans, and the authors dove deep into the Arhoolie archives to uncover images almost no one has had the chance to see. CRUCIAL AMERICAN MUSIC AND CULTURAL HISTORY: Strachwitz’s wide-ranging interest and unbridled enthusiasm for all sorts of roots music led to his crisscrossing the country from artist to artist based on recommendations, rumor, tips, radio broadcasts—the result being a portrait (in sound for the label, and image in this book) of vital American music in a wide range of genres. He has rich stories for each photograph and artist. AN INVALUABLE DOCUMENT: Arhoolie fundamentally shaped our understanding of American music. Renowned music writer Joel Selvin has not only worked with Strachwitz to draw out the stories behind the photographs, but he has contributed an invaluable long-form essay about Arhoolie, Strachwitz, and the label's cultural legacy to anchor this incredible book. Perfect for: Fans of American roots music, including the blues, folk, Cajun, Creole, zydeco, Mexican American border music, and more Fans of Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Big Mama Thornton, Lydia Mendoza, Clifton Chenier, Flaco Jiménez, Mance Lipscomb, Narciso Martínez, Big Joe Williams, and the other fantastic artists whose records Arhoolie released over the years Birthday, holiday, graduation, or anytime gift for musicians and music lovers Collectors of music history, American cultural history, Black history, and music photography books
Download or read book The Beautiful Music All Around Us written by Stephen Wade and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2012-08-10 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Beautiful Music All Around Us presents the extraordinarily rich backstories of thirteen performances captured on Library of Congress field recordings between 1934 and 1942 in locations reaching from Southern Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta and the Great Plains. Including the children's play song "Shortenin' Bread," the fiddle tune "Bonaparte's Retreat," the blues "Another Man Done Gone," and the spiritual "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down," these performances were recorded in kitchens and churches, on porches and in prisons, in hotel rooms and school auditoriums. Documented during the golden age of the Library of Congress recordings, they capture not only the words and tunes of traditional songs but also the sounds of life in which the performances were embedded: children laugh, neighbors comment, trucks pass by. Musician and researcher Stephen Wade sought out the performers on these recordings, their families, fellow musicians, and others who remembered them. He reconstructs the sights and sounds of the recording sessions themselves and how the music worked in all their lives. Some of these performers developed musical reputations beyond these field recordings, but for many, these tracks represent their only appearances on record: prisoners at the Arkansas State Penitentiary jumping on "the Library's recording machine" in a rendering of "Rock Island Line"; Ora Dell Graham being called away from the schoolyard to sing the jump-rope rhyme "Pullin' the Skiff"; Luther Strong shaking off a hungover night in jail and borrowing a fiddle to rip into "Glory in the Meetinghouse." Alongside loving and expert profiles of these performers and their locales and communities, Wade also untangles the histories of these iconic songs and tunes, tracing them through slave songs and spirituals, British and homegrown ballads, fiddle contests, gospel quartets, and labor laments. By exploring how these singers and instrumentalists exerted their own creativity on inherited forms, "amplifying tradition's gifts," Wade shows how a single artist can make a difference within a democracy. Reflecting decades of research and detective work, the profiles and abundant photos in The Beautiful Music All Around Us bring to life largely unheralded individuals--domestics, farm laborers, state prisoners, schoolchildren, cowboys, housewives and mothers, loggers and miners--whose music has become part of the wider American musical soundscape. The hardcover edition also includes an accompanying CD that presents these thirteen performances, songs and sounds of America in the 1930s and '40s.
Download or read book The Arhoolie Foundation s Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings written by Agustin Gurza and published by Chicano Archives. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Strachwitz Frontera Collection is the largest repository of commercially produced Mexican and Mexican American vernacular recordings in existence. It contains more than 130,000 individual recordings. Many are rare, and some are one of a kind. Although border music is the focus of the collection, it also includes notable recordings of other Latin forms, including salsa, mambo, sones, and rancheras. More than 40,000 of the recordings, all from the first half of the twentieth century, have been digitized with the help of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and are available online through the University of California's Digital Library Program. Agustin Gurza explores the Frontera Collection from different viewpoints, discussing genre, themes, and some of the thousands of composers and performers whose work is contained in the archive. Throughout he discusses the cultural significance of the recordings and relates the stories of those who have had a vital role in their production and preservation. Rounding out the volume are chapters by Jonathan Clark, who surveys the recordings of mariachi ensembles, and Chris Strachwitz, the founder of the Arhoolie Foundation, who reflects on his six decades of collecting the music that makes up the Frontera Collection."--Publisher description.
Download or read book Made in Louisiana written by Marc Savoy and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Upon seeing a Louisiana-handmade diatonic accordion for the first time in 1957, a teenage Marc Savoy began a quest that arguably no one has come closer to achieving: to build the perfect Cajun accordion. Told in Marc's own words, Made in Louisiana is the story of the evolution of his Acadian brand accordions--but it is also the story of how an instrument once known as the "German-style" accordion became the iconic image of Louisiana's Cajun culture.
Download or read book Sacred Steel written by Robert Stone and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2010-08-30 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Pioneering work on the emergence, development, and current status of a vital but long overlooked tradtition. Enlightening and engaging." --Scott Barretta, musci historian and former editor of Living Blues magazine.
Download or read book The Blues Come to Texas written by and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 1237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From October 1959 until the mid-1970s, Paul Oliver and Mack McCormick collaborated on what they hoped to be a definitive history and analysis of the blues in Texas. Both were prominent scholars and researchers—Oliver had already established an impressive record of publications, and McCormick was building a sprawling collection of primary materials that included field recordings and interviews with blues musicians from all over Texas and the greater South. Despite being eagerly awaited by blues fans, folklorists, historians, and ethnomusicologists who knew about the Oliver-McCormick collaboration, the intended manuscript was never completed. In 1996, Alan Govenar, a respected writer, folklorist, photographer, and filmmaker, began a conversation with Oliver about the unfinished book on Texas blues. Subsequently, Oliver invited Govenar to assist him, and when Oliver became ill, Govenar enlisted folklorist and ethnomusicologist Kip Lornell to help him contextualize and document the existing manuscript for publication. The Blues Come to Texas: Paul Oliver and Mack McCormick’s Unfinished Book presents an unparalleled view into the minds and methods of two pioneering blues scholars.
Download or read book Music USA written by Richie Unterberger and published by Rough Guides. This book was released on 1999 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ideal handbook for every rock-n-roll pilgrim, Music USA tours the musical heritage of America, from New York to Seattle, stopping at all the shrines of sound in between. Coverage includes background on the development of local music styles, with details on clubs and venues, radio stations and record stores nationwide.
Download or read book American Sabor written by Marisol Berros-Miranda and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evoking the pleasures of music as well as food, the word sabor signifies a rich essence that makes our mouths water or makes our bodies want to move. American Sabor traces the substantial musical contributions of Latinas and Latinos in American popular music between World War II and the present in five vibrant centers of Latin@ musical production: New York, Los Angeles, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Miami. From Tito Puente�s mambo dance rhythms to the Spanglish rap of Mellow Man Ace, American Sabor focuses on musical styles that have developed largely in the United States�including jazz, rhythm and blues, rock, punk, hip hop, country, Tejano, and salsa�but also shows the many ways in which Latin@ musicians and styles connect US culture to the culture of the broader Americas. With side-by-side Spanish and English text, authors Marisol Berr�os-Miranda, Shannon Dudley, and Michelle Habell-Pall�n challenge the white and black racial framework that structures most narratives of popular music in the United States. They present the regional histories of Latin@ communities�including Chicanos, Tejanos, and Puerto Ricans�in distinctive detail, and highlight the shared experiences of immigration/migration, racial boundary crossing, contesting gender roles, youth innovation, and articulating an American experience through music. In celebrating the musical contributions of Latinos and Latinas, American Sabor illuminates a cultural legacy that enriches us all.
Download or read book Shared Notes written by Martin Hayes and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-10-14 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin Hayes spent his childhood on a farm in County Clare, in a household steeped in musical tradition. After a free-spirited youth, he headed to the United States where he built a career that led to a life of musical performance on stages all over the world. Shared Notes traces this remarkable journey. Picking up his first fiddle at the age of seven, Hayes learned that music must express feeling. No amount of technical prowess can compensate for an absence of soulfulness. His interpretations of traditional Irish music are recognized the world over for their exquisite musicality and irresistible rhythm. Hayes has toured and recorded with guitarist Dennis Cahill for over twenty years, founded the Irish-American band The Gloaming, The Martin Hayes Quartet and The Common Ground Ensemble, and here, for the first time, tells his story of getting to the heart of the music.
Download or read book Joan Baez written by Elizabeth Thomson and published by Palazzo Editions. This book was released on 2020-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrates the life of the folk singer and activist who received the Woody Guthry Prize in 2020.
Download or read book Astral Weeks written by Ryan H. Walsh and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mind-expanding dive into a lost chapter of 1968, featuring the famous and forgotten: Van Morrison, folkie-turned-cult-leader Mel Lyman, Timothy Leary, James Brown, and many more Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is an iconic rock album shrouded in legend, a masterpiece that has touched generations of listeners and influenced everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Martin Scorsese. In his first book, acclaimed musician and journalist Ryan H. Walsh unearths the album's fascinating backstory--along with the untold secrets of the time and place that birthed it: Boston 1968. On the 50th anniversary of that tumultuous year, Walsh's book follows a criss-crossing cast of musicians and visionaries, artists and hippie entrepreneurs, from a young Tufts English professor who walks into a job as a host for TV's wildest show (one episode required two sets, each tuned to a different channel) to the mystically inclined owner of radio station WBCN, who believed he was the reincarnation of a scientist from Atlantis. Most penetratingly powerful of all is Mel Lyman, the folk-music star who decided he was God, then controlled the lives of his many followers via acid, astrology, and an underground newspaper called Avatar. A mesmerizing group of boldface names pops to life in Astral Weeks: James Brown quells tensions the night after Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated; the real-life crimes of the Boston Strangler come to the movie screen via Tony Curtis; Howard Zinn testifies for Avatar in the courtroom. From life-changing concerts and chilling crimes, to acid experiments and film shoots, Astral Weeks is the secret, wild history of a unique time and place. One of LitHub's 15 Books You Should Read This March
Download or read book Old Monarch written by Courtney Marie Andrews and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some people are like monarch butterflies—solitary by nature, on a passionate search for somewhere. Critically acclaimed songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews presents her first poetry collection. This poetry collection reads like a transformation, me, the narrator, being the figurative Old Monarch. Documenting this journey, the book is separated into three sections, "Sonoran Milkweed," "Longing In Flight," and "Eucalyptus Tree (My Arrival to Rest)." In the first stage of my journey, I explore my childhood in Arizona, and the naive assumptions of youth. At this stage in my journey, I am impressionable, seeing the world with all its nuances for the first time. Through the landscape of the Sonoran Desert, I explore some dark family dynamics and what a child sees. Several characters turn up in the early poems including my cowboy grandpa, and the single mother who raised me, despite many forthcomings. The early poems also explore my desire to see a brighter world of possibility beyond the dusty desert island, and see humans more clearly within the confounds of discovery. In the second stage, I have left home. I am falling in love for the first time, as I become a young woman. Finally, the last stage is the old monarch's arrival to the garden. There are a lot of metaphysical and philosophical poems in this section. I arrive at the figurative garden, and I finally understand the journey at the edge of my life. There are a lot of poems in the context of a garden here, accepting mortality and the ever-changing world. These are meant to be wise old woman poems.
Download or read book San Francisco The Musical History Tour written by Joel Selvin and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 1996-04 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get the real skinny on the Bay Area's most illustrious rock and-roll, jazz, and blues musicians and their favorite digs from the one cat who should know—the San Francisco Chronicle's longtime music critic Joel Selvin. Here are the stories, legends, and secrets behind the clubs, recording studios, famous homes, and final resting places of dozens of music greats, from Jimi Hendrix to Linda Ronstadt. With rare archival photographs of pivotal events and places, this lively compendium will captivate both resident and visiting music fans.
Download or read book On the Road Not Taken written by Paul Dodgson and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the Road Not Taken is a memoir about the transformational power of music. It begins with a boy growing up in a small town on the Kent coast in the 1970s, who learns to play the guitar and dreams of heading out on the open road with a head full of songs. But when the moment comes to make the choice he is not brave enough to try and do it for a living. Time passes but the desire to explain the world through music never goes away. And as the years go by it gets harder and harder to risk looking like a fool, of doing the very thing he would most like to do, of actually being himself. Eventually, thirty-five years later, when it feels like time is running out, he walks out onto a stage in front of 500 people and begins to sing again. What follows is an extraordinary period of self-discovery as he plays pubs, clubs, theatres and festivals, overcoming anxiety to experience the joy of performance.
Download or read book The Blues A Very Short Introduction written by Elijah Wald and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure got the blues." It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches," using a five-note "blues scale." Wald sees blues less as a style than as a broad musical tradition within a constantly evolving pop culture. He traces its roots in work and praise songs, and shows how it was transformed by such professional performers as W. C. Handy, who first popularized the blues a century ago. He follows its evolution from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith through Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix; identifies the impact of rural field recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and others; explores the role of blues in the development of both country music and jazz; and looks at the popular rhythm and blues trends of the 1940s and 1950s, from the uptown West Coast style of T-Bone Walker to the "down home" Chicago sound of Muddy Waters. Wald brings the story up to the present, touching on the effects of blues on American poetry, and its connection to modern styles such as rap. As with all of Oxford's Very Short Introductions, The Blues tells you--with insight, clarity, and wit--everything you need to know to understand this quintessentially American musical genre.
Download or read book Raised by Musical Mavericks written by Mitch Greenhill and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-05 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "At age 13, Mitch Greenhill's life was upended by a series of powerful musicians. As his father entered the music business, Pete Seeger, Lightnin' Hopkins, Reverend Gary Davis, Doc Watson and others entered the family home. Crucially molded by these encounters, Mitch grew up to inherit that business, to play a lot of guitar, to record albums and to compose for theater."--Back cover.
Download or read book Lightnin Hopkins written by Alan Govenar and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2010-05 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on scores of interviews with the artist's relatives, friends, lovers, producers, accompanists, managers, and fans, this brilliant biography reveals a man of many layers and contradictions. Following the journey of a musician who left his family's poor cotton farm at age eight carrying only a guitar, the book chronicles his life on the open road playing blues music and doing odd jobs. It debunks the myths surrounding his meetings with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander, his time on a chain gang, his relationships with women, and his lifelong appetite for gambling and drinking. This volume also discusses his hard-to-read personality; whether playing for black audiences in Houston's Third Ward, for white crowds at the Matrix in San Francisco, or in the concert halls of Europe, Sam Hopkins was a musician who poured out his feelings in his songs and knew how to endear himself to his audience--yet it was hard to tell if he was truly sincere, and he appeared to trust no one. Finally, this book moves beyond exploring his personal life and details his entire musical career, from his first recording session in 1946--when he was dubbed Lightnin'--to his appearance on the national charts and his rediscovery by Mack McCormick and Sam Charters in 1959, when his popularity had begun to wane and a second career emerged, playing to white audiences rather than black ones. Overall, this narrative tells the story of an important blues musician who became immensely successful by singing with a searing emotive power about his country roots and the injustices that informed the civil rights era.
