Label and Release Profiled in The New Yorker

In this week's New Yorker magazine, Burkhard Bilger writes about the folklorists Art Rosenbaum and Lance Ledbetter and about field recordings of folk music.

Click here to listen to Bilger talk about the history of field recording and introduce samples from Rosenbaum's "Art of Field Recording: Volume 1" and Ledbetter's gospel collection "Goodbye, Babylon."

Click here for a portfolio of photographs, by Sylvia Plachy, taken during recording sessions and performances on Bilger’s route through the South.

"Joe Bussard, Record Hunter" from WYPR

"Well, there are record collections, and then there are record collections that set the record..." (Click here to read an interview with Justin Levy, the show's producer.)

Listen to the show:

Art Rosenbaum and Tony Russell on Soundcheck

The Art of Field Recording
"During his career as a painter and University of Georgia art professor, Art Rosenbaum spent his off hours making field recordings of folk music. He joins us to share stories and songs from a new box set, Art of Field Recording: Volume I, which compiles recordings from the Eisenhower administration through the present."


Country Music Pioneers
"The hard-luck, God-fearing country music of the 1920s and ‘30s is the ancestor of today’s polished Nashville sound. The new book Country Music Originals: The Legends and the Lost charts the genre’s family tree, from big names like Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family to lesser-known musicians (whose stories the book tells for the first time). We talk with author and historian Tony Russell."

Victrola Favorites [DTD-11] : Now Available

Click here to read an article about this project by Michaelangelo Matos that appeared in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine.

Click here for a track list and to hear audio samples.

The two CDs come in a 144 page clothbound, full-color book and will be available in stores on January 22, 2008.

Listen to Victrola Favorites compilers Rob Millis and Jeffrey Taylor discuss their vintage records with Amanda Wilde on KUOW:

Gospel Music Restoration on Fresh Air this Thursday

Robert Darden, the author of People Get Ready: A New History of Gospel Music, will appear on Fresh Air tomorrow to discuss Baylor University's Black Gospel Music Restoration Project with Terry Gross.

Lance Ledbetter of Dust-to-Digital accompanied Darden a few years ago on a visit to Arhoolie Records to observe and study their work archiving Mexican-American music. Arhoolie's Frontera Project became the basis for the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project that Darden heads up at Baylor.

Click here to listen to the show.

Art Rosenbaum In-Store Appearances

Borders - 12/14/07 - 6:30pm
196 Alps Road, Suite 50
Athens, GA 30606
706.583.8647

The Solstice Sisters will be at Borders Bookstore Friday evening to play some music starting around 6:30pm. Art Rosenbaum will also be at there with his 4 CD collection Art of Field Recording Volume I. Art is bringing along some instruments as well, so Borders will be the place to be for harmonies and old time music.

Decatur CD - 12/20/07 - 6:30pm
356 West Ponce de Leon Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030
404.371.9090

On Thursday, Dec. 20th Decatur CD has two musical talents to offer up. Art Rosenbaum, documentarian of the Art of Field Recording Volume I box set will perform at 6:30pm. Then, following Rosenbaum, banjo fiend, David Stephens, will play at 8pm.

Art of Field Recording Reviewed at Pitchfork

Various Artists
Art of Field Recording, Vol. 1
[Dust-to-Digital; 2007]
Rating: 9.0

In the liner notes to Dust-to-Digital's new boxset, Art of Field Recording, folklorist Art Rosenbaum talks up some of the perks inherent to field recording: In addition to allowing archivists to preserve songs and performances that bled over the (one-time) three-minute maximum for commercial sides (and to explore genres-- prison work songs, sea chantys, unaccompanied ballads-- that were once deemed too non-commercial to release for sale), field recording also allows folklorists to harness "spoken narrative and social context that seldom found their way onto even the greatest commercial releases." In this sense, The Art of Field Recording works as an indispensable counterpoint to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music or Dust to Digital's flagship release, Goodbye, Babylon: Even if you've got a pretty good grip on how these songs worked in a recording studio, hearing them performed in the field-- in churches and homes, by non-professional musicians, complete with spoken asides, slips, yelps, groans-- is revelatory.

All of the material included here was culled from field recording sessions conducted by Art Rosenbaum, an Athens, Georgia-based artist and folklorist, who-- unlike some of his peers-- cultivated substantial relationships with his subjects, establishing a camaraderie that endured long after the tape recorder clicked off (Rosenbaum and his wife, Margo, also photographed and painted many of the musicians they recorded, and their artwork is included in the set's liner notes). The material spans a half-century plus one year-- 1956 through 2007-- and is divided into four loose categories (an organizational tactic snatched, admittedly, from Harry Smith): Survey, Religious, Blues, and Instrumental/Dance. Most of these cuts were previously unavailable on CD, although the bulk of the material remains archived either in the Library of Congress, Indiana University's Archive of Traditional Music, or the University of Georgia's Media Archive.

Art of Field Recording is not only an essential resource for exploring early American forms and traditions, it also satisfies voyeuristic impulses. Spinning these discs feels like eavesdropping, or being granted exclusive access to 110 secret songs and performances. And, like any good secret, you'll have a hard time keeping it all to yourself: Sister Fleeta Mitchell (94 years old this year!) and Rev. Willie Mae Eberhard's whoops and twitters are so playful, so intoxicating and free that it's hard not to stop folks on the street-- the mailman, the UPS guy, a neighbor-- and slap headphones over their ears, grinning stupidly and expectantly. The duo's three tracks, taken from the songbooks of the Holiness and Pentecostal churches ("Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down", which opens Disc 1, plus "Let Me Fly" and "I Am on the Battlefield for My Lord" from Disc 2) are all highlights, offering up a spirited, beguiling mix of piano, vocals, and tambourine. "Satan" also serves as a delightfully apt opener for the entire box: Mitchell nods to Rosenbaum to start recording, and when he pauses, you can feel the tension crackle-- "Start!" Mitchell spits, aggravated, like a woman deep in labor being told not to push. Her whole body is ready to sing.

Nathan Palmer's "Blow, Gabriel" (recorded at the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Eulonia, Georgia, on January 1, 1982) is a stellar example of one of the most haunting American ring-shouts (as Rosenbaum explains, ring-shouts are "the oldest extant African-American performance form on the North American continent.") Ring-shouters shuffle their feet, moving counter-clockwise to the rhythm of the leader, clapping their hands or pummeling the floor with a broomstick; here, Palmer's deep, easy hollers are offset by the basers' muddy responses, and the entire performance feels personal and guarded (ring-shouts are very rarely performed outside of the Briar Patch community-- meaning even getting this close is a rare privilege).

Although the folklorists lugging around tape recorders (and the performers carrying on ancient traditions) are worthy of much heralding, it's equally astounding how essential Lance Ledbetter's work at Dust-to-Digital has been to the preservation of traditional American folksong. It's easy to buy and appreciate these sets without realizing that the bulk of the material might have been lost-- or, at the very least, tethered to archives, readily accessible only to curious faculty, paper-writing students, and bespectacled researchers-- without Ledbetter's interference. Art of Field Recording is gorgeously packaged, featuring one of Rosenbaum's paintings on the cover, and includes a thick, book-bound insert that annotates each of the songs, offering up context and precious information. Even when Art and Margo are, ostensibly, acting as silent observers, it is still possible to sense the Rosenbaums' presence, and some of the interview-heavy cuts (see Mary Heekin's rendition of "Lord Randolph," from Disc 1) expose Art and Margo's investment in their work. The narrations included here can be as telling as the songs themselves. Accordingly, The Art of Field Recording is the kind of thing you will feel lucky to be allowed to own. Volume 2 can't land fast enough. (Amanda Petrusich, Pitchfork Media)