Review: From the Record Review Editor: Folk Music Recordings in Series: The John Edwards Memorial Foundation and the Blue Ridge Institute
Jeff Todd Titon
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 388 (Apr. - Jun., 1985), pp. 233-237
RECORD REVIEWS FROM THE RECORD REVIEW EDITOR
Folk Music Recordings in Series: The John Edwards Memorial Foundation and the Blue Ridge Institute
The John Edwards Memorial Foundation (EMF) and the Blue Ridge Institute, both nonprofit institutions, one in California and the other in Virginia, have been quietly issuing recordings in intelligently conceived series for several years now. The Foundation specializes in traditional music that has already been disseminated by the commercial media-records, radio, television, print-and has come to be identified through its publication, the JEMF Quarterly, primarily with Anglo-American forms that are called hillbilly, old-timey, country, western, western swing, country-and-western, cowboy, and so forth. Its California base has given the magazine a decidedly western orientation, but it has always tried to represent all regions and ethnicities. For example, Norm Cohen, defacto head of the organization, was receptive when I proposed that the JEMF issue blues singer Baby Doo Caston's oral autobiography in its Special Series.
Thus it is not surprising that one of the most important blues record issues of the past decade comes from the same organization. This is Atlanta Blues 1933 JEMF-106; John Edwards Memorial Forum, Folklore and Mythology Center, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90024), a collection of previously unreleased recordings by Blind Willie McTell, Curley Weaver, and Buddy Moss, originally made for the American Record Corporation in New York. The company released only some of the recordings made at the September 1933 session, but producer Art Satherley preserved the rest and ultimately donated them to the JEMF. The recordings help fill out the picture we have of these three Georgia singer/guitarists whose poporiented, thematically coherent lyrics, light and restrained vocals, and fingerpicked guitar accompaniments typify what has come to be known as the East Coast style of downhome blues. Even if this style does not characterize all of the blues singers from the region, it certainly was favored by most of the commercial recording artists.
The brochure notes contain biographical sketches of Weaver and Moss by Bruce Bastin and a lengthy biography of Blind Willie McTell based on David Evans's extensive research. Evidently Evans's parents became interested in their son's quest and located and interviewed numerous friends and relatives of the late singer as well. This is, in fact, the most thoroughly researched biography available on any prewar singer, and it occupies some 18 of the booklet's 31 oversized pages. A considerable amount of the information came from McTell's widow and musical partner, Kate. A picture of McTell emerges that shows him not just as a street singer or commercial artist but as a remarkable human being.
New England Traditional Fiddling: An Anthology of Recordings, 1926-1975 (EMF-105) features historical and contemporary recordings of New England fiddlers representing various ethnic traditions found in the region: French, Irish, Scottish-Canadian (Cape Breton migrants to the Boston area), and "Yankee." Unusual for the JEMF, this record comprises mainly field recordings, and these were made in 1975 by Paul F. Wells, the album's producer. As a regional repository of varying fiddle styles, New England is of great interest, but research in folk fiddling here is not so far advanced as it is for other sections of the United States. Hence the recordings and 33 oversized pages of notes by Wells are especially welcome. The largest portion of the album is devoted to Yankee dance fiddling.
The Yankee repertoire includes jigs, reels, marches, and hornpipes, perhaps a greater variety than any outside of New England. Yankee style is sturdy and vigorous with relatively little variation and almost no syncopation. Somewhat greater variation and syncopation characterizes the other New England styles, particularly among the more modern players such as the Cape Breton fiddler Joe Cormier, the recent recipient of a Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, who is represented in the last selection on the album.
Wells's notes include a historical sketch (practically every other paragraph contains statements such as "little is known about . .." or "I have been unable to determine exactly . . .") that shows just how much research remains to be done. The major portion of the notes is given over to biographical information on the performers (they include Ron West, L. O. Weeks, Uncle Joe Shippee, The Plymouth Vermont Old-Time Barn Dance Orchestra, Elmer Barton, Neal Converse, Mellie Dunham's Orchestra, Wes Dickinson, Everett Dwyer, Ben Guillemette, Leon "Fritz" Carl, Camile Dubois, Duane Perry, Doug Goodwin, Louis and Wilfred Beaudoin, Paddy Cronin, and the aforementionedJoe Cormier) and analysis of the tunes, along with careful musical transcriptions that indicate some of the bowings. Wells has tracked many versions of these tunes to printed sources and other recorded versions as well. This is a valuable collection that belongs in every library with a music collection, particularly those in New England and the Northeast.
The region has been for the past 15 years or so in the throes of a vigorous and widespread contradance revival (with a music culture very much worth attention in itself); albums like this are especially useful in that they can expand the dimensions of the current interest. The last JEMF album under review represents the pioneering concepts of this organization very well. Minstrels and Tunesmiths (JEMF-109), compiled and with brochure notes by Norm Cohen, offers very early commercial recordings, from 1902-23, that illustrate the influence of (chiefly 19th century) pop music on early commercial hillbilly music. This recording is a fascinating document, not least because it represents a serious moderation of an important and highly influential argument advanced by Cohen and others in the July-September 1965 issue of the Journal of American Folklore, a special issue devoted to hillbilly music. The essence of the earlier argument was that early commercial hillbilly recordings contained legitimate folk music sung and played by folk rather than professional musicians. It has been known for many years that the picture is more complex than this, and that Cohen, Archie Green, and the others had probably oversimplified and dramatized their case; but such overstatement was perhaps necessary, given resistance to commercially recorded music among the ballad-scholar establishment at the time the breakthrough was made.
Now, however, it is possible to examine early commercial hillbilly (and, for that matter, blues and ethnic) recordings and recognize that there was constant interplay (probably from the 17th century onwards) between the family- and community-based traditional music carried down through the generations, and newly composed popular music, whether disseminated in broadsides, by professional singers, or, later, radio, records, and television. It should have-and probably did-go without saying that pop music influenced early hillbilly music very strongly, but it is significant that Cohen has compiled an album that proves the point.
Moreover, in the brochure notes Cohen continues a line of inquiry that he has pursued in a small number of tightly written articles over the years and in his recent book, Long Steel Rail (University of Illinois Press, 1981), namely, the nature of the interplay between popular, folk, and hillbilly music in the early commercial period. What we have on the album, then, are trained, professional singers and musicians (e.g., Fred Van Eps, Uncle Josh, Billy Golden) performing songs that achieved classic status among folklorists in the versions recorded later by folksingers in the 1920s and 1930s. The performances have, therefore, a fascination beyond their musical value, which is more than one might expect. And the fascination with mixed traditions continues, as anyone who has followed the development of the "new acoustic music" of the folk revival knows.
The Blue Ridge Institute is a branch of Ferrum College. Under the directorship of J. Roderick Moore, the Institute has systematically carried out folklife surveys in several Virginia counties and brought the folk artists to public attention through local festivals and artists-in-the-schools programs. One of the natural offshoots of their surveys has been an excellent recording series that concentrates on Virginia traditions. The sources include mainly contemporary and historical field recordings, many from the University of Virginia library, along with a smattering of commercially recorded discs. Many of the albums were produced by graduates of the M.A. program in folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, serving as Institute fieldworkers and employees.
The first record in this series was reviewed in a previous issue of the Journal; I will take up the next six. Western Piedmont Blues (BRI 003; Blue Ridge Institute, Ferrum College, Ferrum, VA 24088) highlights field recordings made in the mid-1970s by Kip Lornell, who also wrote the brochure notes. The recordings feature the characteristically relaxed vocals and intricate guitar accompaniments of the region, and in my view rank among the finest recorded downhome blues performances of the decade. Artists include Turner and Marvin Foddrell, John Tinsley, Rabbit Muse, James Lowry, Richard Wright, Clayton Horsley, Luke Jordan, and Herb Richardson. Lornell's notes offer historical context, a concise exploration of the blues form, and an overview of blues and its documentation in Virginia. Headnotes to the songs include biographical information and good transcriptions of the lyrics.
Lornell was largely responsible, also, for Tidewater Blues (BRI-006), much like the previous album in format and concept except that the artists (John Cephas, John Woolfork, William Moore, Carl Hodges, The Back Porch Boys, Pernell Charity, Henry Harris, "Big Boy," Corner Morris, and the Norfolk Jazz Quartet) come from the eastern Virginia lowlands. Some of the field recordings were done by blues researcher Pete Lowry, some were historical recordings, and some were field recordings done by Lornell himself. Vocals are a bit tenser, and guitar accompaniments more percussive than in the Piedmont style. Both these albums show that the blues is very much alive in Virginia; not only do the contemporary artists range in age from their 30s to their 70s, but their recordings show the excellence that comes with frequent performance.
A third album from the Blue Ridge Institute concentrating on African American traditions is Virginia Work Songs (BRI-007), compiled by Glenn Hinson, who used historical field recordings and supplemented these with several of his own. Following a tradition among worksong collectors, Hinson (as he points out in the accompanying brochure notes) gained the cooperation of the authorities and workers to stage recreations of activities in which workers sang, then recorded the singing that resulted. The largest proportion of recordings comes from prison inmates; menhaden fishing boat crews, oyster-shucking workers, and wooden-boat caulking teams furnished the rest. One selection is a story about a man who thought singing by a caulking crew might prevent them from building his boat effectively. They stopped at his request but when he saw the work going badly he ordered them to start singing again. These East Coast examples of a widespread tradition follow the leader-chorus format of the worksongs recorded elsewhere, but they are not so heavily accented or rhythmic as the ones from Mississippi. Worksong lyrics float from song to song, as blues lyrics do. Yet, again like blues lyrics, they often cohere by association and attach themselves to a stable thematic core. Hinson's 33 oversized pages of brochure notes offer the equivalent of an article that reveals his historical research on the African American worksong tradition and lengthy headnotes that contextualize each song and offer a transcription and interpretation of the lyric, point out parallels and variants, and discuss other recorded versions.
Two records from the Blue Ridge Institute focus on Anglo-American ballads, again combining historical with contemporary recordings. Ballads from British Tradition (BRI-002) contains versions of Child 1, 10, 11, 18, 79, 81, 209, 243, 278, 286, 289, and 295; and of Laws Fl, N30, P24, and Q26. Many of the singers (Texas Gladden, Dock Boggs, Horton Barker, Ernest V. Stoneman, Dan Tate, Sam Russell) are well known to ballad specialists, and the performances are generally restrained. About half the songs are unaccompanied, the rest accompanied by banjo, guitar, or string bands. The brochure notes by Blanton Owen are concise and informative.
Native Virginia Ballads (BRI-004) includes versions of Laws E5, E6, and Fl. But most of the ballads reflect local tragedies, and they give Doug DeNatale, who wrote the brochure notes, a great opportunity to delve into the local history behind the lives the ballads have immortalized. The result makes fascinating listening and reading. A larger percentage of the songs are accompanied than on BRI-002, reflecting the later time of their composition. The skill of the performers varies, but the songs were chosen because of their lyrics. DeNatale makes a good case for the ballads as social documents and provides a concise and well-written introductory essay on balladry that is accessible to the layman yet reflects sound scholarship and good judgment. I would like to have seen a defense of these lyrics as popular poetry, for by ordinary literary standards they fare badly compared to those from the British tradition on BRI-002.
Blue Ridge Piano Styles (BRI-005), the last record under review, is an unusual release, and is perhaps the first record to focus on Anglo-American piano music from the Southern mountains, where string bands have ruled the recording roost since the beginning of record-making. But producer Pete Hartman believes that the commercial recordings did not reflect the popularity of the piano in live performance of folk music in the region, and he is surely right. Blues piano was under-recorded in the 1920s and 1930s as well. Neglect of the piano in commercial recordings was, as Hartman writes, partly due to the success of string bands and the companies' desire to continue that success, but another reason was that pianos are notoriously difficult to record, particularly with other instruments and vocalists. We are used to the piano as an instrument for accompanying traditional dances in New England; even today, pianos abound in contradance bands. How widespread the piano was in the South awaits further research. Surely, though, the tradition of great studio pianists in country music had to come from somewhere.
Meanwhile, the selections on this album are varied and quite delightful, particularly the dance tunes played by Haywood Blevins and Gary Patton. And there is a truly remarkable piano/vocal performance of "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" by Hobart Smith. Some of the tunes are pop songs that have entered folk tradition: "Dill Pickles Rag," and "Golden Slippers," for example. But is "Caravan" really a folksong now? I remember it as a pretentious bit of pop orientalism from my youth, and it has not gotten better with age. The brochure notes emphasize biographical material on the artists and include a prefatory essay on pianos in the Blue Ridge. This is a subject that is wide open for further research, and not just in the Blue Ridge. How many parlor organs, for example, were sold in rural America during the early years of this century, and what folk traditions grew up around them?
Taken as a whole, these albums in series uphold very high standards. Instead of focusing on artists and repertoires they derive from concepts. They combine field and commercial, historical and contemporary recordings. They feature lengthy, well-annotated booklets that provide biographical information, historical context, structural analysis, and references to recorded and printed analogues. If there is one spot where they are weak, it is in the lack of musical transcriptions. Only Wells, in JEMF-105, provides any, and it could be argued that they are especially appropriate because many New England fiddlers read music for their instrument. Still, given the great pains the producers have taken to transcribe the texts, it should not be too much to ask that in the future they hire a skilled transcriber for the tunes. Most of the albums considered here were supported wholly or in part by funding from the Folk Arts Division of the National Endowment for the Arts, a situation that I have discussed in my review of"Recent Field Recordings" in the October-December 1984 issue of theJournal of American Folklore.
Tufts University JEFF TODD TITON
Medford, Massachusetts