Tag: traditional folk

Canon Fodder: Various Artists, ‘Oh My Little Darling – Folk Song Types’

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“What’s the name of this song you’re going to sing?” says Herbert Halpert. The year was 1939, and the folklorist was visiting Elk Park, North Carolina, a small mountain community near the Tennessee border, not far from Johnson City. There, he met two singing sisters, Mrs. Lena Bare Turbyfill and Mrs. Lloyd Bare Hagie.

“’Lily Schull,’” replies Turbyfill.

“Were you used to singing it together, before … “

“Yes, sir,” they respond in unison.

“I mean … when you were young, did you sing together at all?”

“Ever since we’ve known it.”

Perhaps it is the 80 years between then and now, but those words sound an awful lot like forever when Turbyfill says them in her Appalachian accent. But “ever since we’ve known it” is 25 years at most.

“That’s the way you sing it most of the time?”

“Yes,” again in unison.

“Go ahead and sing it the way you do most of the time. Go ahead.”

It’s a perfectly awkward moment saved for all of posterity by Halpert’s disc-cutting machine, which he hauled down the East Coast collecting folk tunes. It’s city meeting country, urban meeting rural, educated meeting self-taught, but any discomfort is dispelled as soon as the two sisters start singing. They sing with no accompaniment — their voices blending almost magically, following no harmonic pattern other than the one they devised and perfected themselves. It’s the essence of folk music. Their sisterly harmonies and spry phrasing contrasts sharply with the grisly story of “Lily Schull” which, like so many murder ballads, begins in penitence and punishment. In the first verse, a crowd surrounds a jail to hear a condemned man’s last words. In the second, he confesses to the “murder of Lily Schull, whom I so cruelly murdered and her body shamefully burned.” By song’s end, he is asking God to save his soul and watch after the wife and family he leaves behind.

The sisters hesitate between the second and third verses. Perhaps they are overcome by the details of the crime, or perhaps they are responding to some gesture by Halpert. It’s a silence that asks, “Should we go on?”

Once the murderer meets his Maker, the folklorist asks the folk artists about the song. Turbyfill responds, “That’s a true song,” and the tape cuts off. Perhaps the sisters knew the story of Lilly Shaw, an African-American woman from East Tennessee, whose murder inspired “Lily Schull.” Perhaps they knew she had been brutally killed in 1903 by a man named Finley Preston, who was hung two years later after multiple appeals. They had learned the song when they were teenagers and, by the time they met Halpert, had been singing it more than half their lives.

Forty years later as it was cut to disc, “Lily Schull” was anthologized on Oh My Little Darling, released by New World Records, a label established in 1975 by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to produce a comprehensive anthology of American music. There are many folk compilations like this one, far too many to list. Oh My Little Darling is nowhere near as beautifully strange as Harry Smith’s world-building Anthology of American Folk Music, nor is it as comprehensive or as immersive as the multi-volume Sounds of the South series. It lacks the geographic specificity of the 1975 anthology High Atmosphere: Ballads and Banjo Tunes from Virginia and North Carolina. It was only pressed once to vinyl, and reissued in 2002 on CD. (As of this writing, the compilation is not available for download or streaming.)

Regardless, Oh My Little Darling stands out as a useful entry point for newcomers to American folk music. Culling from various sources and covering a range of styles, it serves as something like a textbook to the various types of folk songs percolating in the American South during the first decades of the 20th century. It opens with Arkansas singer Almeda Riddle performing a children’s ballad called “Chick-a-Li-Lee-Lo,” perhaps the most famous song here. There are also cowboy songs and outlaw songs, minstrel songs and labor songs, bawdy blues and evangelical hymns, songs derived from old broadsides and songs known as Child ballads, collected by the 19th-century proto-folklorist Francis James Child.

In his liner notes from the 1977 vinyl edition, folklorist Jon Pankake warns against lumping these disparate styles into the same category, as though every folk song belonged to the same species. He would rather us celebrate the infinite variety of the music, which reflects the infinite complexity of American history. These songs document the fears and desires, regrets and prejudices of the past, serving as vessels of public memory, chronicles of history as it was experienced in rural America. History books don’t mention Lillie Shaw, but folk music memorializes her for generations.

In some ways, folklore, as represented by Oh My Little Darling and similar compilations, offers a rebuke to the Great Man school of history, established in the 19th century and still perpetuated today by such scholars as Joseph J. Ellis. That approach to the past suggests that all history is motivated by the actions of great and powerful individuals. Folklore relocates both the motivation and the documentation to the will of the people.

In that regard, this compilation is a fine introduction to American folk music as a populist force, especially if you’re looking to start a band. That’s what Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn were doing when they discovered Oh My Little Darling at the Belleville, Missouri, public library in the late 1980s. It opened up a new world for them and showed them how they might marry folk subject matter with punk guitars. The trio took the name Uncle Tupelo, and the roots of their debut, No Depression — not to mention the genre it inspired, also called No Depression, or alt-country, or whatever-you-call-it — twist tightly around these old recordings. The band would even cover two songs on their third album, plainly titled March 16-20, 1992 after the rough dates for the sessions in Athens, Georgia. Farrar sings both tunes in his grave baritone, turning “Lilli Schull” into a time-stopping mea culpa. The song plods along as he draws out each line, as though he’s trying to stall the snap of the noose around his neck. It’s a much more obvious interpretation than the sisters’ original, but still affecting in its deliberation.

Farrar also sings the 1937 labor song “Come All You Coal Miners,” written and performed by Sarah Ogan on Oh My Little Darling. This original is a cappella, her only accompaniment the hiss and crackle of the archival 78 record, and she sounds righteous and outraged describing the dangerous conditions miners faced at the time: “Coal mining is the dangerousest work in our land today,” she spits, “with plenty of dirty slaving work and very little pay.” She makes her closing line a rallying cry to presumably striking laborers: “Let’s sink this capitalist system to the darkest depths of hell.”

Farrar never had the humor or the audacity to sell such a line, but he nevertheless savors the historical details in Ogan’s lyrics. “I know about old beans, bulldog gravy, and cornbread,” he sings, as though the camp menu was a password to the union meeting. His version is more a lament, perhaps sung from the point of view of a miner who survived the pits yet still recalls the perils. Neither “Coal Miners” nor “Lilli Schull” resembles its original, which is the whole point: Uncle Tupelo understood that the class issues of the 1930s were pretty much the same as those of the 1980s, which empowered them to participate in that folk tradition and put their own stamp on these old songs. For that reason, Oh My Little Darling stands as a foundational text in alt-country and contemporary Americana — a testament to the malleability of American folk music in all its types.

The Fretless, ‘Maggie’s Set’

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There was a time when the fiddle was a complete “band” unto itself. Barn dances, church gatherings, parties on the back porch, weddings, funerals … the musical cornerstone of these occasions, from Appalachia to Ireland and far beyond, was oftentimes a lone fiddle, standing apart, unencumbered. The ability of a fiddle to cut through the white noise and to wail at un-ignorable frequencies perfectly suited it to this role. There’s an immediacy to the droning sustain or slippery slurs, the humming double-stops or bouncing triplets of the instrument that, even solo, won’t leave your ears wanting more.

Canadian string ensemble the Fretless take this immediacy and multiply it by four. They translate the visceral, primal sounds that led fiddle to evolve into these one-instrument-band scenarios and weave them together so artfully that, all at once, they sound homogenous, as one cohesive unit, while the constituent parts remain perfectly distinct — as if they were each leading their own raucous living room step dance. On their brand new album, Live from the Artfarm, the recordings capture not only tones, but the space inhabited by the music, as well, reinforcing the accessibility of fiddles, viola, and cello in this capacity. On “Maggie’s Set” — a traditional set of the Irish tunes “Johnny O’Leary’s,” “The Miller’s Maggot,” and “The Sally Gardens” — you can feel the live audience leaning forward, reflecting the lilting energy of the modern-flavored percussive chopping and the timeless jig and reel drive back to the Fretless, who give it directly back to their audience. It’s almost as if they know they’re transporting each listener to a back porch, dance hall, or barn party with every bow stroke.

Blind Boy Paxton: A Culture Between Each Other

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At first glance, everything about Jerron Paxton looks and feels like a journey back in time to the early days of roots music, blues, and American folk. His effortless juggling of instruments — from harmonica to fretless banjo, to guitar, to fiddle — his humorous banter, his rustic stage wear, even his on-stage moniker, “Blind Boy” Paxton, all conjure past musical eras. The songs and stories Paxton presents don’t come from dusty songbooks, obscure recordings, or forgotten archives, though. They were each a part of the soundtrack of his childhood growing up in South Central Los Angeles. In an area most famous for hip hop and R&B, a vibrant musical tradition flourished, starting from the deep southern U.S. and traveling along Interstate-10 all the way to L.A.

Paxton’s connection to these songs — to these nuggets of American, African-American, and working-class cultures — shines through his performances and recordings. He is not merely a preservationist mining bygone decades for esoteric material or works that fit a certain aesthetic or brand. He simply takes music that is significant to his identity, his culture, and his experience and showcases it for a broader audience. Its value does not reside solely in its history or in the authentic replication of that history, but also exists in its present, its relevance to modern times, and its future, as well.

The music you make and perform seems like such a time capsule — a distillate of past eras, past times, and past places. How did you come to appreciate, love, and make music like that, growing up in Los Angeles?

That, right there, sort of brings up my perspective, my reality in the sort of music I play. The reason I play that type of music is because I am from Los Angeles. South Los Angeles is home to the largest Creole and Cajun population outside of Louisiana. It also has around 20,000 Choctaw Indians. Most of the Black people from the areas I grew up in, around South Central, were all from the deep South — usually Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, and Alabama. For us, that’s the music we listened to at the house. That’s just what we called “down home blues.” You couldn’t have a party without down home blues being played. That’s how I was raised.

Most of my friends that play music similar to mine got into it from Bob Dylan or the Anthology of American Folk Music and all that. I didn’t need those things. This music was culturally relevant to me back then, as it is now. I’m starting to realize, as I get older, that I spent most of my youth making friends with older people. Most of them were on their way out. Most of my friends were born between 1916 and 1945. There weren’t any kids on my block, so by the time the first little kid was around, I already had a personality when I was 7 or 8 years old and I already had a type of music I liked, which is what I present to people now. For me, it’s not some cachet in time; it’s the music of my youth, and the music of my present.

People don’t often think of Los Angeles as a place where blues would originate. Why do you think that is?

Well, Los Angeles is way out in the west, for one thing. Most of the nation’s culture is east of the Mississippi, a lot of the time. I think people expect Californians to be a bunch of surfers. We’re a diverse group of people out there. Where I was born, I was closer to Las Vegas and Arizona than San Francisco, so the culture up there was totally new to me. I had never seen such a thing as San Francisco. I grew up thinking there was not much above the 10 freeway. [Laughs]

That’s the road that brought the family from Louisiana to Los Angeles. It made Los Angeles the last stop on the Chitlin Circuit. The furthest west and south you can go on the Chitlin Circuit. There were great artists out there to support it. T-Bone Walker was out there. Lucille Bogan lived for a period out there and was buried out there, same for Johnny St. Cyr. Jelly Roll Morton spent a good deal of the ‘20s out there. We could keep going on and on about great musicians from Los Angeles. It’s a big, diverse place. South Central had some of the best blues and jazz bands in the world. Now we get known for nothing else but hip hop.

Where do you find these songs, besides having grown up with them? Do you ever struggle with finding the right way to care for and curate them in a modern context?

Whew. That’s a big question. [Laughs] I always try to play songs that fit with modern times. My grandmother grew up in the bad ol’ days and very much did not want me to play songs about the bad ol’ days. All of these songs about agriculture and cotton and shit like that, she wanted no part of. She liked all the good country songs. In her generation, songs like “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” were big hits.

Me, personally, I take her part in that, and I play the songs that are relevant nowadays — about love, about the world, about nature and the beautiful things. Sometimes music doesn’t always have to be so serious. A lot of music is tunes and ditties and things that just put you in a certain place. The blues is a bit serious, which is why sometimes I shy away from playing and singing them for an audience who have no idea what I’m singing about, usually from a cultural basis. I find myself, when I play for a different audience, having to explain things about older songs. Rather than do that, I’d just play some music that they can understand straight off the bat.

That makes a lot of sense. You are going to have those cultural barriers crop up, from time to time.

I don’t have my audience’s perspective. I can’t really imagine what it’s like growing up any other way than how I did. I can’t put myself, culturally, in their shoes. I’m used to the audiences from where I grew up that just dug straight-up music. That’s how I present it to people. I think that’s why I get a reasonable reaction from the crowd — because I treat them and the music as what it is. It’s good entertainment. They paid to see me do my thing. That’s what I’m gonna do. I’m not gonna change it up too much just because they ain’t part of my culture. If they start doing things, like clapping on the same beat that they stomp on, I tell ‘em, “That’s against the rules.” [Laughs] “You’re a stereotype, and you should stop that.”

You don’t feel that you get pigeonholed as a novelty?

The only pigeonhole I feel, sometimes, is when it comes to the subject of the blues. I love playing the blues. I grew up playing the blues, but I also play a lot of other kinds of music. Just like the people who get called “blues musicians.” They played every kind of music. I’m more modeled after some of them than some people would think.

People would come to see me sometimes and expect to hear a concert of nothing but down home, Muddy Waters, and this-that-and-the-other. They’d say, “Why do you have a banjo? Why do you have a fiddle and harmonica and things like that? Why do you play 18th- and 19th-century pop songs on those instruments?” And I say, “Cause that’s what everybody did!” They played every kind of music. Back then, in the community, they’d never allow themselves to be pigeonholed as “blues musicians.” They were musicians. They could play any type of dance, any type of function necessary. I try to be the same way. That’s what I’m after. I get invited to blues festivals, and I’ll put on a majority-blues show, but I’ll keep it diverse. I’ll play blues on all my instruments and play it in a way you don’t expect.

Where do you see a place for this kind of music, then? So many genres and formats, whether intentionally or unintentionally, tend to exclude more foundational, vernacular forms of music. It’s so primordial. It gave rise to so many other genres. People kind of gloss over it. And, also, through revisionism, so much of it gets left behind. Especially when it comes to Black identities. The music is appropriated and the history gets left behind. Where do you want to see this music go?

I want to see it get to everyone. And I want to see everybody enjoy it. It would be very nice if people from its culture, like myself, would take it up again. There are very few of us. The ones that do, I find, do well. I feel so happy that Kingfish is out there, and my buddy Jontavious Willis is out there. They destroy the blues. They kill those guitars, and they sing beautifully. I think most of that is from understanding. It comes from a certain place. I come from a maternal culture, and it comes from hearing your grandmother sing things, then your parents respond in certain ways, so you understand it on a very personal, very spiritual level. That’s most of the identity in Black culture, these little things. Most of our culture is between each other. A lot of the best parts of it won’t be televised. A lot of the worst parts of it tend to get exploited, because people want to make money off of it.

I’d love to see [the music] go back into the community and see people of the community value their own folk music. I’ve noticed Black culture is one of the few cultures that hasn’t had its folk music presented in a beautiful and proper way. Go to Ireland, Scotland, and even Appalachia, and watch how they treat their music. It’s everywhere. It’s on the radio. It’s in your face. And people are educated about the instruments — everyone has one — and they’re easy to get. But there were no music stores where I grew up where you could get guitars or harmonicas. There was just one or two, and they’ve since gone. A lot of those other places get government help for their arts, to push the arts forward. That’s why you can still have fiddle competitions all over those parts of the country. But there hasn’t been a fiddle contest in South Central for a hundred years. It’s a doozy. And I know the audience also won’t understand it from a cultural level because, to most in the audience, it’s considered throwback music. I think that’s one of the biggest barriers getting it to cross over — that the popular audience, the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, consider it throwback music that doesn’t really exist as a living, breathing thing anymore.

One thing you touched upon earlier — how did you put it? It’s a funny thing. I hope I don’t upset people [saying this], but it’s a funny thing being one of the exploited peoples in American culture. It’s this crazy paradox in that the real Black music, the music of protest that’s yours and you think of as apart from American culture is so much a part of American Culture that when America uses its mighty power to reach the ends of the earth with its influence, you’re wrapped up in it! Your little folk pride and joy, one of the many cultural musics you’ve put into the world — blues — has gone global. That’s funny enough. It’s a paradox having music that is so foundational to all of American music, that influences people as far as the eye can see — made by a very small, oppressed group of people.

You’re based in New York City now. You’re playing the 10th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival coming up. How does the New York scene connect with the community that you had in L.A.?

I didn’t have much of a career in Los Angeles. I left Los Angeles, when I finished high school. My career has been in New York City. I moved to New York to play stride piano. It was my favorite kind of music. I’d play stride piano and six-string banjo in a lot of orchestras around here. Hot jazz, ‘20s jazz, is a big thing in New York — still is — and I play it every chance I get. Then my solo career took off, and now I get to present to people the music from when I was a little kid — the down home music I learned at home, sitting on the back porch. I take it all over the place in New York.

I didn’t have a lot of faith that people wanted to hear the music like this. Some wonderful places have opened their doors to me saying, “Oh, no, we dig what you do.” I get a kick out of playing for New Yorkers — they’re very ethnic. They have an accent. They have a culture all their own. They’re their own sort of people. I get a good kick out of playing the blues for them. They have no damn idea what I’m doing, half the time, but they dig it, because they’re people. That’s the thing about what they call “ethnic people.” Ethnic people get to be real people — that’s why they’re ethnic. That’s why Cajuns and Creoles are like that, Appalachian people are like that. Down home Black people and Chicanos, they’re all like that. They can accept the music. That’s what I like best about all branches of folk music. They get it.

Photo credit: Bill Steber

The Giving of Voice: A Conversation with Moira Smiley

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There’s a video on YouTube of Moira Smiley leading a gathering of more than a thousand high schoolers in her voice-and-body-percussion arrangement of blues great Lead Belly’s “Bring Me Little Water, Silvy.” “Sing with our outside voices!” she exhorts them. No matter where she is, she’s all about singing out, using her voice, encouraging others to use their voices, to sing out loud.

Smiley definitely uses her outside voice, and a few other voices, on her new album, Unzip the Horizon. It’s a bracingly wide-ranging set of original songs drawing on everything from her experience in chorale work to explorations of Eastern European folk music to her time as a touring singer and percussionist with boisterous pop experimentalists Tune-Yards. Tying it all together are with two traditional American songs from the repertoire of blues singer Sidney Hemphill Carter, as recorded in 1959 by folklorist Alan Lomax.

She also enlisted an impressive roster of other voices for Unzip: Leah and Chloe Smith from Rising Appalachia, English neo-traditionalist Sam Lee, folk-and-more duo Anna & Elizabeth, Seamus Egan of the Irish-American band Solas, banjo innovator Jayme Stone, and participants from the Calais Sessions — a recording project with international musicians working with refugees, many of them unaccompanied children, living in hardship of the Calais “jungle,” a makeshift encampment in France.

And then there’s Tune-Yards’ life-force, Merrill Garbus, partnering on the rhythm-forward “Bellow,” which serves somewhat as the album’s mission statement: Please don’t give up. Please don’t hide your voice. So many people did not have that choice.

Smiley has lived by those words, taking seemingly every opportunity to explore musical and cultural avenues. In addition to her work with Tune-Yards, Solas, Stone, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, she’s been featured on jazz pianist Billy Childs’ acclaimed tribute to Laura Nyro; studied and sung music ranging from the compositions of 12th-century abbess Hildegard Von Bingen to 20th-century sonic revolutionary Karlheinz Stockhausen; and sought and shared songs and sounds in such spots as a rural Ireland, rural Appalachia, and refugee camps in Europe, where she has volunteered with the humanitarian organization Expressive Arts Refuge.

And for more than a decade, women’s ensemble Moira Smiley & VOCO has mixed scintillating vocal harmonies with innovative use of various acoustic instruments and body percussion, their 2014 album, Laughter Out of Tears, diving into songs from Scandinavia, the Balkans, and Appalachia, along with originals inspired by those traditions, a Robert Johnson tune, and a moving version of Woody Guthrie’s ever-poignant “Deportees.”

All of that is artfully integrated into Unzip the Horizon, the work of a significant talent finding new possibilities in her voice, literally and literarily. Or as she and Garbus sing on “Bellow”: You ask me why I sing softer now. Did the world beat me down? This is the way we call the unknown, lift the veil to the other side.

There’s a word that’s in the lyrics of at least four songs on this album: broken. Do you see singing, music as a way to repair breaks in the world?

First of all, I love the word “broken.” And I love the idea of it because, from decay and brokenness, always come the new things. But also it’s that reminding ourselves to look around and see all the ways we’re broken. We’re often pushing forward, trying to ignore what’s broken. I’m interested in the compassion of noticing the broken and, yeah, trying to heal it — and realizing that some of it we can never heal.

And music has a role in that?

I think so. Sometimes I think music is just child’s play and has no power. But when I look out at a group of kids that are moving together, singing, as I do with all this chorale stuff, and feel that pride and joy, that’s palpable. Music does have a way of lifting us up together. That’s obvious, right? I don’t know if it changes the world. I feel super-cynical about it, but also hopeful that I’m making a difference.

It’s about giving voice to people’s stories.

It’s true. There’s a lot of evidence in the traditional songs that you make a difference with the singing. Some of the Balkan songs, a lot of Bulgarian songs are about lamenting the role of a woman — that she’s powerless to say where she goes and who she loves. The songs express the powerlessness and, at the same time, acknowledge the roles of the woman and also empower her.

And music has been a force for overcoming oppression — the “Singing Revolution” in Estonia, the role the rediscovery of folk music helped restore national identity in Hungary and elsewhere as they broke from Soviet domination.

As a force against colonialism, it can be very powerful, and that’s across the board. I was just reading Maria Popova. She does Brain Pickings, every week sends out a collection, writes articles with tons of literary references, everything from Zadie Smith to Camus. She’s incredible. She was talking about how Zadie Smith speaks of “othering,” and the relationship of the “other” to us.

I just wrote another song that talks about anger and fear being in the same room and the polarization we see in our country — anger in the other side because you fear the other side because you don’t understand the other side, which creates a cycle.

What did Merrill Garbus draw from you in your Tune-Yards stint?

She drew on the whole spectrum of my voice and also my physicality, which I loved. I was dancing every night! The percussive aspect of her music got into my bones. The interest I had in body percussion, got to play around for a couple years with her and using the fullest voice was such a pleasure. We were singing at the top of our lungs and dancing, percussively, behind her.

Did you write songs on the album thinking about who would sing and play with you, or did you write first and invite guests after? For example, “Wise Man” sounds tailor-made for Sam Lee.

In that case, the song came first, but I really wanted Sam to sing with me on the album. The song came a while ago and when I was thinking of it — a love story, really — I wanted it as a duo with a man’s voice and thought he would be perfect. I adore Sam.

And “Dressed in Yellow” with Anna & Elizabeth?

I always knew I wanted to have them. I wrote “Dressed in Yellow” on the tour bus with Tune-Yards and always heard Anna & Elizabeth singing those responses. It was really shortly after the creation of the song that they came to mind.

The song sounds like a mix of American “shape note” singing and the playfulness of the kind of things June Tabor and Maddy Prior did with English folk songs in their Silly Sisters duets.

Oh, yeah, totally. It’s in the shape of a child ballad [from England], like “The Devil’s Nine Questions.” [She sings some of it] It’s kind of that ballad form, with the statements and responses, and I threw in a little bridge at the end.

And then Leah and Chloe Smith for Rising Appalachia along with the Calais Sessions performers on “Refugee?”

When I was singing “Refugee,” I forget how the time-line went, but [Leah and Chloe and I] were in touch. We’ve stayed in touch over the years, but were talking about getting together to do something, and that made me realize they’d be perfect, with their social consciousness right out front.

The other parts, with the Calais Sessions, they were doing really powerful, well-regarded work in the Calais Jungle, respected musicians. I had [Anglo-Nigerian percussionist] Sola Akingbola in a friend’s living room with a Kurdish percussionist, Rekan Ibrahimi. Sola is from the band Jamiroquai, and went to Calais to work with the Calais Sessions. That’s a really cool bunch of musicians and they released a beautiful album, too. Everything from Eritrean church songs to Kurdish folk.

You have worked with refugees, yourself, so the inspiration for the song is personal.

I’ve been for the last couple of years going with a group of Americans to teach music, bring medical supplies, volunteer at refugee camps in Europe. It’s called Expressive Arts Refuge. I was invited by Betsy Blakeslee, who has spearheaded this throughout the world. She also worked in the Bosnian war in the ‘90s. She’s interested in using the arts to help others.

When we were in the Calais Jungle, and then were in Athens last summer, there were a lot of Arabic-speaking people there. They also speak their own languages, but Arabic is spoken across cultures, and I came to realize what a vast and ancient music culture that is — and how modern it is. I recorded a lot of young Arab rappers, fully fledged hip-hop artists, but they were also playing ouds and sazzes and all mixed together. That was an eye-opener back into some of the early music work that I’ve done, music from Spain in the 1400s and what happened after that [the expulsion of the Arabic, Moorish and Jewish people]. So here we are again, in a different, but related era of diaspora. What can we learn from the past? How can we be compassionate to each other as these big forces are hurting us and our brothers and sisters?

Do you see yourself as a musicologist or folklorist?

Roughly. I have long worshipped that role, the ethnomusicologist, song collector, for sure. I’ve done it, but I wouldn’t call myself anything official.

But you’ve made a point of seeking out singers and songs all over the world, so you are doing that.

Sitting in a field with the Ethiopian musician Seleshe Damessae, that was one of the earliest mind-blowing experiences for me. Literally, sat in a field in the shade of this tree and he just said, “Okay, I’ll give you some songs.” That was years ago … could have been 18 years ago. Those experiences — in kitchens, at the end of a concert, at a party — that’s where the business is. That’s where the magic happens.

You have the two songs on this album that come from the Alan Lomax archives — “Worried Now,” which is a fairly well-known song, and “Leather Britches,” which is probably less familiar. You play around with both of them in your own distinctive ways.

That comes partially because of this long-time project with Jayme Stone, searching around the Alan Lomax collection. The global jukebox is what Alan named it, and you can look it up at culturalequity.org. Enormous resources. Those two songs are from stumbling around on there. She [Sidney Hemphill Carter] sang whatever she could remember, some blues. And Alan said, “Do you have any songs from when you were a kid?” That’s what came out.

There’s a fiddle tune called “Leather Britches.” When I first brought this song out, I performed it with body percussion and singing for a long time in concerts. It was kind of an outlier for this album, but it’s me playing around — prepared piano and putting weird stoppers on the banjo, more fun and experimental.

Photo credit: DeFurio Photography

LISTEN: Peter Rowan, ‘Carter Stanley’s Eyes’

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Artist: Peter Rowan
Hometown: Boston / Northern California
Song: “Carter Stanley’s Eyes”
Album: Carter Stanley’s Eyes
Release Date: April 20, 2018
Label: Rebel Records

In Their Words: “We were playing over on the Tennessee-Virginia border, and Bill Monroe asked me to drive him up to the Clinch Mountains to have a meeting with Carter Stanley. I think, now, that Carter had received bad news about his health, and Bill wanted to lend his support. We drove up there, and I knew nothing as far as Carter’s health, but he didn’t look well. It was emotional, and I made it a song, after all.” –Peter Rowan

Gaelynn Lea: Taking Away the Lens

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Before she won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest, Gaelynn Lea was a member of the music community in northern Minnesota, where she had been playing and performing for most of her life. She never thought of her music or her songwriting as an activist statement; she simply focused on her haunting fiddle — deftly and creatively orchestrating ethereal playback with a loop pedal — and her timeless voice, using her lyrics to shape the amorphous tracks she had created. The stark, raw duet of strings and vocal hearkens back to folk and vernacular sounds from the hollers of Appalachia and the hills of Ireland and Scotland. But, as her style evolved, she realized it was something distinct and new.

Her unexpected sonic aesthetic wasn’t all that surprised the viewers of her Tiny Desk Concert, though. Lea has a congenital disability called Osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease. She uses a wheelchair and holds the violin vertically like a cello, while operating her loop station with her foot. In a split second, as the Tiny Desk title card faded from the video, revealing the the artist who was creating those mystic-sounding bow strokes, one by one, the presuppositions of 1.5 million people were shattered.

What does a musician look like? What do they sound like? How does someone’s identity or background impact their art? Most of the time, our automatic, subconscious answers to these questions go unchallenged, existing happily corroborated by the largely homogenous media that we incessantly consume. It takes someone like Lea to remind us that we are taking the identities of creators for granted and, in doing so, we are further marginalizing artists who exist on the fringes of our communities, artistic and otherwise.

Now on the cusp of releasing her third album, Lea has embraced the positive aspects of those shattered expectations, using her visibility to champion disability rights and causes. But she refuses to be taken for a novelty or utilized as a token. Like any of us, she does not reduce her entire perspective to one facet of her identity. And, like all musicians, at the end of the day, she wants it to just be about the music.

I wonder what it’s like making and performing music that’s constantly shocking people out of their preconceived notions?

It happens on two levels. Obviously, part of the reason is that it isn’t that common to see someone with a disability playing the way I play the violin. My goal is to keep doing it so that it’s not something that’s so uncommon. In terms of the actual music I play, what I really like is a lot of people come to the show and don’t really get it. Unless they really understand looping — it’s done pretty subtle-y — they just have to suspend disbelief and listen, since they don’t really know how it’s happening. It’s kind of a fun experiment. I guess I like to try a sneak attack, in terms of the layers. I don’t want it to be super obvious when [the loops] come in and out. So yeah, it’s kind of two-fold.

Were there specific artists that gave you the idea to loop with a fiddle?

In some ways, yes. I think what was exciting for me and maybe why I don’t have a great answer for that question is that, when I realized you could loop fiddle music and make it sound orchestral, I was like, “I don’t think I’ve seen that before.” It probably exists, I’m sure that it does, but I, personally, didn’t know if I had ever heard it. When I started writing my own songs and trying to find ways to loop them, that was kind of out of necessity, because I don’t play guitar.

Every time I write a song, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to loop it or not. I just have to figure it out later. I write it first, then I’m like, “Okay. Is there a way to do this with a few chords and ambient loops.” What’s nice about this new album [with a full band] is that some of the songs, I can’t loop, but I don’t have to play them by myself. It’s neat to have a full band and to be able to explore new sounds. Definitely, at the beginning, the way I laid down the layers had to do with necessity.

One of my common questions for this column is about how and why each interviewee’s identity filters into their art, but people of color, or people with disabilities, or queer people — anyone who visibly doesn’t fit into any given societal norm — don’t really have the privilege of choosing how much or how little of themselves comes across in their music. Just being themselves is a political act. Do you feel that, as a performer?

I do, and it’s something I’m still figuring out. I’ve been playing for 24 years and I’ve been performing for 10. But, before I won the Tiny Desk Contest, I was just performing in my local community, so it didn’t really feel like that was a statement, because everybody knew me. When the Tiny Desk happened, all of a sudden I was like, “Holy cow. This is something that people are going to associate with me.” So I decided to try to figure out a way to balance it for myself. I definitely want to talk about disability rights issues — for the new album, I even wrote a song about the disability rights movement. Usually I don’t write explicitly about disability, because it’s not what happens, it’s not what comes out. I think the current political situation probably spurred some thoughts on it that needed to come out.

For me, I know that people are going to come in and have their own ideas and, hopefully, view me and my performance in a positive way. In terms of my actual show or the songs I write, I like to be able to choose when I talk about [disability], because I know, no matter what, just standing there is going to make people think. That’s an unavoidable thing and that’s good, I suppose, but I also just want to be seen as a musician, too. I realized I’m in a very privileged position to be able to talk about it, so when I can, when I think it fits, and I think it’s being used for the right reasons, I do like to connect my disability identity to the art and talk about what I think needs to change in our society.

How do you feel about that? I mean, I don’t really talk to anyone else [who faces this]. Do you have an answer on that?

I present very masculine, right up until I open my mouth. The way I talk and my mannerisms are pretty queer-coded, so I always do this cost/benefit analysis — and sometimes it’s subconscious — of how queer I present in any given situation based on how safe I feel in that situation and how vulnerable and how real I can be. You don’t realize you’re carrying that burden around until you’re in a situation where you don’t have it anymore.

Yeah!

When I’m able to sing my queer songs and not not worry about it, I realize that that is how it feels for every privileged person who gets up on stage and can just live their truth without actively thinking about it. I try to take that approach myself, but it’s so hard. And it’s so exhausting.

That’s the interesting thing because, listening to what you’re saying, I think we come from slightly different spots. I don’t feel unsafe, but I do feel that my story isn’t safe. There are some people who are more in line with me, who think [disability] is a natural part of the human experience. All of us are going to be disabled, at some point, if we live long enough. It’s not the biggest deal. Then there’s the other end of the spectrum where they’re like, “I don’t even know how I could live if I had a disability!” And, “I feel so bad for that person. What do I have to complain about? They have a disability and I don’t. I’m a whiner.”

Especially in interviews, I can’t force people to interpret this in a certain way. If I had a magic wand, I wouldn’t want people sitting there thinking, “Oh, man, I can’t believe someone with a disability can do this!” Because that doesn’t factor into my playing that much. I learned [to play] that way a long time ago. The whole “inspirational” idea, or pity, or whatever lens they’re viewing it from, I wish I could take that lens away.

It’s not like I wouldn’t want to talk about activism because, to me, we are so far behind. I don’t know how you feel about gay rights. I’m assuming you feel similarly.

Oh, yes.

There’s so much work to do, it would be silly for me not to talk about it. The one thing I do get weary of is realizing halfway through that someone is viewing me with a lens of pity rather than as a musician. That’s unfortunate because I’ll be thinking we’re having a regular conversation and then I read an article later and it’s like, “She didn’t think she’d be able to do anything with her life until she found music.” And I’m like, “Oh, my God. That is not what I said!”

That’s so shitty!

It’s really shitty! That happens a lot, too. That’s the kind of thing that bothers me. I try to give people, especially random people, the benefit of the doubt. What bothers me about journalism is that, obviously, they think about what they’re about to write beforehand. It’s just sad that there’s not more education on disability. You would never write a story like that, if you even had a day’s worth of education on the appropriate ways to talk about it.

It’s kind of a final frontier of intersectionality in this inclusion movement coming through the bluegrass, folk, and Americana scenes. People with disabilities are largely forgotten in that picture.

I know. Yep.

It’s everywhere. If you go down a list of showcase venues at a conference, how many are ADA compliant? Maybe one. Or festivals are often not ADA compliant. Promoters, festivals, venues, artists, conventions … it seems like every wing of the industry overlooks the importance of representation of people with disabilities.

I think there are two problems. One of them is definitely lack of awareness. I was on a panel with some festival organizers talking about accessibility once, and I was saying, “We need to represent artists with disabilities on festival lineups. I want to be able to see people with disabilities on the bill.” They were like, “Of course, we wouldn’t reject someone because they have a disability. Of course, we would accommodate them.” I said, “No. You need to seek them out. If someone had an all-male, white lineup, they would be raked over the coals, but nobody even notices if there’s no one with a disability on the lineup.”

Exactly.

I could see the light bulb go off. It was an important moment for me, realizing that they really just don’t know. That’s why I do so much speaking about it, to be honest. If they can’t even hear it, they won’t change. If they don’t know it’s a problem — and I wish they did — someone needs to tell them that it is.

I have such a hard time describing that feeling when you see yourself represented on stage. It’s more common now than it has been, for me, for LGBTQ people, but when you have that feeling, “This person gets it. This person knows what I go through,” it means the world. But most people can’t get out of their own heads to realize this is the key.

Yeah. [It’s the key to] social justice as a whole, actually. When are we going to make changes unless we realize there are people who need change? One thing that’s unique to people with disabilities that might be different for other people, like LGBTQ, is that it costs money, sometimes, to fix the things that are wrong. That is a frustrating thing.

There are creative ways that it wouldn’t cost money that people aren’t talking about. Obviously, it would cost a lot of money to build an elevator or to build a ramp. This happens a lot at small venues. Usually bigger venues can find ways to accommodate me, but the small ones are like, “Man, I wish we had enough money to build a ramp.” For a small room, with a 50-person capacity, why not just take the stage down? Is it really that big of a deal for performers to be four inches off the ground?

If you can’t afford to be accessible, you got to find a way to do it for free. It’s not like there’s suddenly no responsibility to modify at all. People aren’t thinking outside the box enough. Maybe, if you want to host a show, but your venue isn’t accessible, partner with a venue that is accessible and do it together. There have to be better answers than what we’re seeing most of the time.

So before we close, I want to ask you about looking ahead — what are you excited for in 2018?

I’m excited because I’ve been writing more than I have been in the past and playing with this [upcoming record’s] band. I’m really excited for people to hear them. I have a lot of respect for everyone I’m playing with on this project. We’re all from Minnesota, and a couple of them grew up in the same town as me. It’s a lot of fun for me. I love looping and, obviously, I’m going to continue performing that way, but it’s also fun to have this other branch where I don’t have to think about the loops. I can just sing and be really present with the music.

I’m really excited for the disability rights song, I recently played in San Francisco, and a ton of people from the disability community came out. It was kind of the first time a show like that had happened. I got to sing that song for people, and it was exactly what you’re saying, seeing someone on stage that gets you. It was neat to connect with the audience in a way that wouldn’t happen if they were able-bodied. I’m excited to release that and hopefully keep connecting with other artists and activists. It’s going to be fun to see where this new album goes.

MIXTAPE: Kacy & Clayton’s Traditional Folk Favorites

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The traditional folk realm spans several countries and numerous styles. But Canadian folk duo Kacy & Clayton know their way around the terrain. That’s why we asked them to gather up a bundle of their favorites. Taking a break from promoting their new album, The Siren’s Song, Clayton answered the call.

Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys — “Ida Red”

This song has its origins in the country square dancing tradition. Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys recorded it in 1938, with the lead vocal provided by Tommy Duncan. I once read that Tommy Duncan got his job with the Texas Playboys through a series of auditions that eliminated 64 contenders down to two — Tommy Duncan and a cross-eyed man who sound just like him. Subsequently, Duncan got the job.

Bert Jansch — “The Waggoner’s Lad”

The first track on the first Bert Jansch album I heard (Jack Orion). That plunky, buzzy guitar sound you hear in the left speaker has had a lasting impression on my own playing. It was only a couple years ago that I learned John Renbourn was the one playing guitar and Bert’s on the banjo.

Steeleye Span — “The Lowlands of Holland”

Gay Woods sings this Scottish tune on Steeleye Span’s 1970 debut album, Hark! The Village Wait. It is a dramatic story of a young lady mourning the death of her husband who died in the navy.

Henry Thomas — “Arkansas”

Something about Henry Thomas’s guitar style has always mystified me. I never tire of hearing him plunk away on bass runs and slap out those big thumb strums on every beat.

The Stanley Brothers — “Mother Left Me Her Bible”

The Stanley Brothers at their very best. Carter on the soaring lead vocal, Ralph taking the tenor, and George Shuffler singing baritone and picking the guitar triplets. I don’t know how many songs they recorded about their mother, but I think it’s around 11.

Willie O’Winsbury — “Anne Briggs”

I find this song very peculiar. The king meets the boy who impregnated his daughter out of wedlock: “And it is no wonder,” said the king, “that my daughter’s love you did win. If I was a woman as I am a man, my bedfellow you would have been.”

Ron Kane & Skip Gorman — “If Your Saddle Is Good and Tight”

Despite growing up on a cow ranch and seeing working cowboys regularly, I’ve never been too keen on riding and roping myself. However, our friend Mike Tod (Calgary, AB) turned me onto the music of Carl T. Sprague, the Original Singing Cowboy, and I’ve since developed an obsession with cowboy songs. I love the humorous side of this old song and the style in which Ron Kane sings it.

Davy Graham — “Mustapha”

Davy Graham is my favourite, and certainly the most influential British acoustic guitar player of the 1960s. I’m not sure where he sourced this song, but I know it has roots in both the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Cilla Fisher — “Blue Bleezin’ Blind Drunk”

Topic Records included this on their 70th anniversary compilation, Three Score and Ten. The title got my attention, and Cilla Fisher’s intense diction and phrasing had me hanging on every line.

Peter Bellamy — “A-Roving on a Winter’s Night”

Peter Bellamy is undoubtedly my favourite singer of traditional material. Though he typically sang songs from his home county of Norfolk, he learned “A-Roving on a Winter’s Night” from a Doc Watson recording. Bellamy’s version of the song is a rewarding homecoming to Britain, after a couple centuries of transformation in the Appalachians.  

The Balfa Brothers — “‘Tit galop pour Mamou”

I love Cajun things and I love these guys.

Nic Jones — “Bonny Light Horseman”

Nic Jones is a master of melody and phrase. His guitar playing and singing are so perfectly unified, hearing him is like being struck by a tidal wave of musicality.

Incredible String Band — “Black Jack Davy”

The origins of this folk song can be traced back to Greece in the 4th century B.C. My favourite version of the last few centuries was made in 1970 by the Incredible String Band.

Jean Ritchie — “False Sir John”

The plain, innocent voice of Jean Ritchie perfectly explains the scandal of this European tale.

The Green River Boys featuring Glen Campbell — “Brown’s Ferry Blues”

For a good part of last year, “Witchita Lineman” was the song my alarm clock played. That Bass VI solo really fired me up for the day. Before his days of international celebrity, Glen Campbell made a couple unsuccessful bluegrass records for Capitol. This song’s from his debut LP, Big Bluegrass Special.

Shirley Collins & the Albion Country Band — “Poor Murdered Woman”

A straightforward re-telling of hunters searching through bushes with their dogs and coming across a woman’s decomposing body.

Transatlantic Telephone: Colin Meloy in Conversation with Olivia Chaney

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Offa Rex began with a daydream. Colin Meloy, best known as frontman for the Decemberists, was driving his car around Portland, Oregon, and blasting No Roses by the Albion Dance Band. “I was marveling at the interplay between Ashley Hutchings’ arrangement work and Shirley Collins’ vocals,” he recalls with the geeky glee of a metalhead describing a Randy Rhoads guitar solo. Then he experienced the kind of epiphany that typically strikes more fans than performers: “It was like a light bulb turning on. I wanted to be in the Albion Dance Band!”

His was an impossible dream. The Dance Band, a loose supergroup of English folkies active during the 1970s, is no more. “I don’t have a time machine, but I have a band and I know somebody who sings really beautiful English folk music. Together, perhaps we could not only discover and re-evaluate old folk songs, but also pay homage to that era of music making.”

That “somebody” was Olivia Chaney, a London-based folk singer who straddles the trad and new folk scenes in England. Following the release of her full-length debut, 2015’s The Longest River, she toured with the Decemberists and left an impression on the band, especially its frontman. Open to the idea of collaborating on a folk-revival record (or is it a folk-revival-revival record?), Chaney joined the Decemberists in Portland for rehearsals and recording sessions

Thus was Offa Rex born, taking their name from the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon king. Their debut, The Queen of Hearts, collects new recordings of old tunes, with Meloy and Chaney trading off vocals. Some are fairly well known, such as “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” written by Ewan MacColl but popularized (in the States, at least) by the R&B singer Roberta Flack. Other choices will be perfectly obscure to Yankee listeners, such as “Flash Company,” a 19th-century tune about the dangers of stylish cliques best known from a 1980 album by June Tabor and Martin Simpson that is long out of print.

The Queen of Hearts is a curious album: UK songs filtered through a U.S. lens, a transatlantic exchange between Americans enamored with British folk music and a Brit so thoroughly embedded in that scene that she felt compelled to ask permission from her idols to cover their songs. More than that, it argues for an inescapably political aspect to this music, which is never merely decorous, as it harkens back to a very different Albion of the past. At a time when both Meloy’s America and Chaney’s England are experiencing similar convulsions of identity — Brexit over there, 45 over here — the act of singing these old songs raises questions of appropriation and nationalism that the musicians are still pondering as they prepare for an extensive tour.

For that reason, The Queen of Hearts sounds heavier and timelier than your typical covers album, although Meloy insists they undertook the project primarily for fun. “This was something we just wanted to do, not because we felt there was an audience for it, but because it was a grand experiment and a creative journey.” Will Offa Rex produce an heir? “Certainly, there are more folk songs out there to be sung.”

Tell me about the transatlantic nature of this project. How did that inform the concept of Offa Rex?

Olivia Chaney: The funny thing between Colin and me has been a to-ing and fro-ing of what he sometimes wittily describes as his almost fantasy of this project and then, for me, the reality of actually still knowing, if not working with, some of the people who made some of the records that we both know and love. For example, No Roses, I’d been doing a tribute project to that specific record with some of the people who’d been on it. Ashley and Shirley are both friends. Sometimes it was tough for me because I’d fear their judgment, but sometimes it was a really nice thing because it felt like a hand into the past. Obviously, it was a great honor to be invited by Colin to come and do this, and an interesting transatlantic conversation ensued.

Colin Meloy: The target I was going for was not necessarily realistic, and the aim was not really aping a record from the ‘60s or early ‘70s. What we came out with, potentially in some ways, you could find a place in time for it, but so much of it is also filtered through our influences as people who weren’t necessarily even alive at that time. Inevitably, it becomes something different and new. We were keeping each other in check and created something wholly different than what we had set out to do.

It wasn’t just the re-creation. You were trying to make it about interpretation.

CM: I quickly realized, even though it might be soul satisfying just to sit down and re-create note-for-note the Anne Briggs dual bouzouki/voice version of “Willie O’Winsbury,” nothing could’ve been more boring. You already have that. I think that was also the spirit of the folk revival itself — not only in England but in America. You had this group of standards that everybody was playing with and putting their indelible marks on, even if they were doing, for the most part, similar arrangements. In some ways, the interpretations would be drastically different and, in some ways, it was just incremental steps. I feel like the version of Anne’s “Willie O’Winsbury” versus John Renbourn’s, they’re really closely related and yet feel miles apart.

A lot of contemporary folk groups seem to be confronting that distinction: How do you get past the revival to the raw material?

OC: For me, a bit of a personal irony is that I get called very trad. Even though I grew up listening to a lot of the second revival records, I didn’t, and still don’t, regard myself as trad compared to lots of people in the real deep English folk scene. My interest is in contemporary classical music and other songwriters who were pushing boundaries — that’s often the way I come at trying to reinterpret traditional songs. That’s what interests me. So it was good, Colin and I working together, because we’d keep a check on each other’s agenda and hopefully meet somewhere in the middle.

CM: I don’t know if purism is really the thing because, if we were being purists, we would be in a barn singing a cappella in front of a shitty microphone and …

OC: Colin, we were in a barn.

CM: That’s right. We were in a barn. We had that much going for us. It’s not necessarily purist, but you’re always going for what you feel is right and organic. In popular music, there is a time-honored conversation between the English and Americans — not only in the folk world, but certainly in R&B and rock ‘n’ roll. Both sides of the Atlantic have informed the other. Sometimes the person who seems least qualified to approach a certain kind of music inevitably injects something interesting into it. I feel like there’s so much discussion going on about the dangers of cultural appropriation, and that’s something that we talked about in regard to Offa Rex. I imagine that accusation could be leveled at us. Other than having our token Englishwoman fronting the band, we’re definitely guilty of cultural appropriation. We’ll see how people respond.

Folk music has always been tied to a national identity. Especially at a time when Brexit and other things are changing that identity, this album potentially reflects that change in an interesting way.

OC: I’m obviously very English, but really, in some ways, ethnically or in terms of my upbringing, I’m quite a mongrel, as well. I am interested in a sense in cultural identity — or going back to certain roots of different cultures. Folk music often is such a profound expression of a culture or a people. It’s quite a strange mix of things in that sense, as well, the record.

Do cultural purism and musical purism lead to the same dead ends? Sorry, this is getting really deep.

CM: It is really getting deep, but I think it does. If you put boundaries around everything, innovation becomes more difficult. We’re seeing that, if you really want to get political, in our own country, the idea of shutting out immigrants and immigration will do real harm to the sciences and to culture. We need new input for innovation. Particularly for the fraying relationship between America and England, maybe this is a bridge. We’re going to bring America and England back together. [Laughs]

This music is obviously linked to a certain place and a certain culture. With that in mind, I’m curious about the decision to record in Portland, as opposed to some old farm in Northumbria.

OC: I think there was probably some logistical, practical …

CM: Financial …

OC: Exactly.

CM: We were working on a budget. Also, the environment that you create something in can have a profound effect on the outcome. We rehearsed it in the country outside of Portland, in Willamette Valley — very western America. And then we recorded it in Portland with Tucker Martine. All of that created a flavor that’s going to offset whatever sort of Britishisms are there in the music and create a different color altogether, hopefully.

What can you tell me then about choosing these songs? Did you have criteria in mind for a finished product? Or were they just songs you wanted to sing?

CM: We both just made wish lists from the outset. She came out in the summer and we sat around and listened to a lot of records. Then we went away and listened to each other’s wish lists and hemmed and hawed about things — something’s too familiar or it’s not familiar enough.

OC: There were a few songs that I ended up doing that were almost soloistic, and those ones tended be ones that Colin had maybe not commissioned me to do, but certainly gave me license to do. My fear was that the criticism from my own people on the folk scene in the UK would be that we had done too many of the tried-and-tested classics. But then we both agreed that there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t think I would’ve had the bravery to come up with something like “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” I didn’t quite realize it could fit the brief, but Colin was very decisive and clear that he thought that would be a great one to do. I’m really happy that we did it.

CM: That came from a place of relative ignorance. I thought I was really steeped in this music, but now I feel like I’m barely breaking the surface. I was like, “Let’s do ‘Fine Horseman’ and give it the pulpits it deserves.” But Olivia said, “No, everybody does ‘Fine Horseman.’” It’s funny: In America, Lal Waterson’s “Fine Horseman” is as obscure as it gets on a record that been out of print for years — although I saw that Domino is reissuing it. But that song is more well known in England. That was something to keep mind — that certain songs I felt were ripe for re-evaluation were considered too familiar by Olivia. It was really a question of finding a balance. Is this a rediscovery record? Or is it a standards record? I think we did a little bit of both.

OC: With someone like Lal Waterson, when I got off the phone with Colin, I had to ring Eliza Carthy, Lal’s niece. I felt I had to seek the family’s permission, if we were going to do one of Lal’s songs. It was just a funny expression of the situation; we were both coming from such differences places and experiences in relation to the music. Me, coming from a tiny island, I’m inevitably going to know half the people who sang or wrote those songs.

Is that something you did with other songs? Did you feel compelled to seek permission or guidance from the originators?

OC: Yes. I had a really interesting correspondence with Andy Irvine about a few songs I did for a new Kronos Quartet record. Some of it’s trad singers, but some are just artists on Nonesuch Records. I did a version of an old Irish song, “You Rambling Boys of Pleasure,” which I learnt from an Andy Irvine recording. I combined asking him about the origins of that song with talking to him about “Willie O’Winsbury” which, rumor has it, he taught Anne Briggs. Also, I did some shows with Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy very recently and was asking Martin about the song “Queen of Hearts.” I think it’s my issue of needing to seek approval from elders and experts. That’s my big hang-up, and Colin certainly was trying to kindly beat that out of me.

CM: I wanted you to be in the cone of silence and not have any interaction because you would just be intimidated. Inevitably, it would influence the process. But that may be the American dilettante in me. Covering a song, I’d never really sought permission and maybe that’s a bad thing. It is more of an American attitude, although I did appreciate getting some sort of approval from the MacColls when we did “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”

OC: I would be pretty terrified as to what Peggy Seeger would actually say about it. I saw her on a BBC program which, Colin, I still need to send you. It’s for some anniversary of the song and they’re interviewing her and playing the Roberta Flack version in the background. Peggy is quite a force of nature, as I’m sure you both know. She basically says, “I don’t really like most of the versions,” and I don’t think she’s a huge fan of the Roberta Flack version, either. But her son, Neil MacColl, is a friend and a wonderful musician, plus he’s a big Decemberists fan. He loved the fact that I was doing the project at all with Colin and thought it was a really wonderful idea. I’m excited to play it for him — just not his mum.

That song was one, in particular, I wanted to ask you about. It always feels like the “Mustang Sally” of folk tunes. Everybody covers it. It’s very popular. But this version sounds very fresh, especially with that flickering drone in the background.

OC: That’s the weird tremolo stop on my little Indian harmonium. It’s really magical, that sound.

CM: It’s got a good psychedelic bent. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it the “Mustang Sally” of English folk music, although I do think that people associate it with the Roberta Flack version. I didn’t know that it was actually written by Ewan MacColl, until I was studying the liner notes of some Atlantic R&B compilation and saw Ewan MacColl had written this beautiful, smoky R&B tune. This is the same guy who had written “Dirty Old Town,” which I had known from the Pogues. So there was this weird line between these two things. I heard Peggy’s version much later, which has this beautiful, almost naïve art approach to it — a piece of folk art in her inimitable way of singing and phrasing. To my mind, this project was an opportunity to strike a balance between those two and maybe make something new there. Olivia did a phenomenal job of that. It was beautiful.

OC: I don’t know about that. But, again, this is an example of where I don’t feel like a pure folkie. Although I know the son of Ewan and Peggy, and work with a lot of those people in that scene and love traditional British folk music, it’s certainly not the only influence on me or the only music I grew up on. I grew up on the Roberta Flack version. I used to lock myself in my room and listen to her record. I was a massive fan. I felt like I really had both strands and very consciously tried to pay homage to both. And, again, I was kindly bullied by Tucker and Colin not to do 160 takes, but actually live with possibly the second or the third.

CM: For many, many versions of “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” the Roberta Flack version is the source material, whereas we really made an effort to take the Peggy Seeger version as our source material. Maybe that’s part of the process, too: Rather than going off the last version of a song that’s been done in an effort to move the needle forward, we went back even further and hoped that would lead us down a different road.

You mentioned not doing 160 takes of a song. Did you have to adjust your process working with the Decemberists?

OC: Yes. Especially since we were working to tape, it was quite an eye opener for me and really challenged the way I approach making music. There were just some really hilarious moments, specifically on “Flash Company.” We’d get to the end of a take, and I would look at everyone and be all kinds of “Oh, God. That was a disaster. We’ve got to do it again!” And they’d all be high-fiving and going, “Yeah. We’ve got it in the bag.” “Are you serious? What the hell?” Then they’d be bummed out by me being bummed out by my own singing, but eventually I’d have a slow epiphany that maybe there was some truth in the fact that actually that first take was quite lovely. It took me a while to get there.

I love the way that song leads into “Old Churchyard.” Musically, it’s a nice moment, but, thematically, it’s pretty powerful to have those two songs tied together and talking about the nature of life and death.

CM: It does work, thematically. In my head, it’s like, “Oh, it’s in the same key and we can drone into the next one.” But it is kind of like a pilgrim’s progress a little bit.

OC: I used to sing that song a cappella at gigs. When I first started singing traditional music, I was not playing folk clubs at all and I’ve never really done the hardcore folk circuit ever. I was just playing strange DIY hipster venues around East London, which certainly wouldn’t be the kind of place where they’d expect to hear an a cappella religious song. It was a good way to shut a room up and get them listening in a way that they might not otherwise. The song has got a very ping-pong transatlantic journey, because I knew that song from the Waterson:Carthy record. The Watersons learnt that song from an old American singer, when they were traveling around America. Of course, it would have originally come from the British Isles, but then become an American folk song. I think it’s gone to and fro across the Atlantic Ocean many times.

CM: Sort of like a game of telephone — with each pass, the song distorts a little more.

Counsel of Elders: John Cohen on Never Giving Up the Search

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In 1959, John Cohen went searching for something. Were you to ask him at the time, before he headed south toward Kentucky from New York by way of bus, he might’ve responded that it had to do with a sound. But underneath that sonic exploration lay an interest in weightier connections beyond what he’d heard pour out of his family’s speakers when his mother or his father dropped the needle on a new Frank Sinatra LP. Cohen was looking for a connection.

Over the course of his long and varied career, Cohen has been a musician, a filmmaker, a photographer, and more, but at the heart of those titles — and the identities they color — exists a desire to cull the past for its most earnest and forgotten correspondences. As if the banjo playing of Roscoe Holcomb or the traditional songs Cohen performed with his band the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s and 1960s, and more recently with the Down Hill Strugglers, contained an integral message to be cared for and passed on. It’s an appreciation for the past that has led some to describe him as a documentarian or a historian or even a preservationist, but any such qualifier only strikes Cohen as being too stiff for the living things they contain.

Cohen will be performing with the Brooklyn-based old-time string band the Down Hill Strugglers at the Brooklyn Folk Festival beginning April 28. He joins a host of traditional and world sounds that have shaped him and continue to inform his listening aesthetic to this day. The search, after all, is never finished.

You’ve mentioned before how you wanted to differentiate yourself from your parents and the standards they listened to at the time — like Frank Sinatra — and, later, the collegiate trend within the folk revival. How did class factor into your taste?

My grandparents were immigrants. My parents were children of immigrants in New York City and, in the process of distancing themselves from their parents’ orthodox Russian Jewish background, they let us kids run wild in American culture. We lived in working class Queens, a place called Sunnyside, but around my 10th birthday, they changed classes and went down to the suburbs and took me with them. And I became middle-class.

By the end of my years in high school, I felt something was wrong and I became an open revolt against that. Music was an important part of my realization of what a cocoon the suburbs were. When I heard Woody Guthrie — this is 1948 I’m talking about — and the Carter Family and Uncle Dave Macon, well, it just opened my horizons. It showed me things about America that I had never even heard of. Here I was listening to Lead Belly when I came home from high school, while everyone else was listening to Frank Sinatra. I was on a very different track, and it’s been that for the next 70 years.

Authenticity is such a loaded word, and yet it seems like you were turned off of the pageantry and production that surrounded popular music at the time. What were you pursuing in this kind of sound?

It completed the picture. The middle class, the Frank Sinatra, the comfortable life, and even the things around rock ‘n’ roll, which are really beautiful and exciting but pretty safe … and then suddenly to see this other side to things. That put the two together and made a much bigger picture. I spent many years making films and photographs in Peru, and it’s even more profound there because the culture is so different. Everything is so different than what we’re raised on here in America. I’m not a universal man, but I have this sense of seeing things from many sides at once. I’m satisfied that I got to that place.

Now we have the Internet and infinite discovery at our fingertips, but you really had to go searching, especially with regards to music.

Eli Smith, a dear friend of mine who presents the Brooklyn Folk Festival, gave me an iPod a couple of years ago loaded with 15,000 tunes, but they’re mostly old blues, old hillbilly music, traditional music, and music from all around the world. I just can’t believe how much joy it gives me, and it’s not exactly “joy” because I put it on shuffle. One moment I’m listening to a Ukrainian orchestra and then, in the next moment, an old bluegrass band. In my mind, I’m constantly asking, “What is it about this music that can make me feel so good about each of them, or what do they have in common?” There’s a certain age to the music, to the singing, a certain vigor that you don’t find in every day life.

A certain connectivity?

Yeah, I mean I could go into ethnomusicology terms, but that’s just a structure around it. It’s a feeling, an intensity. There’s a wonderful writer and musician named Julius Lester and, during the Vietnam War, he went up to North Vietnam and said at midnight they were at the edge of the river waiting for a ferryboat to come and get them across. A ferryboat was just one man in a little boat with an oar, and [Lester] said that man was singing and it sounded just like Clarence Ashley, who was an Appalachian singer from the 1920s. To hear that, it explains it. The same feeling, the same ache to the voice, the same explanation of a life.

These subjects are universal. You’ve described yourself as an artist not a documentarian, and — as a thought experiment — if you put those two identities on the same spectrum, I wonder if you won’t fall somewhere in the middle, like a preservationist, if that’s not too staunch of a term.

It is. It reminds me of formaldehyde. Walter Evans, a wonderful photographer, he used the phrase, “Well, I work in a documentary style,” which means it looks like what people think a documentary is, but that doesn’t mean that it really is. The other thing that I find all over the place is that the word “interpretation” comes in more. I look objectively. I take a photograph: It’s a lens, it’s a film, it’s a fact. But by the time I finish with it, it’s an interpretation. In a way, it holds true for my music, too. I don’t consider myself to be an original musician. The origins are somewhere else, and I’m constantly interpreting those origins. That’s the way I have to look at it.

Yes, but you’re also interested in sticking to the instrumental and melodic foundation. There’s an inclination to preserve there.

I use that as the tools with which I work, but I admire so much and I’m so moved by some of the inventive old sounds that it’s my attempt to get at that. Of course, I can never be them — I can never be Clarence Ashley — but I can reach for it, as long as I don’t lose sight of the original. And very often when I sing or perform, I’ll refer to the source … and it’s not for historical reasons or anything; it just helps me get through the song.

A seeking instinct led you to Kentucky, and the idea of seeking has shifted in recent decades. Have we lost anything?

With the Internet and a lot of phonograph records, you can get the illusion that you’re with someone else and still be sitting on your sofa. But the real trick is to get up off the sofa and get out the door and go somewhere else. And don’t go as a tourist. Tourism is one of the biggest industries in the whole world right now, but that’s because people are looking for something beyond themselves. They don’t know how to approach it. I mean, I went down looking for banjo recordings.

Door-to-door, no less.

More gas station to gas station. And once the folks start retuning the banjo, it opens up their memories of songs they hadn’t played in years or sounds that they don’t play regularly. It’s like a continual opening up of very special things when you have something that you’re after.

New Lost City Ramblers at Newport Folk Festival

I look at the Internet and obviously someone could “seek” by searching, but you lose that face-to-face connectivity.

Oh yeah, and all the questions like, “Where am I going to eat?” When you go somewhere else, you gotta ask those questions yourself, unless you stay on the main path all the time. One of the things about my approach to music — and it’s not just me alone — is when you hear something that you wanna get at and you try to play it, you’re engaging in a very different way. You have to listen again; you have to listen closely. That’s another form of engagement. I guess it’s about seeking the experience of making music or participating in it rather than just listening to it.

What excites you about the Brooklyn Folk Festival?

It’s a reflection of all the things I’ve been talking about. It’s a great opportunity to see these people in person and hear the music in person, but again, you’re not sitting in your living room with your headphones on. You’re there.

Like you said, opening up the experience.

Yeah, the depth of variety of music … it’s like that iPod. It’s loaded with stuff from all over the place and strong because it’s been curated: They selected one group rather than another. And it goes back in time, as well as being contemporary.

Years ago, in 1961, we formed an organization called the Friends of Old-Time Music and our purpose, for the first time, was to bring traditional performers from the countryside into the city and give them solo concerts. It was the first time we had tried that. Very often, you have a traditional American singer come and be a guest on a Pete Seeger show or a festival or something. Here we were putting on full concerts and that kind of set things in motion in this direction.

Nowadays we’re enjoying the culmination of that exposure.

When my band the New Lost City Ramblers started in 1958, we tried to get at that music: The music that wasn’t being heard, we tried to perform it. We were showing that city kids or urban kids or kids from another tradition could really involve themselves in performing this music, and I’m so proud, after all these years, to see the size of the string bands. There’re festivals and there’re gatherings; it’s all over the place. How many young men and young women study violin and then they change their mind and they play fiddle music? They’re off and running.

Lede photo: John Cohen with Doc Watson and Mississippi John Hurt. All photos courtesy of John Cohen.

United Bible Studies, ‘Recruited Collier’

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Though American music draws from dozens of different musical traditions, most of what people think of as purely "folk" music has its roots in the British Isles. Many old-time Appalachian ballads began in England or its neighbors hundreds of years ago, and reels and other fiddle tunes come from similar Celtic backgrounds. United Bible Studies — whose members spend most of their time in Ireland and England — are breathing new life into some of these old, old songs. The band's new record, The Ale's What Cures Ye, is a collection of reimaginings of some of these traditional songs from abroad. 

"Recruited Collier" is one of the album's nine tunes. The song is pretty but spooky — part of which can be attributed to the fact that it was recorded in the Mupe Bay Smugglers Cave in the English county of Dorset. "The tide was fast approaching, and in our haste, I sang 'take my heart' rather than 'break my heart'. Not only that, but I sang it twice, perhaps recalling Pavement's advice to repeat any mistakes you made so as to make them seem deliberate,"  David Colohan explains. "With no room for second takes, we made good our escape from the Smugglers Cave … and I swore to never haul a harmonium up and down a cliff face ever again."

"Recruited Collier" sounds distant as it begins, with a low drum, heart, and flute floating over sounds of rain. The troublesome harmonium comes in later, sounding almost otherworldly as it wheezes through the song. Let United Bible Studies enchant you with "Recruited Collier."