The New Lost Times

Funding sought for NLCR film

       

According to The Bluegrass Blog, Suzy Rothfield Thompson has been working on a documentary film about the New Lost City Ramblers (NLCR) for the past year. She is seeking additional funding to enable completion of the film. Please see TBB's entry and pony up!

             

who owns the New Lost City Ramblers domains?

 

Who "owns" the web domains NewLostCityRamblers.com and NewLostCityRamblers.org?

The Celestial Monochord has the answer, with a lengthy explanation for how the situation came to be.

 

Eric Bibb and the NLCR

Eclectic bluesman Eric Bibb grew up listening to The New Lost City Ramblers, according to an article in the Monterey County Weekly.

Obsessed with music as a teenager, Bibb would feign illness to stay home from school so he could listen to records by folk greats like The New Lost City Ramblers, Josh White, and Joan Baez ... In the early 1970s, he headed to Paris, where he woodshedded to develop his blues chops. Later he moved to Sweden, becoming a key participant in Stockholm’s vibrant music scene, while continuing his ardent study of Delta blues and other pre-war styles.

Check out his touring schedule. Hopefully, he'll drop by Minneapolis when he's in nearby Mankato in September.

 

Frank Cloutier and Victoria Cafe Orchestra

The Celestial Monochord has posted what seems to be the first substantive information ever uncovered about Frank Cloutier and The Victoria Cafe Orchestra.

Cloutier's "Moonshiner's Dance" was included on the 1952 Folkways Anthology of American Folk Music, which John Cohen credits as a huge influence on The New Lost City Ramblers.

Cohen, in fact, got to know the Anthology's editor, Harry Smith, photographing and formally interviewing him. Cohen also tried to get the "lost" fourth volume of the Anthology finally released, but was unsuccessful. Mike Seeger, of course, went out and located the Anthology's Dock Boggs in the early 1960's.

 

Stairwell Sisters & NLCR in Berkeley

The Stairwell Sisters will open for the New Lost City Ramblers on September 15 at the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention.

I mentioned the Sisters back in April because their banjoist/clogger, Evie Ladin, traces her interest in old time music back to her father, who fell in love with it through the New Lost City Ramblers. I imagine Evie is probably looking forward to this gig. I know I am.

 

The Stairwell Sisters and the NLCR

The Stairwell Sisters are a high-octane, old-time-ish band featuring lots of harmonies and clogging, folksongs and originals, fiddles and banjos. The band's website quotes the Oakland Journal calling their work "wild, hard dance music."

Of Evie Ladin, the act's banjoist and clogger, the Lansing State Journal recently wrote:

She's accustomed to the fact that old-time music covers a broad range. "My father fell in love with it back when he heard the New Lost City Ramblers," Ladin said. "He never played it, never danced it, but he loved the music." He married a step-dance teacher and spent his non-economist time with the music.

Read full Lansing article, or visit The Stairwell Sisters website.

 

NLCR concerts in 2006

According to Tracy Schwarz's website, the New Lost City Ramblers are performing together three times in 2006. I'm not certain if this is unusually frequent -- my impression is that it is.

Hey John, you wanna meet up for any of these?

July 15-16, 2006
Vancouver Folk Festival

September 14-17, 2006
Berkeley (California) Old-Time Music Convention
Phone: 510-848-5018
email concert@berkeleyoldtimemusic.org

November 18, 2006
Town Hall, NYC, NY
Friends of Old-time Music Festival

 

He's Coming to Us Dead -- Norman Blake & NLCR

Norman and Nancy Blake have released a new album, "Back Home in Sulphur Springs".  It contains what might be thought of as an "anti-war" song that was also recorded by the New Lost City Ramblers (available here and here).

From a full story in the Santa Fe New Mexican:

The credits on this album say the song is "traditional." However, many people credit "He's Coming to Us Dead" to G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, "first wave" country stars who recorded it in the late '20s.

"He's Coming to Us Dead" is making a "comeback" of sorts. The 1966 version by folkie faves The New Lost City Ramblers appears on the recently released Classic Railroad Songs on the Smithsonian Folkways label. The liner notes for that CD say the song originally was published in 1899 by Gussie Davis, a black songwriter who also is credited for "Goodnight Irene."

What's remarkable about the song is that there are no words about patriotism, heroism, or duty to your country -- just death and grief and broken hearts.

 

Crooked Jades compared to NLCR

From the Knox County Village Soup:

The Crooked Jades play material ranging from soulful old-time ballads and rocking string-band dance music to beautiful traditionally inspired original compositions. Staying true to the spirit of old-time and respecting its tradition, The Crooked Jades creative arrangements, high-lonesome bluegrass harmonies, and expanded instrumentation add the element of the unexpected and make the music their own.

Innovative pickers with equal parts attitude and respect, The Crooked Jades have critics comparing them to everyone from the New Lost City Ramblers and The Pogues to Gillian Welch and The Handsome Family.

Crooked Jades