"C'mon in. Let's Spin A Tale or Two!"

Human beings have made music and spun stories throughout our history on this planet. In many ways, these songs and stories tell us a lot about who we are, where we've been and where we are going.

Spinning Tales is a two hour weekly radio show that embraces both music--with an emphasis on archival early recordings and contemporary music performed in these traditional or "roots" styles--and stories ranging from the recordings of traditional storytellers to stories collected from local people.

In this day of multi-media presentations and multi-layered digital studio productions, we hope you'll enjoy this return to simpler fare; music often recorded live by a group of musicians gathered around a single microphone, stories shared over a cup of coffee with a neighbor.

This Week's Show

 {Michael originally wrote this after attending the Lowell Folk Festival in 2009. For the next couple of weeks, he'll be sharing music from this year's festival.}

The Lowell Folk Festival has happened one weekend in the month of July annually for 23 years. And yes it happens each year in Lowell, Massachusetts, a mill town built on the Merrimack River to catch the river's current to power the making of cloth from cotton thread until that industry moved down south.

In the years after the Vietnam War, a large number of immigrants from Southeast Asia were settled in Lowell with government help. In a continuation of its history,
Lowell is a town that welcomes people from many places. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was Germans, Irish, Swedes, Lithuanians, Jews from Eastern Europe, French Canadians. Today it is Nigerians, Colombians, Filipinos, Laotians, Vietnamese, Cambodians. The list could go on and on. It is truly a melting pot. And as a result Lowell has experienced a re-awakening of its spirit, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, to become a lively destination for arts, crafts and cultural activities.


So on a Friday evening, all day and evening Saturday, and Sunday till 6, usually on the last full weekend in July each year, Lowell thrives with people and music, master craftspeople and many different ethnic foods made by local citizens for the most part. The streets are alive with kids and families, visitors of all ages and backgrounds. And all against the backdrop of beautiful mill town brick. Oh and did I mention that this festival is free? It's actually the largest free folk festival in the U.S. And it moves with about a thousand volunteers.
And let me not forget to tell you about the composting program at the festival. Each of the food vendors supplies their hungry customers with plates, cups, knives and forks that are compostable. All this material is collected and composted and each year you can pick up a bag of the previous year's festival garbage now turned to earth. Cans and bottles etc. are also collected and recycled.

Over the years it seems to me it has become more and more of a world music (and world food) festival even though most of the performers (and cooks) live in the United States. And it is folk music in the sense of traditional music. The musicians (and dancers at times) perform from out of their own backgrounds, their ancestry, whether its Jewish, Senegaleze, Greek, French-Canadian, appalachian, Brazilian, Cambodian, Native American, Balkan, Armenian, Southern blues, tex-mex and on and on.
There are 6 stages set up on the streets and plazas around town and so for two and a half days there is a continual walking to and back between the stages and food courts to catch the different acts and eat the different foods. There is also lively dancing in several of the music locations. Shattuck is a street full of kids games and activities. There are cafes and restaurants with tables and music outside. Street musicians entertain passers-by. There are great museums and art galleries to visit. One of them not to be missed is the New England Quilt Museum with an astounding collection and special displays of older and contemporary quilts. This year they exhibited quilts discovered all over Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Documentation Project.

This year's Lowell Folk Festival, the 25th,  will take place July 29-31, 2011.
 For more information: Lowell Folk Festival

This Month on Spinning Tales

The American Musical Melting Pot:  

The Unique Sounds of Norteño and Cajun Music!    

After a couple of weeks of vacation and rebroadcast, with Mother Nature gliding into summer here in Western Massachusetts, Spinning Tales has left the Blues behind us and continues on with two other unique forms of American music that emerged in the cauldron of the American culture: the Norteño music of South Texas and the Cajun music of Louisiana.

Just as the Blues was an amalgam of African and Anglo-Saxon music born in the Americas, Norteño and Cajun music were also products of America's Melting Pot. In each case, the musical traditions of those who came from the European colonial countries of Spain and France were influenced dramatically by the introduction of the accordion and the music brought to the New World by German, Czech and Polish immigrants in the later part of the 19th century.  And as polka and redova met the bolero and corrido, as the mazurka met the Arcadian ballads and waltzes of the descendants of the French colonists expelled from the Maritime Provinces of Canada by the victorious British in the mid-18th century, the musicians of each community performed their alchemy.

By the time the burgeoning recording industry emerged in the 1920's the corridos, racheros and boleros of traditional Mexican music were evolving into the distinctive Norteño music of South Texas, and Cajun music, much of it two step or Cajun waltz, was a vibrant part of the Cajun culture of Louisiana.  In both cases, this music wasn't primarily concert music, it was dance music, the life and breath of fete and fiesta.

And as radio broadcasting emerged in the 1930's the airwaves of each region were alive with the pulsing dance rhythms of this music, with vocalists crooning lyrics in Tejano Spanish and Cajun French as live dance music became part and parcel of the radio programming of that era. 

Here in 2011, Spinning Tales can't bring you this music live on the airwaves or on the web, but we can share and enjoy the music that flowed through the veins of each of these cultures in the early decades of the 20th century and pick up on some it still played in those styles by artists to this day.  It'll be a rich month.  We hope you'll enjoy it as much as we do!

This Month on Spinning Tales

The American Musical Melting Pot:  

The Unique Sounds of Norteño and Cajun Music!    

Although Mother Nature seems to be an absolute tease, bringing us a dazzling sunsparkler one day and plunging us down toward freezing the next, it's definitely Spring here in Western Massachusetts! So, it's time to leave the Blues behind us and move on to two other unique traditions of music that emerged in the cauldron of the American culture: the Norteño music of South Texas and the Cajun music of Louisiana.

Just as the Blues was an amalgam of African and Anglo-Saxon music born in the Americas, Norteño and Cajun music were also products of America's Melting Pot. In each case, the musical traditions of those who came from the European colonial countries of Spain and France were influenced dramatically by the introduction of the accordion and the music brought to the New World by German, Czech and Polish immigrants in the later part of the 19th century.  And as polka and redova met the bolero and corrido, as the mazurka met the Arcadian ballads and waltzes of the descendants of the French colonists expelled from the Maritime Provinces of Canada by the victorious British in the mid-18th century, the musicians of each community performed their alchemy.

By the time the burgeoning recording industry emerged in the 1920's the corridos, racheros and boleros of traditional Mexican music were evolving into the distinctive Norteño music of South Texas, and Cajun music, much of it two step or Cajun waltz, was a vibrant part of the Cajun culture of Louisiana.  In both cases, this music wasn't primarily concert music, it was dance music, the life and breath of fete and fiesta.

And as radio broadcasting emerged in the 1930's the airwaves of each region were alive with the pulsing dance rhythms of this music, with vocalists crooning lyrics in Tejano Spanish and Cajun French as live dance music became part and parcel of the radio programming of that era. 

Here in 2011, Spinning Tales can't bring you this music live on the airwaves or on the web, but we can share and enjoy the music that flowed through the veins of each of these cultures in the early decades of the 20th century and pick up on some it still played in those styles by artists to this day.  It'll be a rich month.  We hope you'll enjoy it as much as we do!

This Week's Show: April 29-May 2

"Sweet Home, Chicago...Detroit...Los Angeles...!"
The Blues Moves to the City: Part II

Most of us are familiar with the classic poster of Rosie the Riveter, the iconic portrayal of women moving into the workforce of America during World War Two.  Fewer folks are aware that beginning in 1941 an estimated 5 million African Americans left the South and emigrated to the industrial cites of the Midwest and West in what some historians call "the Second Great Migration", an exodus that lasted for the next three decades.

Leaving the overt discrimination of the South for good paying jobs, first in the defense industry, then in the burgeoning automobile industry, this migration continued the urbanization of the African American culture as Detroit and Los Angeles joined Chicago in hosting vibrant blues scenes.  With the introduction of the electric guitar, Little Walter's creative use of amplified distortion to recreate the blues harmonica, and the continued development of combos including piano, saxophone and trap drums, country blues

This Week's Show: April 22-25

"Sweet Home, Chicago!"
The Blues Moves to the City

Between 1910 and 1930, two million African Americans left the economic deprivation and Jim Crow laws of the South and migrated to the cities of the Northeast and Midwest.  In this era, known as the Great Migration,  Black America was transformed from a predominantly rural society to an urban culture--and the Blues reflected this transition.  What had been a music relying on individual performers sharing sometimes quite idiosyncratic rhythms and songs having to do with country life more and more began to rely groups of musicians, more regular rhythms, and songs about the themes of "modern life" in the city.

This Week's Show: April 15-18

Beale Street and Beyond:
Jug Band Music, the Blues --and All That Jazz!

Although the prominence of the the Memphis Jug Band, Cannon's Jug Stompers, and Jed Davenport's Beale Street Jug Band brings Memphis to mind when a lot of us think of jug band music, it appears that the first jug band actually appeared further north in another river town, Louiseville, Ky.   In fact, anecdotal tales have it that Gus Cannon, who had already recorded as "Banjo Joe" (backed by Blind Blake) decided to rig up a jug on a homemade rack so he could play it with his banjo and gather a couple of other musicians to play jug band music "like they did upriver".  Already, the use of a jug (or jugs) to cover a percussive bass line and the use of several instruments to provide texture and tone to the blues was opening up other musical possibilites in a rich and fertile time for musicians in the African American community.

This Week's Show April 8-11

Blowing the Blues:

The Magicians of the Blues Harp 

Although a variety of free reed instruments were common throughout Asia, the harmonica didn't make its appearance until the 1820's in Vienna.  When a German clockmaker named Mattias Hohner (yes, that Hohner) began mass producing the harmonica in 1857, shipping some to his relatives in the United States, I wonder if he could have imagined that it would become enormously popular in this country, that it would provide solace to both the Union and Confederate armies in the Civil War--and eventually gain it's greatest popularity in the hands of African American blues players?  Could this 19th century German businessman even conceive of the haunting wails, the percussive rhythm chops, and the stirring human sounding moans and groans that emerged from this instrument as the magicians of the blues harp made it their own?

This Week's Show: April 1-4, 2011

Barrelhouse, Boogie Woogie and the Blues!

     This week Spinning Tales will be taking a tour through the raucous, upbeat piano blues that had emerged as dance music in the barrelhouses and juke joints of the south at the end of the 19th century and had found its way into the bars and dancehalls of the urban north as the recording industry took off in the 1920's.
     Often played in the same 12 bar chord structure as the guitar based blues, what became known as the boogie woogie, had a distinctive percussive quality, relying on a strong left hand bass line and distinctive treble embellishments on the piano. 
      That may sound awfully technical, but if you tune into the show or take a spin through a few of this week's YouTube selections you'll catch the drift.  It'll sound quite familiar. Whether these artist are labeled barrelhouse players or masters of the boogie woogie--and some are called both by various writers--to folks of my age, (Michael's too) it sounds a whole lot like the "rock and roll" that we heard as kids from the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and Bill Haley.  A rose is a rose is a rose.

This Week's Show: March 25-28

Georgia on My Mind:
The Blues Men and Women of Georgia

When you bring up the history of the blues, many folks will immediately envision the Mississippi delta, or perhaps, depending on the era, refer to the cities of Memphis or Chicago. But throughout the years, from the early recordings of Barbeque Bob to the sizzlin' blues rock of the Allman Brothers Band, the red clay roads of rural and small town Georgia and the city streets of Atlanta have provided the world with a wealth of the blues.

"Barbecue Bob" Hicks

This week Spinning Tales has Georgia on its mind as we hear from blues artists like Robert "Barbecue Bob" Hicks. Hicks, his brother Charlie and Curley Weaver were taught to play the guitar by Curley's mother, Savannah "Dip" Weaver, a highly regarded pianist and guitar player and his 1927 recording "Barbecue Blues" made him Columbia's best selling artist at the time. By the time of his untimely death in 1931 (at age 29)

This Week's Show: March 18-21

Rosetta Records: 
Independent Women's Blues 

When Rosetta Reitz set out with $10,000 of borrowed money in 1979, she seemed to have a clear vision of what she wished to accomplish.  In founding Rosetta Records, she was out to set the record straight.  It was clear to Ms Reitz that, as had often happened in a patriarchal society, the contributions of the women who had created the blues and jazz of the 1920's and 30's  had often been overlooked and discounted.  Although many male blues musicians, as well as a few female singers had been "rediscovered" in the 60's folk revival, she had a deep sense that the true story was yet to be told.  (see the biography of Rosetta Reitz to the right)    
Eighteen albums later, 

This Week's Show: March 11-14

Ma Rainey

Man! Those Women Could Sing--and Play-- the Blues!!

A few days ago the world celebrated the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day as we here in the United States continue through Women's History Month. So, it seems a perfect time to turn our attention to the important contributions made by women blues artists to the music that, as Michael says, "can remind us that we are all in it together!

(To be perfectly honest we had actually planned to focus shows in March on the blues women artists before we realized this month was an epicenter for women's celebrations.  It seems The Goddess knows what She's doing--even as Michael and I continue to bumble along.)

To be sure, women have been at the heart--and soul--of blues music all along.  "Crazy Blues" by Mamie Smith in 1920 was the first recorded blues vocal and some sources cite the prolific Gertrude "Ma" Rainey as having coined the term the blues in the first place as she added a song lamenting the loss of her man to her repertoire in 1902. 

This Week's Show: March 4-7, 2011

The Blues Meets Rock and Roll 
 
It was too good to pass up!

Last week, I stumbled across Henry Thomas's "Bulldoze Blues" as I was researching the itinerant blues musicians who had made their way into recording studios in the 20's and 30's--and when I heard the melody line that Thomas played on the quills, I immediately recognized Canned Heat's "Going Up Country", one of my favorites from the movie Woodstock! 


Maybe we're showing our age (Michael is 61, I'll be 65 later this month), but Michael and I made a quick decision at that point:  This week Spinning Tales is going to Rock the Blues! (You might say we'll be caught between a hard rock and a blues place???)

This Week's Show: Feb 25-28, 2011

 "Poor Boy, Long Way From Home"

---------from Poor Boy Blues by Willard "Ramblin' Thomas                                                            
                                                                                  

This week Spinning Tales will focus on the itinerant blues musicians who spent much of their lives wandering; playing on the streets and in the juke joints of the rural south, traveling to play for the emerging African American communities of the urban north, and then at one point walking into a recording "studio"--sometimes not much more than a makeshift set-up in a rented hotel room--where the magic of technology allowed their music to continue the journey to be enjoyed by us today.

Traveling as solo songsters, or as members of the ever shifting personnel of minstrel shows or string bands, often mastering the popular songs of the day to appeal to white audiences, these musicians weren't the only people on the road in the early part of the 20th century.

From about 1910 into the years of the Depression, the Great Migration saw an estimated 2 million African Americans leave the south to escape racism and seek employment in the growing industrial cities of the mid west, northeast and west.  The blues followed along.

This Week's Show: February 18, 2011

Robert Johnson: "The Man, the Myth, the Music!"

When Michael decided to focus in on Robert Johnson this week, asserting in his email that "NO blues show, that's right NO blues show, can NOT do a show on Robert Johnson", I grinned, nodded enthusiastically, and immediately created a title for this week's web posting: Robert Johnson: "The Man, the Myth, the Music."--and set about to do "just a little bit" of research. I thought, "Heck,  I should  be able to shed a little light on the subject, separate the man from the myth, etc."

What was I thinking? 

The cast of characters involved in those early years of recorded blues in the late 1920's and early '30's, the legion of apocryphal stories surrounding the bluesmen who sometimes played and drank together; who sometimes collaborated, sometimes squabbled;  who sometimes borrowed, covered--or stole--one another's songs in those days includes other blues icons like

This Week's Show: February 11, 2011

Bo Carter

Over a month ago, Spinning Tales proclaimed we'd have the blues all winter long.  With two feet or more of snow adorning the fields here in western Massachusetts, it's obvious we've got a lot more blues to play.

This week we'll start with 4 cuts from Columbia's Roots 'n' Blues, Retrospective 1925-1950 featuring Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarlton, Whistlin' Alex Moore, Bo Carter, and Lonnie Johnson. We'll then continue on with a few by blues guitarist Bukka White on the Arhoolie label and more by Lonnie Johnson, sometimes considered the father of jazz guitar, on Smithsonian Folkways.  (This week's first story will actually be a tale by Bukka White!)

We'll then focus in for a bit on Son House, who is often considered to be one the true masters of blues guitar. We'll hear a couple of his songs, then listen to interpretations of those same songs by contemporary blueswoman Rory Block from her 1988 CD "Blues Walking Like a Man: A Tribute to Son House"

This Week's Show: February 4, 2011

""What Exactly--or Inexactly--is the Blues?"
 

Frank Hutchison

For the past two weeks Spinning Tales has featured the blues as played by white artists ranging from the earliest days of recorded music through the decades to some contemporary musicians.  Along 
the way the two of us have sometimes wondered if a certain cut qualifies as "the Blues".  Maybe some folks out there thought that we'd not drawn the line crisply enough and let something that was not "The Blues" in through the backdoor. Was some of this merely Blues Lite?

So for this week's show, Lance threw the above question into the hopper at a great on-line site, The Blindman's Blues Forum.  Of course, the old-timers there must of rolled their eyes a bit.

This Week's Show: January 28, 2011

This week we continue to bring you the blues as recorded by white musicians influenced by the blues as it emerged from the African American community.  The blues, a truly American music, had its beginnings in field hollers, "arhoolies", prison songs, and work chants and was carried, shared and passed on by itinerant black musicians, railroad workers, farmworkers and others throughout the south in the late 1800's and early 1900's. 

As you'll hear, among musicians the walls of segregation were more permeable than in the general population. The music and the musicians influenced one another all along the way.  This is the way of music and its magic.  Much of what you will hear this week

This Week's Show: January 21, 2011

This week we'll move from the blues as it traveled from black church meetings and family gatherings, through "juke joints" and bars, and into the recording studios of Harlem and Chicago--to the blues as it developed in the hills of white Appalachia.

From the very beginning, the Blues reflected--and transcended--America's racial divide. Arising first in the

This Week's Show: January 14, 2011

Before the amplified guitar many juke joints and bars had a house piano because its sound could carry even the most boisterous room.  And in the 1920s and 1930s it was often women who belted out the blues standing alongside that piano--or playing it themselves.

This week we'll continue our blues journey with more from Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Mama Yancey, Nina Simone and Katie Webster, as well as songs by Georgia White, Hociel Thomas, Bernice Edwards, Hazel Scott, Una Mae Carlisle, Victoria Spivey, Hadda Brooks and Rory Block. But first, we'll hear four more selections from Columbia's Roots 'n' Blues series, songs by Whistler and His Jug Band, Barbecue Bob, The Allen Brothers,  and Gladys Bentley.

Our first story will be told by Pattie Waters of Shelburne Falls at about 4:30pm  The pathways to becoming a vegetarian are many and diverse.  Michael went over to Pattie's house in Shelburne Falls recently

This Week's Show: January 7, 2011

This week we'll start our winter journey through the blues with Frank Hutchison, Hersal Thomas, Reverand J.M. Gates and Dora Carr.  Then, woven around today's two stories, we'll hear the blues by women vocalists accompanied by the piano, songs by Bessie Smith, Louise Johnson, Alberta Hunter, Mama Yancey, Hattie Hudson, Lizzie Miles, Hazel Scott Nellie Lutcher, Nina Simone, Katie Webster, Odetta and Rory Block.

Today's first story, aired about 4:30 will be by Pattie Waters.  It seems the pathways to becoming a vegetarian are many and diverse.  I went over to Pattie's house in Shelburne Falls recently