Category Archives: My Back Pages

Jazz For People Who Hate Jazz

Louis Armstrong/Public Domain

Has anybody ever asked you “What kind of music do you like?” and you’ve replied, “I like all kinds”? I have. And that would not be truthful. I never liked jazz.

As a columnist who regularly writes and takes pleasure in sharing with you what music I’m enjoying and listening to in the moment or have discovered along the way that I find of interest, I’ve often rejected the notion of critical review. My mantra has been that all music is good to someone, somewhere, sometime. It compares with the position that places emphasis on perception over some hocus-pocus make-believe qualitative measurement. Or as David Hume wrote way back in 1742: ‘”Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”

With an affinity and preference for roots music, or perhaps that still hard-to-define genre we’ve classified as Americana, my own truth is that I do not love all music. I can differentiate between that music whose audio signals my brain can’t process with any sort of clarity — metal, punk, a lot of (but not all) hip-hop, experimental and free-form — and that which I simply can’t listen to because I have a negative emotional response. Like this song, which is closing in on 30,000,000 views on You Tube.

So … jazz. From my very first job in the mailroom of an indie music distributor in 1972 and throughout the next 35 years doing sales and marketing, I’ve represented some of the greatest labels and musicians, yet found most all of it barely listenable. I just couldn’t get my head or ears around it. The rare exceptions were an album on Riverside by Lil Hardin Armstrong, Ornette Coleman’s 1960 Change of The Century, John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things, and anything by Django Reinhardt.

That changed in 2001 with the release of Ken Burns’ documentary Jazz, which covered the history of the genre in America from the beginning of the 20th century to present day. As I watched and listened to those ten episodes, I realized that it wasn’t that I couldn’t relate to jazz, but rather that I hadn’t yet been exposed to what pleased my ears. My “sweet spot” ran from the early recordings of Sidney Bechet and Jelly Roll Morton, through the New Orleans and Harlem Renaissance period, the Chicago and Kansas City bands, and into the swing era and big bands of the late-’40s.

For a kid who only knew Louis Armstrong from his recording of “Hello, Dolly” and later “What a Wonderful World,” it was surprising for me to discover that he was as important to the history and development of jazz as the Carter Family or Jimmie Rodgers were to folk and country music. Armstrong moved in and out of bands for decades, playing with Kid Ory, King Oliver, and Fletcher Henderson, and accompanied vocalists Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, and Bessie Smith. He didn’t start singing himself until 1929, when he joined the pit orchestra for an all-black revue in New York called Hot Chocolates and performed “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”

That clip speaks volumes to how closely jazz, blues, and the music from Appalachia were intertwined, and along with the Ken Burns film, it inspired me to go off and search for jazz recordings for people like myself, people who felt unable to connect with that genre. And the more I focused on studying the historical context and growth of all-American music instead of sticking to the school of strict genre-classification, the more my auditory palette grew.

If you’d like to take a trip down the jazz highway, here’s a few of the recordings and artists that I keep in rotation. They fit like fingers in a glove with all of my other roots music favorites.

Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers

Jay C. Higginbotham & His Six Hicks

King Oliver and Henry “Red” Allen

Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra

Bessie Smith

Fats Waller

Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Couch Potato’s Guide To AmericanaFest 2018

Photo by Engin Akyurt/Creative Commons 2.0

If you’re reading this you’re likely either on your way to Nashville for AmericanaFest or already there. Or, if you’re like me and a few hundred thousand other roots music fans, you’ll be staying right where you are and feeling awful because you’re missing all the action. I don’t normally get “festival envy,” but thinking about 500 performances at 60 venues over six nights and not having to sleep in a bag or get all wet or muddy to experience it sounds like fun. If I was going I’d top it off with a room on the concierge floor of the Vanderbilt Hotel, breakfast each morning at The Pancake Pantry, and hourly snacking on Goo Goo Clusters.

I’m sure this year’s events will be covered quite well here at No Depression and on their social media channels, and should you have masochistic tendencies and the need to boost your misery in not being there, here’s a few other websites that will also be covering the beat: Rolling Stone Country, The Boot, Wide Open Country, Billboard, and The Tennessean. NPR Music and World Cafe will also webcast the Americana Music Honors & Awards ceremony live from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. For all the kudos that SXSW and Folk Alliance get for showcasing roots music, from afar it looks like the Americana Music Association has now taken the lead.

It’ll be interesting to hear back from artists and attendees on whether last year’s complaints about a lack of diversity — less than 10 percent of the 300 performers were acts that weren’t made up of exclusively white members — have been addressed. And as Billboard reported after last year’s festivities, “not only has Album of the Year never gone to a person of color during the 18 years that the award has been given out, but only twice in the history of the Awards & Honors event has an act led by an artist of color won a voter-decided awards: Alabama Shakes in 2012 for Emerging Artist of the Year and The Mavericks in 2015 for Best Duo/Group of the Year.”

Don’t expect much change, as diversity and inclusion move at glacial speed. If you’d like to see this year’s list of nominees for awards and honors, here’s the link. I love the idea of a big concert and showcase night to celebrate Americana music, but also wish that they’d toss the whole award process out the window. There’s so much great music that gets released each year that it seems self-defeating for the promotion and growth of the genre to limit exposure to basically a handful of artists. The “big tent” concept of Americana music seems more like a six-person lean-to for the mostly Nashville-based voting members.

I’ve taken a look at the list of performers this year who haven’t been nominated for awards, and expect that they will offer up some sizzling sets; the talent pool is Olympic-sized. Here’s a few clips for y’all. Maybe I’ll start saving my money to travel down to Nashville for next year’s 20th anniversary.

Dom Flemons

The Milk Carton Kids

Birds of Chicago

The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band

Sunny War

The Earls of Leicester

Rev. Sekou

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboardand Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Rose Connolly and The Southern Gothic

Everly Brothers/The Guardian

The history of Rose Connally, also known as Down in The Willow Garden, a song first documented in 1915 by song-catcher Cecil Sharp during his travels throughout Virginia and North Carolina.

The award winning HBO’s miniseries Sharp Objects, was adapted from a book of the same name written by Gillian Flynn. I won’t spoil it for those who have yet to see it, but it takes place in the fictional town of Wind Gap, Missouri, and is primarily about the investigation into the murder and mutilation of teenage girls. More than that, though, it runs the psychological gamut of dysfunctional families with secrets and small town dynamics, self-harm and childhood trauma, sexual assault and violence towards women. The eight episodes are indeed not for the faint of heart, but the use of music throughout the show is central to its Southern Gothic genre.

Director Jean-Marc Vallée teamed up with music supervisor Susan Jacobs, who he also worked with him on 2014’s Wild. In a recent article from Billboard magazine, Jacobs described the director’s use of music as a “painting” and said “It’s much more of a basket weave with Jean-Marc, as he’s cutting pictures right with the music that is all planned out in advance before we shoot.” Vallée also does not use scores, only licensed tracks. On this project he created a “sonic palette” for each of his characters, using Led Zeppelin for the protagonist and including music spanning multiple generations from Patsy Cline to Chris Stapleton. Almost all of the music throughout the show comes from one of two places: an old broken iPod or an expensive audiophile’s dream system, and it creates an interesting juxtaposition.

It was the final song of episode seven that played through the rolling credits on the screen that caught my attention. I immediately recognized the Everly Brothers, and knew they recorded “Down in the Willow Garden” (also known as “Rose Connolly”) for their 1958 Songs Our Daddy Taught Us album. For the BBC documentary Bringing It All Back Home, which traces the history of Irish folk music, they discussed and performed the song, a traditional murder ballad that — like many other songs — traveled to the Appalachian Mountains with the families who came looking for work in America.

Despite the many different spellings of Rose’s surname — Connoley, Conley, Connally, Condolee, Connilley, Condelee, Congalee, Cumberly, or Caudeley – the song’s lyrics haven’t altered all that much over time. It was likely written back in the 19th century, possibly as early as 1811. Documented in 1915 by songcatcher Cecil Sharp during his travels throughout Virginia and North Carolina, it was first recorded for the Victor Talking Machine Company sometime in either 1927 or 1928 by G.B. Grayson and Henry Whittier.

Wade Mainer and Zeke Morris recorded their version for Bluebird Records in 1937, but it was Charlie McCoy and His Kentucky Pardners who popularized the song in 1947 for RCA. As is the case with many traditional songs, McCoy took the composer’s credit along with Roy Acuff.

If it wasn’t for all the violence in the lyrics, it’d be a lovely song. The melody itself is quite pleasing, the Everlys version in particular, with their familial close harmony adding a particularly haunting and lonesome quality to it. But at the heart it’s simply just another murder ballad where a man kills a woman; though in this case not just once but three times. Poor Rose is poisoned, stabbed, and finally thrown into the river. It’s the murderer’s father who is portrayed as the victim, wiping away his tears while having to watch his son get hung from the gallows.

In the ’50s, in addition to the Everly Brothers’ interpretation, there were versions recorded by both the Stanley and Osbourne Brothers, as well as Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. In the ’60s Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs recorded it as “Rose Connelly” and Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys added it to their repertoire, as heard in this 1966 live performance captured in Madison, New Jersey.

In 1973, Art Garfunkel, with all due respect, recorded an absolutely dreadful pop-like version for his album Angel Claire. In the film Raising Arizona, Holly Hunter sings it as an unlikely lullaby. Since then it’s been covered by a multitude of folks, including Nick Cave, Bon Iver with The Chieftains, Honus Honus, The Chapin Sisters, Norah Jones and Billy Joe Armstrong, Shakey Graves and Mark Kozelek. Judging by all the activity on YouTube, it also has become a staple for a younger generation of old-time musicians.

After listening to an endless number of recorded versions, for me it comes back to the Everly Brothers. They are the linchpin of it all, adapting an old-world song learned and passed down by their daddy and releasing it on a traditional country-ballad album just as they were about to go out on tour with Buddy Holly to support their five successive rock-and-roll hit singles on Cadence Records. Two years away from signing with Warner Bros. and continuing their string of rock classics, Cadence chose to not promote Songs Our Daddy Taught Us nor release any singles from it.

I’ll close it out with their original studio version, and one might say it’s harmonically one beautiful sharp object.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

No Depression Magazine: 1995-2008

The cover of #75, the final issue/Photo by Easy Ed

It’s an unusual and sad anniversary of sorts, and one I’ve either missed reading about or perhaps it simply slipped by unnoticed. On a spring day in 2008 I picked up the most recent issue of No Depression, a magazine that I had been reading for much of the decade, though they had been on the racks for 13 years. They were the last in a long line of music publications that I would read from cover to cover, starting back in my early teens with 16, Teen Life, and Hit Parader and moving on throughout my adult years to Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, Zoo World, Sing Out!, Broadside, Down Beat, Goldmine, Relix, BAM, Pulse, Billboard, Cashbox, Record World, Music Connection, Trouser Press, Dirty Linen, and Harp. But for reasons I still have not yet reconciled nor understood, No Depression was the only one I had a strong and emotional attachment to. And so when I picked up issue #74 and turned to page 2, the following words from Grant Alden, Peter Blackstock, and Kyla Fairchild hit me in the gut.

“Dear Friends, Barring the intercession of unknown angels, you hold in your hands the next-to-the-last edition of No Depression we will publish. It is difficult even to type those words, so please know that we have not come lightly to this decision.”

The three owners continued to tick off the circumstances that brought an end to a magazine where “readership has not significantly declined, our newsstand sell-through remains among the best in our portion of the industry and our passion for and pleasure in the music has in no way diminished.” So what killed it off? A decline in advertising revenue from struggling record labels, a music industry in transition from brick and mortar to digital, increased internet traffic, and the cost of paper and production. And of course the overall economy was in free fall. People were losing their jobs, homes, and savings, and so taking that into consideration, the loss of a niche publication that supported the three owners, two additional full-time employees, and several dozen editors, writers, and artists was simply a reflection of the times.

“I have deeply enjoyed your magazine and have kept them all. Will give them to my children and grandchildren when I’m gone. Thank you for all the articles on my family members – A.P., Sara, Maybelle, Helen, June, Anita, Johnny Cash & etc. I am A.P. and Sara’s oldest grandchild; will be 70 years old in August.” — Flo Wolfe

With a cover price of $5.95 and a tagline beneath the magazine’s logo that read “The Final Issue Of … Well, Whatever That Is,” No Depression ceased publication with issue #75. It was 144 pages of doing what they’ve always done best: long-form stories, reviews of concerts, albums, books, and films, ads that heralded new music and reissues, and the “Box Full of Letters” from their readers. But this final issue couldn’t help being a little different than all others, because it was the end of something important to many people.

“Since the notice of foreclosure on hope arrived, I’ve been sitting here in melancholy marinade … without an issue or subscription of No Depression magazine, I feel like Charlie Brown waiting at his mailbox on Valentine’s Day, wondering why, at this point, I even need a mailbox.” — Scott Michael Anderson

As I leaf through the final issue, I’m surprised of the large number of musicians who were written about in 2008 and are still performing and recording today, somehow managing to navigate the shark-filled waters of an abysmal music industry that has chomped on and spit out so many others. What we generally call roots music was first recorded and popularized back in 1927, and its resilience and relatively small but vibrant popularity as a non-mainstream genre is just as surprising as it is comforting.

“I will reluctantly face detox after I have read the last issue. Over the past 10 years my cravings for the next ND would build until I had the new issue in hand. Then, like no other magazine before … I would feast from kiver to kiver … savoring the morsels of information and insights. What kept me captivated was that you always stayed contrary to ordinary.” — Tim Willis

The last cover had a black-and-white photograph of Buddy Miller that was slightly off-center. And these were the words written to the left of him: “Guitarist, songwriter, producer, singer, and a man who loves music: Buddy Miller is our artist of the decade.”

With accompanying photographs by Thomas Petillo, it was Grant Alden who wrote the article on Buddy. His writing style has always been unique and in stark contrast to anything one might consider music journalism. He reads like a beat poet with his own distinct rhythm, in which a single sentence can carry an idea or thought that other writers take paragraphs to convey. Just the title alone is worth every ounce of ink: “A disquisition on the centrality of love and faith in the music of Buddy Miller and the several other reasons he is the artist of the decade. And stuff.”

“What will we do without you? I even read all the damn advertisements, for God’s sake.” — Peter Kraemer

Buddy turns 66 this year, and during the time period since Grant’s article was published, he traveled extensively on the Alison Krauss-Robert Plant Raising Sand tour, followed by his concerts billed as Three Girls and Their Buddy with Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, and Shawn Colvin. Early in 2009 he suffered a heart attack and had triple bypass surgery. At that year’s Americana Music Association Honors and Awards, he and his wife Julie were the winners for album, song, and duo/group. Buddy also won Artist of the Year. He’s released three albums, including one with his partner and sidekick Jim Lauderdale, has been either a guest artist, producer, or engineer on way more than a dozen others, and is active with the annual AmericanaFest and the Cayamo cruises.

“Your magazine has been an oasis for me. Other mags have covered some of the same artists, but opening No Depression was like going in to a special old room and closing the door and seeing all your friends there.” — Pat Fitzgerald

Peter and Kyla had plans to transition No Depression into a website (Grant chose to sell his share back, not seeing a way to continue successfully online) that not only featured paid writers, but also created space for music bloggers such as myself. The concept was to create a global ND community allowing readers to comment and interact with the writers and remain a trusted music source fostering two-way dialogue. There was also a “bookazine” that published long-form stories, edited by Grant and Peter. Three editions were done before they moved on to other projects and like Grant, Peter also sold his share of ND to Kyla. She poured her heart, soul, and money into building and running the site until she decided to make a change, and sold it in 2014 to the current owners, the FreshGrass Foundation. As you probably are well aware, with the guiding hands of former editor Kim Ruehl and help from a Kickstarter campaign, No Depression began publishing a quarterly journal the following year. And here we are today … 23 years as an entity, 10 years as a website, and forever in my musical DNA.

“Well, shit. Thanks for what you were able to do.” — Quinn Martin

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboardand Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Many Musicians Make Millions. Most Don’t.

Photo by Thomas Loyens/CC2.0

A few months ago MusiCares, a nonprofit organization that provides a range of safety net resources for musicians, partnered with the Princeton University Survey Research Center to publish a report highlighting the challenges and opportunities that musicians face. The 1,277 musicians who responded to the questionnaire were asked not only about their financial state, but also about topics that included health issues, discrimination, and sexual harassment. Take this as a spoiler alert, because I’m going to jump right to the conclusion of the report:

The survey findings described in this report suggest that many professional musicians face a multitude of problems, including high levels of depression and anxiety, high rates of substance abuse, relatively low incomes, and work-related physical injuries. And while many musicians find features of a musical career particularly alluring, the life a musician presents many challenges … and the rather disturbing findings call for further monitoring of the conditions faced by many musicians, and support for those musicians who suffer from severe emotional, physical, and financial hardships.

When you’ve chosen to follow your artistic passion, hopes, and dreams, this report reads like the directions to a highway from hell. I’ll bullet point a few of the statistical findings:

* The most common income source is live performances, followed by music lessons and performing in a church choir or other religious service.

* The median musician in the U.S. earns between $20,000 and $25,000 a year.

* Sixty-one percent of musicians said that their music-related income is not sufficient to meet their living expenses.

Many musicians shared that they most liked the “opportunity for artistic expression, performing, and collaborating with others,” as well as the “aspirational and spiritual aspects” of being a musician. So much for the good news.

Performers have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse than the general population, and 72 percent of women musicians — who are already disproportionately underrepresented throughout the music industry — report that they have been discriminated against because of their sex. Sixty-seven percent report that they have been the victim of sexual harassment. And 63 percent of non-white musicians stated that they have faced racial discrimination.

While Americana-branded music and all its various “inside the big tent” sub-genres has grown in popularity over the past dozen years, my personal unscientific observation is that for the majority of musicians there is a marked deficiency in the nine‐factor analytic model of conceptions for the desire to be famous. That’s a fancy way of saying they don’t necessarily strive for “superstar” status and financial success and even if they did, it’s doubtful they’d be very happy if they accomplished it.

Edward Deci, a professor at the University of Rochester who was speaking about his research into success and happiness in 2009, put it like this: “Even though our culture puts a strong emphasis on attaining wealth and fame, pursuing these goals does not contribute to having a satisfying life. The things that make your life happy are growing as an individual, having loving relationships, and contributing to your community.” (This man clearly has never flown on a private jet to Paris for a lunch date at the Guy Savoy restaurant with 21-year-old billionaire Kylie Jenner to munch on whole-roasted barbecued pigeon, oyster concassé, and monkfish among aubergine caviar with sautéed ceps.)

Let’s flip the switch and talk about what it looks like to be defined as successful by many people: money. Take a look at Forbes‘ list of the wealthiest musicians for the year 2017, beginning with the top ten:

1. Diddy ($130 million)
2. Beyoncé ($105 million)
3. Drake ($94 million)
4. The Weeknd ($92 million)
5. Coldplay ($88 million)
6. Guns N’ Roses ($84 million)
7. Justin Bieber ($83.5 million)
8. Bruce Springsteen ($75 million)
9. Adele ($69 million)
10. Metallica ($66.5 million)

Bruce is probably the closest thing on this list to a down-to-Earth working-class-value folkie musician (cough, cough), and if you want to find the people who occasionally wear cowboy hats you’d find Garth at #11 with an annual income of $66 million, followed by Kenny Chesney at $48 million. Going deeper on the list, the elder generation are represented by Elton John, Sir Paul, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. (Both Flea and Anthony Kiedis turn 56 this year.) Hip-hop artists dominate the rest of the top 25, along with a few women who are best defined as pop singers that can dance like crazy and have superb social media skills.

Almost every musician in the survey reported that 75 percent of their income is from live performances, but there should be a giant asterisk next to Jimmy Buffett’s name, since most of his $50 million annual take was not directly from music but rather his chain of restaurants, hotels, and casinos. In discovering that Buffett has a net worth of over half a billion dollars, I’ll never look at a parrot, lime, or bottle of tequila the same way. And ditto with Diddy: He made $70 million by simply selling his Sean John fashion line and cashing out.

When I consider many of the musicians I know who travel by car or van from gig to gig, hang out at the merch table after their show to make a couple extra bucks selling stuff, and either crowdsource or borrow from friends and family to record an album, pigs are likely to be seen flying across the sky before they make the Forbes list. And with the exception of maybe three dozen Americana performers that I can think of, they’re destined to stay mainly in the world of small venues, house concerts, and, if they’re truly lucky, a slot on the festival circuit and a month or two each year in Europe and Scandinavia. They likely won’t be making a fortune, but success is best measured by your heart rather than a bank statement. Keep on truckin’.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

The Days Between: A Celebration of Jerry Garcia

My autographed cover of Garcia/Photo by Easy Ed

Jerry Garcia was born on August 1, 1942, and died on August 9, 1995. In what has become an almost institutionalized acknowledgement and commemoration of his life and musical accomplishments, the first nine days of August have become known as The Days Between, with worldwide celebrations, concerts, radio tributes, film screenings, informal gathering of fans, curated playlists on the streaming sites, and shared memories of the people he touched. This is mine.

Very late on a cold night in October 1973 our car was parked with the engine running and the heater blasting. We were on a desolate service road that led to the freight and cargo terminal of the Philadelphia International Airport waiting for a shipment to be delivered from California. At the time my wife and I were 21 and had been married for almost two years, and we both worked together at a local independent record distributor. We had eagerly volunteered to assist our newest client, Grateful Dead Records, who were just days away from the release of the band’s new album, Wake of the Flood.

Jerry’s first known studio sessions as recorded at Stanford’s KZSU radio station in 1962.

With artist Rick Griffin creating an exquisite cover design, it was decided that they would print up posters of the album with the word ‘Here” on the top and ‘Now” on the bottom and have them stuffed into each box of 25 at the Columbia Records pressing plant in New Jersey. When record stores received their orders they could hang the posters in the window. Seemed to be a better marketing concept than the original idea of selling the album directly to fans from ice cream trucks.

Jerry and his first wife a week after their wedding.

It was after midnight when we pulled up to the loading dock and stuffed a dozen or so boxes into the trunk and backseat of our old sky blue English Ford Cortina. Throughout the evening as we were waiting, we alternated between listening to eight tracks and the radio while inhaling pretty much everything we had rolled and brought along, and the rides across the bridge to the plant in Pittman and then back home to Philly remain a bit hazy. But the mission was accomplished and Garcia and Weir stopped by our office in the afternoon of August 4, 1974. I was out that day attending a class at Temple University, but Jerry signed a copy of his latest solo album for me, wrote “Thanks” on it, added a sketch of a flower pot, and left it for me with my wife. It still hangs on my wall and you can see it at the top of this article, the ink slowly fading over time.

Recorded at the Festival Express, Canada in 1970.

For a fan of the Dead and Garcia in particular, the period between 1970 to 1975 was an amazing and unheralded burst of creative output. In those five years the band released Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, the self-titled two-disc live album also known as Skull and Roses, the three-disc Europe ’72, Wake of The Flood, From the Mars Hotel, and Blues For Allah. In addition, Garcia both performed live and played pedal steel for the New Riders of the Purple Sage, appearing on their debut album; had a separate band along with Merl Saunders that released two albums; made one with Howard Wales; did two solo albums; and debuted his bluegrass band, Old and In The Way. He also appeared as a guest on 18 albums from artists that included Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the many offshoots of Jefferson Airplane, Brewer and Shipley’s “One Toke Over The Line,” Art Garfunkel, It’s a Beautiful Day, David Bromberg, and solo projects from Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Keith and Donna Godchaux.

Early version of NRPS with Jerry Garcia – Cold Jordan (a.k.a. “Better Take Jesus’ Hand”) Canada 1970.

In the first week of August 1974 the Dead were scheduled to perform two nights at the Philadelphia Convention Hall (aka the Civic Center) and those concerts were recorded, preserved, and released as Dick’s Picks Volume 31. In the days leading up to the show the legendary radio promotion man Augie Blume came to town from his home in San Francisco in advance of the band’s arrival, and my wife and I acted as his driver and guide to the city as he set up press and radio interviews for Weir and Garcia, brought fans to his hotel room to share smoke and stories, and generally be the record label’s goodwill ambassador.

April 17, 1972. Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen Denmark.

On the night of the first show we waited for Augie outside the hotel to take him to the venue and accompany him backstage. He walked out with the group and a few dozen other people who piled into a fleet of rental cars, and as he got into our beat-up old car, Garcia noticed and gave us a quick wave. The experience to witness and immerse ourselves from behind the curtain to not just the music but also the familial dynamics of what can best described as a mystical traveling carnival of intensely creative and intelligent artists and endless cast of characters who drew energy from each other, the audience, and an endless infusion of chemical enhancement was an indelible watermark in my life. And I’m most surprised that I can still remember it.

April 17, 1972. Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen Denmark.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Easy Ed’s Guide to Roots Music Videos

Alan Lomax filming American Patchworks

Hardly a day goes by when I’m not visiting YouTube multiple times, and it’s usually to search for music-related clips or the occasional instructional video on things like how to clean my Magic Bullet smoothie maker, fix a busted radiator hose, or the best way to store bananas. If I’m ever stuck on a tech problem, it seems like there are thousands of 14-year-old kids who have filmed and uploaded detailed solutions. Education, art, fashion, politics, news, old radio shows and television commercials, speeches, health, fitness, 5K parachute jumps off the roof of Dubai skyscrapers, cute cats, funny dogs, and kitchen sinks: If you can think of something you want to know more about, I guarantee you’ll find it. While YouTube is probably the easiest and my favorite roots music video source, there’s a few other places you might want to explore.

I thought I’d share some search tips and links to some of the long-form and historical musical content I’ve come across through the years. But it’s accompanied by a warning and advice: video content often comes and goes like a case of beer and a bag of chips on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s often a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t proposition, as content owners have the absolute right to demand that it gets pulled off the site, or if they prefer, they can choose to let it stay up and share in the advertising revenue. So keep that in mind. If I share a link that’s dead by the time you read this, just search the title and it’ll likely pop up from another user’s account.

Lost Highway: The Story of American Country

This four-part series was produced back in 2003 and it first aired on BBC and then again on CMT in the United States in 2010. For the latter version, Lyle Lovett was hired to replace the original English narrator. The series traces the history of country music from the Appalachian Mountains and up to the present-day multibillion dollar industry it has become. It is not quite definitive, and there are a number of small but annoying inaccuracies. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty interesting series and you can try this link to start you out. I’ve only found the BBC version so far, but I’ll keep looking for Lyle.

Mother Maybelle’s Carter Scratch

I’m clueless what the origin is of this one, and I wonder if it was perhaps released under a different name. It’s not a documentary per se, but offers a number of clips with an oral history provided by Johnny Cash, Maybelle’s daughters, and a few others. Guitarists will enjoy the focus on her playing style, but it’s not technical in the least. I think much of it comes from The Nashville Network archives, Johnny’s television show, and the Grand Ole Opry. It’s an interesting way to spend an hour. Here’s a sample for you.

Alan Lomax: Archives and Documentaries

Not only did Lomax travel around the world making audio recordings, he also shot a huge amount of film stock. The official Alan Lomax Archive has its own channel on YouTube, and “is a resource for students, researchers, filmmakers, and fans of America’s traditional music and folkways. Shot throughout the American South and Southwest over the course of seven years (1978-1985) in preparation for a PBS series, American Patchwork, which aired in 1991, these videos consist of performances, interviews, and folkloric scenes culled from 400 hours of raw footage, many of which have never been seen publicly.”

American Patchwork consisted of five one-hour documentary films that focused on African American, Appalachian, and Cajun music and dance. While you can search for the individual titles on YouTube, the complete series is best found here. These are the titles of all five: The Land Where the Blues Began, Jazz Parades: Feet Don’t Fail Me Now, Cajun Country, Appalachian Journey, and Dreams and Songs of the Noble Old.

Folkstreams

Connecting documentary filmmakers with niche audiences, Folkstreams is a nonprofit website streaming major films on American vernacular culture. The films on are often produced by independent filmmakers and focus on the culture, struggles, and arts of unnoticed Americans from many different regions and communities. The site is divided into various categories, and if you choose music we’ll probably lose you for a few weeks. There are well over a hundred 30-90 minute documentaries posted covering every area of roots music, including some you never knew existed.

The Johnny Cash Show

This 58-episode series ran from June 7, 1969, to March 31, 1971, on ABC and was taped at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Many of the episodes are scattered throughout YouTube in their entirety or broken into hundreds of individual clips. This was far from the schlock production you might think would have been produced back then, with the first show’s guests featuring Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Doug Kershaw. Other guests represented all areas of music from blues, folk, country, pop, jazz … you name it. If you haven’t seen it, go forth. Here’s two scoops.

Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest

From 1965 to 1966, Pete Seeger hosted 39 episodes of Rainbow Quest. It was taped in black-and-white and featured musicians playing in traditional American music genres such as folk, old-time, bluegrass, and blues. The shows were unrehearsed, there was no studio audience, and songs were often traded between Seeger and his guests.

Odds and Ends

Here’s a few more I’ve found this bottomless well, and I’m sure to have only skimmed the surface.Historic Films Stock Footage Archive seems to have thousands of clips, with a large proportion devoted to music. A&E’s Biography episodes are up on YouTube, and while most aren’t music-related, there are a few gems, including The Everly Brothers and Hank Williams. And in no particular order: Rebel Beat: The History of LA Rockabilly, Rock N’ Roll Country Blues Archive Videos, Grand Old Opry Classics, Town Hall Party, and Smithsonian Folkways channels all deserve two thumbs up.

https://youtu.be/XTn61eEUuz4

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.