Pete's Bluegrass Weblog - or Blog

Some thoughts from friend and Maine resident David Sanderson on independent CD recording:

RLJ wrote:
>Simply stated, when artists record music that is not
>worth listening to, 99 percent of the time this happened
>because the artists were not willing to pay for a
>Producer, and they were not willing to pay for
>Edit/Mix Time.
----------------------------------------------------
No doubt others will add their comments, but I can't resist a few.

First of all, we see fine live recordings released all the time. This takes some effort above and beyond the sound system for the performance; but it is certainly a viable way of creating salable music.

Studio recording was never as simple as RLJ's comments imply. Even with acoustic recordings, there was attention to mixing and the other facets of producing a listenable result. With large bands this required some very sophisticated production, the techniques of which are largely lost today. In the case of early Bluegrass and country recordings, the performers were proficient in a performance technique that allowed them to use a single microphone to mix their performance dynamically, whether
live or in a studio. Today we see some Bluegrass musicians returning to this single-mike format for performances, because the result is superior.

The plain fact is that most of what the high-powered engineers and recording companies release is homogenized dreck. This is absolutely intentional, since they tailor it to the imagined market, and work to make sure that every recording sounds the same. Go listen to a country music station for hours of examples. What's worse is that with current technology the engineers are in charge. It's all done in pieces, individual performances recorded in isolation and then mixed to suit the record company - no two performers on the same record are ever allowed
to meet face to face, it seems.

The industry moves ever closer to monopoly. There are only three or four companies that control virtually the entire recording industry, and they're interested in creating products that make money, nothing else. Nothing new - Robert mentions Elvis Presley, and one need only go listen
to Presley's Sun recordings, then the early RCA tracks produced by Chet Atkins, to hear what a major company did to Elvis. For another example, consider how the industry reacted to the vaguely old-timey sound track
from "O Brother"; shunned it like the plague, then didn't know what to do when people bought it anyway.

DJ's - radio stations - are paid by the record companies to play their records. It's not that blatant, but that's what it amounts to. And a similar monopoly, all pre-programmed, half a dozen stations in several locations fed from one source, pretending to be local. A joke.

Having said that, it's worth getting production and mixing help if you're recording; but it's not going to make the difference between a recording that sells and one that doesn't, because unless you sign on with Big Brother you'll never sell much anyway. And bear in mind that there is now an increasing separation between making music and
processing the result into a recording. There is no particular reason to trust an engineer or producer more than you trust your own judgement, assuming you have some experience and a sense of what you want to accomplish.

Other opinions cheerfully accepted....
--
David Sanderson
East Waterford, Maine
http://www.megalink.net/~davids

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We had a visit from Father Stacy of St. Mark's In The Valley Church today. We're hoping to work out a bluegrass style service at the church, located in Los Olivos, CA, for February 23rd. We listened to several examples of religious music, from the old Sacred Harp style of solfegio singing, to the hard-shell Baptist style of "lining out" hymns, to Holy Roller or Pentacostal style music using guitars and other instruments, on into more modren bluegrass style gospel songs. Stay tuned for further information as this scheme develops.

Happy Groundhog Day! I believe I first heard the song from Frank Proffitt, when he traveled from North Carolina to Chicago and gave a performance at the Old Town School of Folk Music, back in 1961. He sang the song with special authority, since it was performed on one of his fretless banjos, using a groundhog hide for the head. He confided to me that he felt cat skin was even better, but that his wife wouldn't let me use it. Here's a photo of a Frank Proffitt banjar, made about 1966, showing the grounghog hide head, the curley maple rim, and the dowells Frank used to glue it all together. The coin is a nickle, for size refrence.

Some excerpts of a discussion on reissue records of old time music, and a possible difference in perception of the music by people from different geographic areas:

On 5 Jan 2003 10:37:21 -0800, j_nscott@msn.com (Joseph Scott) wrote:

>Hi Peter,
>Regarding having an interest in earlier music, there'd be >intellectual research interest on the one hand, and then >there'd be lots of people, e.g. in the rural South, who >were still interested (not necessarily intellectually) in >earlier music largely because they hadn't been exposed >much to new commercial pop music.

Hi Scott. Happy New Year! Yes, that was what I was trying to get at. We are painting with a broad brush here, but let's say the interest in the urban North was more intellectual, while in the rural South we have more of a "gut-level" approach. Speaking as a "ferriner", I can say that the appeal of say Carter Family music to me occured at several different levels - often simultaneously. While some of their songs seemd, shall we say "quaint" on first hearing (eg., "Heaven's Radio"), their records had a certain presence, instilled a certain feeling, that was completely missing form the pop 78s I was hearing at the same time (early 1950s). The more I heard them, the better I liked them and the more respect I gave to AP, Sara, and Maybelle.

JLS:
>My understanding is that when albums of 78s came in, >they were bought by wealthier people, relative to >individual 78s, in general.

Peter:
Well, they certainly were more expensive. After all, there were more of them! :-)
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Montgomery Ward and Bluebird were cheapo 78s, made during the depression, for the country audiences. They were sold via mail order, usually at ca. 35 cents each. (The big name 78s sold for about $1.25, by comparison). But I wouldn't call these "reissues" in the same sense that say "Smokey Mountain Ballads" were, issued by Victor in the late 1940s. And it was intended for the city audience. I keep coming back to that record set because it was some of the first real old time music I ever heard, thanks to a record collector friend I met at the U of Chicago in 1961. What a fantastic set that was! "East Virginia Blues" by the Carters. "Ridin' On The Train 45" by Wade Mainer. "Cumberland Mountain Deer Chase" by Uncle Dave Macon. "Darlin' Cory" by the Monroe Bros., etc. --- It doesn't get much better than that!

This collector made a tape for me to take back to California when I left Chicago. I bought a reel to reel recorder (about $350 at the time!), just so's I could listen to that music again. Later, in 1966 or so, when Dave Freeman issued his first Charlie Poole reissue Lp, he was very surprised to find that the bigest group of buyers was old rural fans of Charile Poole himself! of course, he sold Lps in NYC, LA, etc. but those southern fans still remembered the NC Ramblers! That was a revelation, both to Dave and myself. How wonderful, in my opinion.
__Peter

This evening, I drove up to "Arroyo Not So Grande", as Gilles calls it, to participate in a videotaping of a French TV special on Gilles Apap, our resident violin virtuoso. There was a crew of four filmmakers, headed up by director "Max", and a nice room at a local bar / restaurant, complete with a stagecoach western scene background.

Musicians there for the taping, along with Gilles, included violin maker James Wimmer, and the old time group from Arroyo Grande, ":The Growling Old Geezers".

The musicians face the director: Jim Wimmer, Gilles, JT put it on the line for director Max, from French television.

Stu Heimintoller was also there, a fine guitar player and a re-convert to old time music from the Irish / Celtic sound. Stu, Tom Woolverton, and Jim Wimmer now play in a string trio called "The Rattlesnake Creek String Band". We'll have more on them later.

Jim W., Amber (bass), Jim M., Stu and Gilles recording for French TV.