Author: The 78 Project

The 78 Project One-Year Anniversary!

This weekend marked The 78 Project’s one year anniversary.  Labor Day weekend of 2011 we had a marathon first three shoots, Dawn Landes in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne at the High Horse Saloon, and The Mynabirds in our backyard in Williamsburg (the episodes from those shoots are reposted below!)  We knew then that something special was happening.

We talked many times this year about a time when we’d be on the road, traveling to record.  Now that we are, it’s every bit as challenging and spectacular as we dreamed it could be.  We’re so thankful for the wonderful generosity of the musicians, friends and enthusiasts who have helped us to take The 78 Project this far.  This first year’s work is dedicated to you all.

The first three Full-length Episodes of The 78 Project, shot August 31 – September 1, 2011 in New York:

Cheatin’, Longing and Family Legacy: The 78 Project spends a week in Nashville

We hit Nasvhille in the afternoon on Tuesday, and went straight over to record with Dylan LeBlanc in Franklin, TN.  While he was warming up, we discovered he is a part of a family legacy of beautiful whistling, and he genially agreed to do some whistling on the song.  Dylan told us stories both sad and triumphant, and performed a haunting version of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.”

Our dear friend Willie of The Breedings put us up for the week in his East Nasvhille home, and we got to check out some local eats and color, including getting to meet Miss Katy K in her Ranch Dressing store!

 

Chelsea Crowell invited us over to the gorgeous pre-Civil War era house where she lives, and let us take over the living room with its beautiful afternoon light.  She performed “Are You From Dixie?” like it had never been played before, with genuine longing and mesmerizing gentleness and subtlety.

 

Thursday bright and early we joined Ella Mae Bowen in another beautiful old Nashville house.  Ella Mae had written songs for her album there, finding so much inspiration in it that she knew it was the place she should make her 78.  We set up in the foyer, where the light from the upstairs window cast a glow around Ella Mae as she sang “The Love of God” with so much love in her powerful voice that we were swept away.

Holly Williams and Chris Coleman and their two happy dogs generously invited us over for our last recording afternoon in Nashville.  Holly and Chris sang a stirring version of “I Saw The Light,” a song by Holly’s grandfather Hank Williams, with pure and energetic harmonies.  The Presto got to star in a photo shoot of its own as it sat in their screened back porch, Chris pulled out his big guns camera for the occasion.

The long weekend started, and we dug in to backup our footage, enjoy the last moments of our time in Nashville, and get ready to hit the road once again.  Memphis, we can’t wait to see you!

Curators, Collectors and Carolina Banjo: The 78 Project makes it to Dixie

Has it only been a week since we left DC?  Our minds have recalibrated to the rhythm of the road.  And since we’ve come to expect at least one new place and a hundred new experiences with each new day, this trip has started to feel like it has always been our life. In a good way.

Last Thursday we were lucky enough to spend the whole day with Todd Harvey at the Library of Congress.  Todd curates the Library’s Alan Lomax Archives, and every time we visit he shows us fascinating pieces of this really comprehensive collection of recordings, correspondence, technology and stories from the life’s work of the great field recordist.  This time the highlight was a letter Lomax had written to a teenage Muddy Waters (known then as McKinley Morganfield) encouraging him to keep in practice!

Friday we drove clear across Virginia, from Alexandria to just past Charlottesville, where we had been invited for a visit with the exceptional 78 collector and producer Christopher King. He kindly shared with us some amazing recordings from Albania, Greece and the Polish mountains, took a stab at finding some Death Gospel in his collection (Washington Phillips) and played for us the record that has captivated our minds since we first heard about it: Geeshie Wiley. Chris and his family made us feel so right at home in their beautiful house, telling us wild family stories about removing snakes from in the ceiling with his grandfather’s hatchet.  And he was game enough to make a recording on our Presto of a family story with a twist that left our jaws on his kitchen floor.

WATCH: Chris plays us one of his favorite 78s

Fried Green Tomatoes

Saturday we completed our traversing of Virginia, stopping at a farmers market in Lynchburg for one last sampling of the state’s local fare. We picked up some twangy apples and some grapes we were told the raccoons love, then we hit the local diner for some homemade pimento cheese and some Eggs Virginia, which if you haven’t had it, get it soon.

Next stop was a Banjo Symposium put on by the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.  What an amazing day, especially for Alex, who is himself a banjo enthusiast. The assembled group of scholars were some of the most knowledgeable about the instrument that exist, and we had the great pleasure to meet and hear Cecelia Conway, Stephen Wade, Dom Flemons and Laurent DuBois among others.  That night we got to see Dom, Tony Trischka, and Riley Baugus with Kirk Sutphin in concert performing classic and new banjo songs.  It was inspired.  And just to give you an idea of how inspired, Dom did the splits while playing the bones.

Sunday we celebrated with our lovely Chapel Hill host, Laura Broom, the banjo aficionado Phillips Saylor, and his cool, folklore-packin’ lady Chloey.

Monday afternoon, the Southern Folklife Collection curator Steve Weiss invited us in for a tour.  Among the discoveries was a banjo under debate, is it a Frank Prophet or a Clifford Glenn?  Steve showed us an amazing wax cylinder player that adjusts for warps and we found out what three tons of 78s looks like: the collection of Eugene Earle. Just a few pounds short of being too heavy for a semi to carry it from California, where Steve went to box it up and haul it out of Earle’s garage.

We had pressing business in Nashville, so we hit the road to tackle some of the eight hour drive that night.  We waylaid in Asheville and woke up early for a sunrise drive through the Appalachian Mountains.  Goodbye North Carolina, hello Tennessee!

 

Folk, Family and Thwarted Failure: Our first week on the road

Nothing less than a wild start would do for any trip The 78 Project takes. Within hours of our Kia Soul zipping through the Holland Tunnel, we were careening through the Philadelphia Folk Fest site on a vehicle of a different kind. An electric shuttle with our friend Joshua behind the wheel took us behind the sleepy stages and through the campground that had already, before the festival even began, turned into a bustling tent town. Site scout complete, we moved in with our very accommodating family in Philadelphia. And when we say moved in, we mean it. We have a lot of stuff.

Our first recording of the trip was on Friday afternoon. Mary Chapin Carpenter invited us onto her tour bus, and generously offered to go without air conditioning for two hours so that the sound of the generator wouldn’t interfere with the recording. She performed a beautiful version of “The Water is Wide” and told us stories about learning to play folk songs on her mother’s ukulele.

 

Saturday morning we stopped in at Joe’s Spring Mount Hotel to ask if we might borrow their leafy porch for an afternoon shoot. The owners, Ben and Cindy, were the kindest of hosts, letting us plug our Presto in to their building to capture Arborea on lacquer and serving us Pennsylvania-brewed beer. The band’s “When I Was on Horseback” was haunting on a cicada-filled summer afternoon. And not only was the record subtle and perfect, not a single bee stung Shanti, and only one passing motorcycle made its way into the song.

Sunday morning we arrived on site bright and early to record some gospel with the Holmes Brothers on the campground stage. We were honored to meet them and moved by their performance. It seemed a little funny to put them on a 78, they thought, who wants to go back in time?   But hearing themselves perform “Amazing Grace” as we played back their record, they agreed it was something rather special.

 

Some old and new friends were on hand to say hello during the weekend, including XPN and the curators of the Rigby Mansion. And our gratitude goes out to Rodney Wittenberg for letting us turn his beautiful farmhouse and studio into our command center. Back with family, cozy and well taken care of, we recharged and repacked.

 

 

Tuesday afternoon we headed into the Northern Liberties home of Philadelphia artist Aldo Buffone to meet Honus Honus and his accomplice Kara Nelson. It was a glorious and harrowing afternoon. Presto #1 malfunctioned, but Honus and Kara didn’t. They sang a wicked streak through “Down in the Willow Garden.” We brought out Presto #2 to scare Presto #1 into shape, and our plan worked (with the added ingenuity of the Alex Steyermark Masking Tape Fix™). A 78 was made.

Late at night we bade Honus goodbye and staggered down to DC, greeted with open arms by our dear friend Vandaveer and his beautiful family.  They fed us and wined us and when we brought in the Presto, their two-year old knew exactly what needed to be done.  He walked straight to the mic and sang “The ABC Song.”  Like father like son.

 

The 78 Project and the Open Road…

Our journey to make The 78 Project Feature-length documentary film starts today.  This morning the Presto will be packed in snugly with a stash of blank discs and new needles, our Canons with a cache of memory cards and lenses.  There will be no room left for anything else, so we might need to borrow your socks.

We are headed to Philadelphia, PA, Washington, DC, Durham, NC, Nashville and Memphis, TN, and points in between.  This leg of the journey goes until early September, but we’ll be traveling for the film shoots for the rest of 2012, so we’ll be visiting many, many more places.

There will be photos every day, we promise.  They’ll go straight to our Facebook, so “like” us there to see ’em!  Also follow us on Twitter for daily news.  If you’re on our Email list, we’ll catch you up each week on events and stories, and send you sounds and clips that we’ve captured.  If you’re not signed up for our list yet, enter your email in the field on our homepage sidebar.

We’ve never been so excited as we are at this moment, preparing to meet new people, hear new songs, visit hometowns and hometown haunts and seek out music where it lives. We’re grateful to have you along for this adventure!

Thank you to our amazing new friends at Stumptown Coffee Roasters for fueling our mornings on the road!

 

Marshall Crenshaw “More Pretty Girls Than One” Live at City Winery

Beneath the hot stage lights at City Winery the Presto (and its operator!) sweated, but Marshall Crenshaw was totally cool.  He avoided hypnosis and kept everyone at ease by telling stories.  And when the Presto was running he performed with mesmerizing intensity and delightful serenity.

We posted Marshall’s digitized acetates, “More Pretty Girls Than One” and his original Flipside “Passing Through” just after he recorded them at our live music revue in May.  If you haven’t heard them yet, listen now.   Marshall’s performances that evening were magical.

Buy the music on iTunes.

Episode #10 of The 78 Project: Valerie June “Happy or Lonesome”

Where ya headed?  We meet like fellow passengers at the end of a nearly abandoned train car in Brooklyn.  But the train doesn’t budge, because we’re not there to travel, not really.  It’s dark inside, and we light candles, it’s chilly outside so we bundle up.  It’s silent at first, without the chugging of the engine and the tripping of the steel wheels over hundreds of miles of track, so we fill the space with music.

She’s a New Yorker now, but Valerie June brought her Memphis along in her reedy, bouyant voice.  And as she sings the sweet longing for a long-distance love in “Happy or Lonesome,” we almost expect her hometown to answer.  But it’s the Presto that does, in the end, with a satisfying click.

This train’s not leaving the station, but it doesn’t need to.  So what if we’re rooted in place, we’ll still get carried away.

Thank you so, so much to Pete’s Candy Store for giving us such a warm Brooklyn welcome, and for mixing our 78 Sours so strong!

The Fiery and Snuffy: Hear Loudon Wainwright’s 78

Even though he claimed to know little about ranching and cowboy ways, Loudon Wainwright handled the vocabulary with ease as he rambled through “Old Paint.”  What are the fiery and the snuffy? we wanted to know.  Branding equipment, we learned.  He told us an old paint is a speckled pony, and, of course, dogies are cattle.  But some of the song’s other words, so familiar to the cowhand are mysteries to us, and Loudon wouldn’t dare to speculate.

“Old Paint” was a song taught to Loudon by someone very dear, a song that has taken on a new life in the different ways he has played it and recorded it.  This time when he played it, we heard a song about the beauty in each day of work and having lived a life devoted to your chosen trade.  We placed the player on the long wooden table, and set the needle in the groove, and the acetate’s crackle was a campfire suddenly warming the chilly room, and it was the voice of a lone cowboy we heard.

Buy it on iTunes.

For his flipside, Loudon chose a song with a very different story of westward migration.  “I Don’t Care” is a signature Loudon Wainwright song, a jauntily irreverent goodbye to a former love headed across the country made compelling by the masterful dance between words and guitar.

 

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