>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Silence ]
>> All right.
Welcome, gentleman.
My name is Todd Harvey,
I'm a curator at the American Folk Life Center
at the Library of Congress.
I want to thank you for joining us this afternoon
after your concert, after your lunch.
You're all refreshed.
I'd first like to introduce John Cohen and the Down Hill Strugglers
so that we in the future know who everyone is.
This is, from left to right, Eli Smith; John Cohen in the jacket;
Jackson Lynch in the white shirt; and Walker Shephard on the end.
These are the Down Hill Strugglers.
Today September 25, 2015.
And we're here in the Coolidge Auditorium
in the lovely Jefferson building.
I want to thank you for the concert.
I want to thank you for agreeing to move your concert to today
to accommodate the Pope's visit.
John, I understand the Holy Father himself reached out to you
to ask you if you would change the date of your concert.
He's a big [inaudible] fan, I know that.
>> He's from Latin America.
>> They didn't want members of Congress to have to make a choice,
and so we graciously moved aside.
And what an amazing concert you all gave today.
>> Thank you.
>> I just wonder how you found the acoustics in the room today, Eli?
>> Yeah. Well, thank you.
It was a really fun concert.
And the Coolidge Auditorium has amazing acoustics.
It's one of the best places I've ever played I think.
>> What about you, Jackson?
You've got a loud kind of fiddle style,
and I wonder if you could hear yourself.
>> Oh, yeah.
I wish I could play in here with nobody else in here.
It sounded really good.
>> Yeah, sorry about that, man.
>> Sorry, we exist, yeah.
>> But you're talking about the audience,
with the audience being gone?
>> Oh, I just mean I could sit in here for hours
and just play by myself, you know.
>> What does it compare to in different halls?
Well, can you think of any halls that it compares to?
>> It kind of sounds like a dance hall, a big dance hall
where the room sound travels really well and everyone can hear it like,
in the back the same as in the front.
>> We've played in some old halls touring.
>> And I guess it does in a way, it reminds me of that a little bit.
I remember that opera house in Upstate New York a few years ago.
>> Yeah. It just has a big sound like that.
>> Didn't we play in a GA [inaudible]
in Southern Illinois or Ohio?
>> Yeah, that was in Ohio.
It was something like that, although this place is much more finely tuned
than that.
>> Don't really need a microphone to play in this room.
>> No, I didn't think so.
Yeah, I think you could have done just fine without it.
>> No, but there's something about the sound that makes that everything
that you do very present.
And I was interested that when we played before the sound test,
I thought the sound would get deadened when the audience came.
But the audience came and the sound didn't get deadened.
Maybe the audience got deadened.
[ Laughter ]
>> Do you often do daytime concerts?
>> Yeah. When we can wake up in time.
[ Laughter ]
>> Yeah, what do you mean by daytime?
>> Well, it was a noontime concert.
>> In the crack of noon we play.
Man.
[ Laughter ]
>> How was the Millennium Stage last night, how was your gig there?
>> It was great.
>> It was really good.
>> Yeah?
>> Yeah.
>> Great fun.
Yeah.
>> Strange auditorium and there was no back wall.
>> Yeah.
>> It just goes.
>> There were all of the people waiting
and drinking cocktails before going to see Carmen at the opera.
And I think they were pretty confused about what we were doing.
>> You know, they got a little taste of opry.
>> Yeah.
>> We gave them some opry before the opera.
>> Right. Different sound.
I mean, you really do need kind
of reinforcement I think in that [inaudible].
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. But the sound was great there too.
>> Was your setlist today the same as what you played last week?
>> It overlapped.
It certainly overlapped.
>> But there's several things that we had never done before,
or never done them that way.
>> Well, I can go through the set real quickly,
because I have some questions to fill in the blank spots.
I really love it that you all talk about the songs and introduce them,
and give some background, which really works for us here
at the Library of Congress.
>> That's a big point of the show, is to give a context to do that.
And my idea of the show was to create a space for that.
>> You mean the roadshow?
>> Yeah, the roadshow.
The Treasures from the Archive Roadshow.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, that's kind of a New Lost City Ramblers things too
as well, isn't it?
>> I think so.
Do you think so?
To some extent.
>> We had to do it to cover Tom's tuning.
>> Cold Aristocracy, where did y'all learn that one?
>> Partly from the New Lost City Ramblers.
Well, that's the first time I heard it.
And then partly from where you guys learned it.
>> Gantt Family.
>> Yeah, the Gantt Family.
>> No, no.
>> Charles Sieger [assumed spelling].
>> Yeah, what is the name of the family that recorded --
it's embarrassingly escaping me at this moment.
But yeah, I first heard it from the New Lost City Ramblers recording.
And then subsequently heard the original field recording
that Charles Sieger made.
>> Yeah.
>> And I think on the last record, the Ramblers that we did,
two or three or versions of it.
Our early version with Tom, and then later
with Tracy, and then the original.
And they're all not the same.
But the strange thing about it is that at some point, it left Ramblers
and became part of Contra dance movement.
And so it's played everywhere at Contra dances.
And it's probably different from the one we play it now.
>> Taj Mahal plays it on the banjo on one of his records.
It's real nice.
>> He has a nice version.
Yeah.
>> Just solo banjo piece.
>> Why did you choose it to open the set?
>> Oh, I thought because this is where it came from.
It's not the irony, the fact
that bringing it back to where we got it from.
>> Yeah.
>> Although, you guys never issued it.
>> No, you issued it.
>> Yeah.
>> It came from you.
>> Yeah, but how did we get it?
We got it because Mike had it in his family.
So it's all very -- what's the word --
not introverted, intro -- incestuous, that's it.
>> Incestuous.
[ Laughter ]
>> Yeah, Mike got a bootlegged version of it and away we go, right?
>> Right.
>> I thought it was nice to open with that in a sense
because of the connection with the Ramblers also.
>> Yeah. And it's just a great blastoff, you know.
It's such a great turn.
>> That's a tremendous tune.
When you hear the old field recording,
you can't really hear what's going on.
The recording is not clear, but it's very powerful.
With a lot of old field recordings, the recording is very powerful,
but it's not clear, you can't hear everything that's going on,
so you have to make some choices if you're going to play it live or now,
what are you going to do?
And that accounts in some ways for the variations
that the New Lost City Ramblers made or that we made.
We tried to record it a few years ago and it's on one of our CDs.
And we tried to somehow get at the sound
of the original field recording.
You know, and you start doing some weird stuff sometimes to get
at the sound, but maybe they were doing weird stuff.
>> Well, when the Ramblers did it, we'd go to the relative minor,
a certain huge amount, or too much.
And that's what got picked up in the Contra dance movement.
So then I just got the mandolin and just -- don't change chords,
just stay on the one chords.
And it adds a lot of tension.
>> Yeah, without going into the [inaudible].
>> The fiddle is going into the minor.
>> Yeah.
>> But the accompaniment is not.
>> So what's it like when --
I assume you guys are playing by yourselves.
And then you have to make room for the guy who just wants
to play one chord on the mandolin over and over again.
How do you do that?
In rehearsal, do you work it out or you just make it happen on stage,
or how do you make room for John Cohen?
>> They don't listen.
That's the best way.
>> Yeah. I mean, a lot of people maybe people think
that old-time string bands don't rehearse or something, but we do.
I mean, we make arrangements of our songs.
I think all old-time string bands did.
I mean, of course there's spontaneity or maybe you just arrive
at a gig without having rehearsed and just go for it.
Obviously that happens.
But it's important to remember that there is like, arrangements going
on and conscious choices.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, I think in a lot of ways, the guitar part carries that tune.
Maybe I'm hearing the field recording,
but I was really listening -- you were playing guitar.
Yeah.
>> I don't think you can hear the guitar
on the original field recording, if there is one.
>> Yeah, I don't know if there is one.
>> Do you recall?
>> I think there's a mandolin that carries it.
>> Yeah, you can maybe hear something like a mandolin.
It's pretty obscure.
>> OK.
>> But it's nice with guitar.
No, but the guitar adds so much, so it's interesting.
>> Yeah.
>> So Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep, Don't You Moan;
where did you get that one?
>> I've heard different versions of it.
>> The version that we do, there's numbers of versions of it
in your collection, including some nice ones
from Newport Folk Festival.
But our version actually is a version of a version
that we got off a 78 somewhere I think, right?
>> Yeah, the Georgia Yellow Hammers do it, right?
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Yeah, a band from Georgia called the Yellow Hammers.
And they did like, a lot of like,
string band arrangements of old songs.
They seem like less of a dance band, they don't really play dance tunes
as much, but they do kind
of old minstrel songs really, and just have --
>> Interracial band.
>> Yeah, they pull music from --
>> Were they an interracial band?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, they played with a duo called the Baxter Brothers,
who was an older man playing the fiddle
and his nephew; Andrew and Jim Baxter.
And they were Black.
And they recorded a dance tune with the Yellow Hammers,
though it just says the Georgia Yellow Hammers
because the recording industry didn't like integration.
But you can hear that integrated sound in a lot
of the Yellow Hammers' music.
And I'm drawn to that a lot.
And we like to do that kind of stuff.
>> And for me, it's fascinating
because Lead Belly recorded it as well.
And I think when I first heard folk songs, which would be 1948,
at Woodstock, New York, and this guy Rod Hill sang Oh, Mary,
Don't You Weep as part of the group singing thing.
And then you'd hear it sung at summer camps.
I was going to ask the audience, how many of you folks heard this
at a singalong at a campfire with marshmallows?
[ Laughter ]
>> I don't know where that video comes --
there's a really early video from maybe the 20s or 30s of like,
some guys, like five people sitting out in the field.
Do you know the one I'm talking about?
One guy is just playing tenor banjo, and they all sing.
>> It may be a [inaudible] short
that they would have played before a feature in the 20s.
>> Yeah.
>> [Inaudible] released a collection
that has some incredible footage including this band that's like,
a real string band.
>> They sang the song?
>> Yeah, and it was great.
That's the first time I think I heard an old recording of that song.
Saw it on YouTube.
>> Saw it on YouTube.
How about Justice Begley [assumed spelling]?
That was nice pulling that out from 1937 Kentucky.
>> Yeah. I love that recording.
I kind of came up with my own version based on that recording.
And the lyrics to that song have always intrigued me.
So I just kind of wanted to make it my own.
>> Can you talk about how you do that,
how would you make it your own?
What's different about yours and his?
>> I guess because he does a picking style on that recording,
and I changed it just to claw hammer.
So that's one way that I arrive at new versions sometimes,
is just translating a different style
of picking or something to a song.
And then it just becomes totally different from the original version.
>> I remember I once pursued Alan Lomax.
I mean, I didn't I run after him.
But he had all of these wonderful recordings
from Kentucky '37 and '39 maybe.
I said, "But I don't know anything more about the musicians.
You never interviewed them, you didn't write about them."
He says, "Because I was under pressure from the Library
of Congress to make more, they wanted more and more recordings.
So I didn't have time to."
Which is fascinating because some of those recordings,
the ones that stimulate us the most, have some of the most active,
lively stuff from Kentucky.
And the bureaucratic decisions that had the pressure
on the Alan not to spend more time.
So we don't know anything more about Justice Begley.
So how do you know that he was a sheriff?
>> You told me.
>> Oh, OK.
[ Laughter ]
>> I must have read it in the notes.
>> Oh, there's a great picture of him where he's --
>> There's some information about him, but yeah, it's not a lot.
>> We have a folder on him.
You're welcome to check it out.
And I'll say with this,
the '37 Kentucky stuff is about to go up online.
We're working with Berea College and University
of Kentucky to put it all up.
And so pretty soon you'll be able to stream all of your Justice Begley.
>> Are you trying to put us out of business?
[ Laughter ]
>> So a little clear rock.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Nice.
>> Thank you.
>> Sugarland.
I think he was at Sugarland.
>> Right. Yeah.
He says it, I think, at the beginning.
>> Do you know where you got a hold of that recording?
>> It was --
>> Don't say document records.
>> I don't know if it was.
[Inaudible] like the Black Texicans thing.
>> Yeah.
>> So it was the Rounders.
>> Yeah, Rounders.
Yeah, the Black Texican compilation.
>> Did Alan ever sing that song?
I've got a hunch he did.
>> Alan Lomax?
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know.
>> Every once in while he'd try to sing from the Texas sessions.
It was both really exciting and kind of scary.
[ Laughter ]
>> Yeah, I love those songs.
I think he also recorded that I heard, what song was it?
Oh, yeah. He also recorded Barbara Allen,
which I thought was really interesting.
Right? I think he does it.
Yeah. He recorded a version of Barbara Allen,
which I thought was really interesting.
I don't know.
>> Yeah. I guess between he and Ironhead Baker,
there was a big repertoire there
that the Lomaxes recorded again and again.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm interested in this Stone's Rag.
>> Stones Rag.
>> That was a new one for me.
>> Right.
>> Where did that one come from?
>> That's another one off an old commercial 78,
but it got into the library through the Ramblers, as far as I know.
Who did that?
Do you recall?
Where did we get that?
>> Paul Womack and his string band.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't think they recorded very much, maybe only one record.
>> Where would you have got that, John?
Where did the Ramblers get that?
You would have heard it from a collector or something?
>> Yeah, we collected from collectors.
But I remember when the Ramblers did it, it was a big show tune
because Mike was playing harmonica and autoharp at the same time,
and they were all driving it very hard.
Because we had used it to break up the monotony of our set.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, I mean, you all did that to an extent in the instrument swap,
which could be a comedy routine, as I'm sure it is sometimes.
>> Yeah.
>> But that also seemed to be a hallmark of the Ramblers,
the changing instruments.
Is that something you've always done?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. We all play a few instruments
and we all play them a little bit differently.
Or you might come in to our rehearsal or band practice
with an arrangement in mind and you want to play instrument,
which forces somebody else to play a different instrument or something.
However it shakes out, end up switching instruments.
>> I've been fascinated with the idea
of each chair has an instrument,
then we have to move around chair to chair.
[ Laughter ]
>> Yeah, I would do that.
>> John, where did you [inaudible] that?
Was that just a function of your own musicianship
or is that a string band tradition as well?
>> No, I think because essentially, in a way,
these guys have been more themselves the Ramblers.
They're like a library.
So we couldn't separate the song from the sound that we heard.
And so to make it come into existence,
it was like you had to get to the sound.
It wasn't just another tune, it was this instrument with that quality.
The same group of us, if we do a Charlie Poole song,
we all change our style a little bit, and it fits together.
But those guys in the old days on the old record,
they didn't switch styles like this.
>> I think also part of us does do that, though.
Because we'll take, yeah, and old song that is from a record
and sounds a certain way,
and sometimes we'll just play it a little more like we play.
I think there's both.
>> Well, I've been a bad influence on you guys.
>> Right.
>> Well, even before you were here, you know, they just played tunes
and they sounded like -- what did we call them?
The Dustbusters.
>> Right.
>> It sounded like the Dustbusters.
And then I came along, now they sound like the Down Hill Strugglers.
>> Well, on the other hand, the New Lost City Ramblers always sounded
like the New Lost City Ramblers, despite --
>> That's not an insult.
[ Laughter ]
>> Well, just for the record, whose instrument was whose?
I'm trying to figure out.
I couldn't figure it out.
You know, obviously you're playing your fiddle, I get that.
That was probably your little -- was it a [inaudible] or something?
>> A lot of the instruments are mine, the guitar and the banjo,
and the mandolin, and the banjo ukulele were mine.
>> If he left the band, we'd be in serious trouble.
[ Laughter ]
>> Or you could just leave instruments
in different cities and --
>> That would be nice.
>> -- you wouldn't have to travel.
>> Like Chuck Berry.
>> Then we could hitch.
>> Buffalo Skinners, that's a pretty straightforward one.
I want to talk about Rolling Mills a little bit.
And you suggested, John, when you made the field,
this is a John Cohen field recording, right?
You learned from it.
And I think you said that you hadn't heard any other recording
of that particular song.
>> Right. And until I had been singing it, most people said
that they never heard any other versions of it.
At lunch just now, we were talking about other songs that have mention
of Rolling Mills, but none of them had that strange story.
Actually, somebody after the show asked me about was
that a metaphor, or how does that fit?
How does the Rolling Mills fit into this guy wanting to blow his brains
and his girlfriend is pregnant and all of that?
He sings about it, you know, "Put a bullet through my head,"
and all of that kind of stuff.
And then he sings, "The rolling mills are burning down,
and they'll never bring them back anymore."
So it's some really strange, beautiful, poetic correspondence.
But I really like the fact that you can't pin it down.
It's so good that you can't pin it down.
It's better that way.
>> Yeah.
>> The tuning?
What was the tuning?
>> You take a regular old D tuning, you run this --
>> You tuned it, didn't you?
>> Yeah.
>> Well, I can do it, but I can't remember the names.
>> Well, I can just say quickly, yeah, that the tuning
for Rolling Mills is the F sharp DEAD tuning.
F Sharp, D-E-A-D from fifth down to first.
As John was saying, it's like a D tuning
but with a third string at E instead of F sharp.
OK, that's all I've got to say.
>> Is it the third string or the second string that you run down?
>> It's the third string, I think.
>> Whatever it is, you get a bass note which you wouldn't otherwise.
And you can also do a hammer on.
You hit that open string and you can strike down on it so you get more --
I used to think that these guys like George Landers' banjo tunings
and his tunes were some
of the strangest little turns and twists in them.
But the more I live with that and listen to the way he sings them,
he's describing what he's singing.
He's describing all of the turns and twists in his voice.
If you listen to his Cumberland Gap, he plays it three
or four different ways, and it makes sense.
It's not like -- you know what I'm talking about?
It's like he takes the idea that's within the song or within his voice,
and makes it come out on the banjo.
It's a sound thing.
>> Yeah. Now, have any of you learned that song from John
and can play it yourselves?
>> Yeah.
>> Oh, I can't.
>> I never heard that.
>> I can.
>> That would be cool if we could all play it.
>> Or just have it just play simultaneously [inaudible] turned
away from each other.
[ Laughter ]
>> Leather Britches.
Nice quip on that one.
[ Laughter ]
Let's move on.
>> Right.
>> Moonshiner.
Yeah, that's Daw Henson, right?
You're saying that really low in your register.
Have you always done it that way?
It's really low.
>> I think back in the day when I first was attracted to it.
You know, I'm surrounded by Mike and Tom and Tracy,
and they all have high voices.
And Roscoe has a higher voice.
[Inaudible], hey, a low voice.
>> Daw Henson.
>> And I have a low voice.
But I haven't don't it for so many years, and so I was very nervous.
These guys were telling me it sounded good,
so I might do it again.
But it's even hard to remember how I tuned it back then
or how -- it's retuning.
And it's got an incessant, insistent beat.
It close to Daw Henson's, but I can see where I don't do what he did.
I found some other thing to do with it.
But it's totally in respect to what he did,
which is like I can say I can't do what he did, but I can try.
I said try.
>> Similar to what you were saying about George Landers,
how his vocalization and everything reflected the song,
I felt like that was your performance of Moonshiner,
it was right for -- I've never heard it like that.
It was right for the song.
I thought it was great.
>> I mean, years ago, I think I said it on the stage
that Bob Dylan had told me how much he liked my version of it.
And I didn't remember that I recorded it.
Which means that in '62 when Bob came to New York,
and that's when I recorded it,
that he must have heard our records from back then.
>> Yeah. What about this fiddle tune you got from Clay Walters?
Was that the Riding Cowboy or something?
>> Yeah.
>> Is that the right name?
>> Yeah. Well, that's the name.
I know it's an accurate name.
>> OK. Because I couldn't quite remember if it was Walters
or Williams, or Watson, or something like that.
I think it's Walters.
But yeah, he sings just on the company, and it's a beautiful,
I mean, it's kind of a cowboy song really, it's more just kind
of a being away from home song, but you know, with the cowboy all in it.
And then Frank Jenkins, who was a great banjo player and fiddler,
there's a record of him fiddling that and singing.
But Clay Walters has some different words
that Frank Jenkins doesn't, so I sing it like him.
>> Nice.
>> And some of those words enter
into Roscoe Hawkins' [assumed spelling] song,
Cross the Rocky Mountain.
"I'll never get my mother's looks.
God bless her sweetly smile.
And even across the Rocky Mountains, I walk from mile to mile."
>> Right.
>> So I'm getting a hunch that Roscoe,
who said he wrote his version of it, really picked it up from one
of these [inaudible] versions.
>> Right.
>> It came from a ballad or something that he heard.
>> Yeah.
>> That's not surprising.
You ever dig into the Luther Strong recordings
from Kentucky as well and [inaudible]?
There's some amazing fiddle music.
I'm interested to hear the ones
that are being released are Nathan Salsburg's Speed Corrected.
So I think for the first time, I'm going to hear some of those
in a different way because the electricity was bad
[inaudible] recording.
Maybe we'll learn whole new things about [inaudible] or something.
>> Wow
>> I mean, I just remember this.
My brain retains things in a strange way.
Because when I in Kentucky in 1959 and recording people there,
I didn't know who was coming next.
And there was this old guy, James Crase who played the fiddle.
And he played some pretty interesting,
weird tunings and odd timing.
Certainly in the back of my head, the name Luther Strong came up,
and I had no idea why, because I didn't look that carefully
at record labels back then.
So I said to him, "Did you ever hear of a Luther Strong?"
"Oh, we played a lot of fiddle contests, me and Luther."
Suddenly it was connected.
And I didn't know how my brain could remember this guy playing a sound
and my brain connected it to the Library of Congress record.
I don't know, to me, it's a wonder.
>> The Battle on the Horseshoe.
You played banjo.
That was nice.
You talked a lot about where you got it.
You gave a plug to Sidney Robertson and that was nice.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Because I think that may have been the trip
where she was driving for John A. Lomax.
>> She was?
>> On one of those trips, she was his driver.
And two different people never sat in a car for that long.
So that would have been interesting.
>> Should have made field recordings of that.
>> I almost interrupted, but I thought the thread
of your thought was much more interesting.
But she married Henry Cowell, who among other things, was the editor
of the International Folk -- material on folkways.
But he's also a student of Charlie Sieger's back
in Berkeley back in 1910.
And he also became John Cage's teacher
because he explored banging on the piano.
So you have experimental music and you have all of these things kind
of flowing together rather than being in separate categories.
I love that fact, you know, how these things overlap.
>> No, we shouldn't overlook that.
And I mean, if one were to describe your career, John,
I would say here's a man who takes different disciplines
and different aspects of disciplines and somehow makes them one,
makes them -- you're a disruptive force for positive change
in the world through your art.
>> Yeah, but I'm surrounded by three other guys who are that way,
they just haven't let it come out as much yet.
>> No, I know Eli, and I know he's the same.
Oh, let's see.
Wait, he puts on a folk festival, he works for the record label.
>> True.
>> He performs, he produces records.
I'm going to guess that you guys are similarly diverse in your approach.
And why is this?
What are you doing all of this different stuff for?
Are you high?
>> Yeah. Good question.
For the money.
[ Laughter ]
>> Yeah. No, I've always just wanted to try to create change
in the culture of New York City.
I always wanted to -- see, the kind of stuff I do, I always wanted
to have a space for that and see
that happening, so I just did it myself.
And I've been working on it for about ten or 15 years at this point.
And during that period, I have seen a change.
When I was growing up, there was not much going
on in the mid to late 90s/early 2000s.
And now there's quite a nice quote,
folk music scene going on in New York.
We have the Brooklyn Folk Festival that I do with the people
at the Jalopy Theatre, the main venue there
in New York there, the Jalopy.
And then I also put on the Washington Square Park Folk Festival
when they expand up to Cambridge and do a Cambridge Folk Festival.
The Jalopy has its own record label that I've kind of taken
over at least at this point, Jalopy Records, and we're putting
out this Library of Congress album that's going to be very nice,
that'll be out in a few months.
Yeah, I mean, I have this band and we go on tour and play.
There's very few touring string bands, even in this day and age.
I mean, there's a lot of string bands that play locally or just play
at home, or people that go to festivals
and have huge just a moment sessions.
But there's very few touring string bands,
and there's very few string bands that focus
on the songs to a large extent.
But the fiddle tunes kind of took over and also got kind
of bastardized in some ways.
So that's part of what I feel that we're trying to do,
is to bring the diversity of the music,
and the songs also, out to people.
Because if you like music like this,
you don't get to see it live really almost ever.
>> Yeah.
>> And people do now have a chance in New York,
and that's thanks to Eli here.
There's a lot of people who play -- I mean, there are a lot more people
that I was ever aware of, there are lot more people
in the country playing great American music nowadays,
or maybe I've just gotten to meet them in the last few years.
But you know, thanks to Eli,
people like them can get work in New York at least.
So he's brought a lot of great musicians to New York also traveling
for these folk festivals.
>> If you play music like we do,
it's possible to know almost everybody in the country
that does more or less what we do, and we know them pretty much.
>> I think so.
>> I hope there are more that we don't, that would be great.
>> I think there are.
>> Well, because all of these people
that we're meeting -- sorry, go ahead.
>> I'm always meeting new people, even now that play.
>> And they're young.
Well, that's the thing.
>> There are people coming up [inaudible].
>> We keep meeting like, 19- and 20-year olds that are really great.
>> Yeah.
>> But there's almost no place to play.
There's no radio play, there's no record companies, there's no --
>> That's kind of good.
>> -- festivals, there's no infrastructure for the music at all.
Maybe that's good.
It's a mixed bag.
>> Well, the festivals is good.
>> But you know, I mean, in a sense, maybe it's good and right
that the music should exist below the radar of anything.
On the other hand, it's nice to have it have some recognition
because without recognition, people put it away or put it down.
>> Well, that's what so great about today and yesterday.
>> Yeah.
>> Us and the Pope, I mean, that's [inaudible].
>> And also to have, you know, musicians want to play for people
and have access to playing at a festival or something like that.
So that's in a big way, that's what I'm doing.
>> And another really interesting really component of this, you know,
Eli can talk about what he does and you can talk about what I do.
But what these guy do, like after --
>> Yeah. Jackson, what are you working on now?
>> Trying to learn a bunch fiddle tunes.
I mean, I'm just playing the music.
I love it.
And then I make a living a little bit repairing instruments
at Jalopy in New York.
So I spend some days in the workshop there.
But yeah, just trying to keep music at the center of my life.
>> Are you planning on any recordings coming out
or anything people can look forward to?
>> Well, it looks like we're going to go spend some time
in New Orleans this winter and hopefully record.
Just the three of us and with some of our friends.
>> New Down Hill Strugglers record will come out eventually.
>> Yeah.
>> And I play in a few other bands in New York, just playing parties
and shows here and there, and all kinds of music, like jug band music
and blues, things like that.
>> But Walker is also a sculptor and a painter.
>> Used to be.
>> What?
>> Used to be.
Well, used to be means might be again.
After we played in Michigan recently,
I kind of did an ethnographic study following these guys
around down the basement of a video parlor, and all of those --
[ Laughter ]
>> -- pinball games and all of the flashing lights.
>> I thought we were just hanging out.
I didn't know you were up to that.
>> No, we hung out further than I could hang out because I'm old.
But they're really experts of hanging out.
We're too busy doing things.
They know how to hang out.
>> We play pool a lot.
>> You play pool.
>> What did you think of Walker's Lost Indian, John,
the performance today of -- that's what it was called?
>> I'll leave for a second.
>> No, no, no.
[ Laughter ]
>> Oh, the one that came from Wade Ward?
>> Yeah.
>> Well, it was beautiful.
It was the only thing that we played here that was soft.
In the whole set, it was the only soft,
elegant music, and I really liked that.
It made me feel guilty about all of the hard stuff we were doing.
And it was a great honor to have him pick up on that recording
that I had made of Wade Ward.
And then there was this subtle remark about the change of titles.
>> I missed that.
Tell me.
>> Good. Well, just miss it.
[ Laughter ]
>> No.
>> Go ahead.
>> I don't know how it all came about, but I was talking
to another great folklorist and just amazing player,
Pat Conti, who lives in New York.
And he really digs deep when it comes to finding out about sources
and just folklore basically from back then.
And he said that tune that John recorded,
which John calls Half Shaved, is actually Lost Indian,
and that there's another banjo tune by the name of Half Shaved --
>> That Wade Ward does.
>> -- that Wade Ward does.
And he played it for me.
I don't know where he heard that, but it's in the same tune.
>> And the only reason I call it Half Shaved is
because that's what Wade called it.
>> Yeah.
>> But Half Shaved is only half the title.
And we tried to say where did you learn it, but that [inaudible].
He learned it from his brother who had learned it
from a guy from West Virginia.
So it's all over the map.
And I think it was Mike and myself who reduced the title
to Half Shaved, and then it took off as that.
And then Pat came and [inaudible] proved us
to be falsifiers or liars [inaudible].
>> Corruptors.
>> Corruptors, yeah.
>> But that's been going on since the beginning, where a tune
or a song gets turned into something else.
It's like the game, Telephone, where you hear something different
and then it changes slightly.
I think that's like the folklore tradition, as well as songwriting.
People sort of overlook that there wasn't songwriting going on.
And fiddle tune writing as well as learning from someone,
people were also creating.
So the tradition is to create new things, in my opinion.
>> And you know, what's intriguing about the tune is the way
that fifth string is tuned down.
>> Right.
>> It puts in a sound, it's a sound
that goes every way, everybody plays it.
Because I think people, we're attracted to it for the sound.
And the title is just stuff you can talk about.
But the sound is what's special.
>> What's the tuning?
>> It's C tuning with the drone string down to E, I think.
>> Run the strings for me.
>> E high string.
>> No, E, C, G, C, D. From the fifth to the first, right?
>> Yeah.
>> OK. Nice.
I wonder if, you know, you're a multi-instrumentalist,
and John says that you're also a multi-format kind of person.
Does that help you be adaptable?
As you were saying, you're learning new music, you're passing it on.
>> Yeah. The reason I brought up songwriting and stuff,
I try to do that to like, write new fiddle tunes and stuff
that comes directly out of the tradition,
and have a totally new song that sounds old.
It's fun to do that.
>> And then you've got to sneak that stuff in,
otherwise people are like, "Oh, a new tune."
You've got to sneak it in so then it gets
into the drinking water, and then people learn.
>> Well, I fear that we've got our own momentum now,
and it's burying some of the private things that each of us is doing.
But that's just an endless dilemma.
I know sometimes when Walker plays his fiddle, [inaudible],
"Where did you learn that," and he made it up.
And I say wow, that's just right.
I think there's a lot of future with these guys
that hasn't been fully explored.
It will come out if you last that long.
If you last that long, I don't have to.
>> Katy Hill to end the show, big rousing number.
[Inaudible] not quite the same lineup
of instruments that you started with.
So you've permuted to different lineup from the beginning.
What's the source of Katy Hill?
>> That's a major national fiddle tune, but in terms of at the Library
of Congress, Marcus Martin recorded it.
>> Yeah.
>> There's another good one that -- I'm sorry.
Yeah. But there's a number of versions.
>> Well, I guess I meant what's your version, do you know,
or is it just something you've known for a long time?
>> I actually, somebody taught that to me at a square dance
that I was playing this summer.
But I had heard the tune before.
>> And it's also known as --
>> It's also just like, Sally Johnson.
>> Oh, Sally.
Yeah. And that's also in the library under Sally Johnson.
>> The Reeds --
>> Henry Reed and Sally Johnson.
Yeah.
>> But yeah, it's just one of the --
>> It's a different note in there that makes it [inaudible].
>> They claim they're different.
They're different.
>> The fiddlers will always claim they're different tunes.
And I could show you why they're different.
>> And the first time I ever heard it was Mike [inaudible] was working
on his album [inaudible] bluegrass style.
And just, "Come on, John, you can play backup with this fiddler
in New Jersey, a guy named Tex Logan."
And I had never heard of bluegrass fiddling.
This was so fast, and it was Katy Hill.
And Mike moving on the banjo, and they were whirling.
"John, you play the guitar behind it."
I didn't know what the bluegrass licks were,
I didn't know any of that stuff.
So I was just winging it on the guitar.
And I found myself doing Riley Puckett runs,
which is from the Skillet Lickers.
>> And they do Katy Hill pretty well.
>> Do they do it [inaudible]?
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Oh, yeah?
>> So they just figured you knew a different version of it, right?
>> They say at the beginning of the record, they say like,
"Some people call this Sally Johnson, but down south,
we call it Katy Hill," and then they kick into it.
>> Bill Monroe -- I'm not sure if he recorded it, but he used to play it
on shows with a lot of drive.
So as a matter of fact, the way we did it today,
and also Leather Britches, to me, these guys together
with so much force into my ear,
that it's a fair match for any bluegrass band.
The energy level that we just get into.
But that's also a thanks to the good sound
and good vibes from the audience.
If it's wet blankets, we give them soapy towels.
[ Laughter ]
>> And then to everyone's great surprise,
you pulled out Emmett Lundy as the encore.
>> Yeah.
>> It seemed surprising to you as well.
>> Because we had just played -- I didn't know that these guys knew it,
and then we found it out in the greenroom.
And it's a lovely, lovely tune, and it's got great challenges,
all those beautiful little notes in it.
I think we're going to play it some more and more.
>> Yeah.
>> Emmett Lundy recorded as a part of the road research project
in 1941 My Mother's Down in Galax.
I think that's where he got it.
That's a great unknown body of material,
so thanks for bringing it up.
>> Oh, yeah, that's some of my favorite stuff.
>> Yeah?
>> Yeah.
>> A member of the Lundy family was here last week or the week before
as part of a symposium for Bell and Reed, but I didn't get to meet them.
So what was the song title?
>> Ducks on the Mill Pond.
[ Silence ]
>> So is the roadshow over?
>> Oh, no.
>> I don't think so.
>> No, we'll be at Brooklyn College on November 11th.
And onward into the future, there's no reason to stop.
I'd like to bring it to more colleges and universities.
It would be nice to reach some college kids with this.
>> So you're happy with a successful --
>> Oh, yes.
Yeah, it's been great.
And I credit you.
I think we were talking when we thought of it.
>> Well, my idea was slightly different.
It was a rolling thunder tour.
[Inaudible] get to play [inaudible].
[ Laughter ]
I'm not getting credit for it.
>> I'm sorry, I didn't realize that.
I misinterpreted, man.
>> Now we've got to put the Pope into this thing somehow.
>> When they asked us to move the date of the show, I said, "Fine,
but where is the Pope," you know,
because I thought he was going to be here.
>> They wanted him to go to New York.
So when is your recording coming out, the Jalopy recording?
>> It should be out early December.
I just sent it to the plant to be pressed, so it'll be an LP.
>> Great. I look forward to that.
>> Yeah.
>> I always love those Jalopy covers.
They look just like a 1960s --
>> Not to disappoint, this has a different style cover.
But it's nice though, it's modeled on some
of the old ethnic folkways covers actually, if we're going
to keep quoting old record covers.
But yeah, the first two Jalopy records and maybe future ones,
we'll keep stealing your design.
[ Laughter ]
>> What's funny is to sit here in front of a crowd
and suddenly remember the first LP from the Library
of Congress printed on red vinyl.
We used to hold it up to the light and go, "Wow."
[ Laughter ]
>> You know, we have some of those downstairs if you want
to have a look through them, you know, anytime, John.
>> Yeah.
>> They can go to my house, I've got them there also.
>> Walker, anything coming up for you?
Are you doing any kind of --
>> Just the band.
We're getting more and more gigs.
>> How often do you guys play?
>> A lot.
>> It's been a busy summer for us.
>> Yeah.
>> So I got a part-time job in the city that is good
because I can come and go.
Yeah, I think we're going to go down to New Orleans
for a little bit, me and Jackson.
They've got that Black Pot Festival in Lafayette.
>> Check out some Cajun music and food.
>> Yeah, Josh Caffery is down there doing some great work.
Make sure you check in with him.
>> It's going to be good.
>> John, what's cooking with [inaudible]?
[ Laughter ]
>> [Inaudible].
It's funny, while we were driving down yesterday,
and old friend called up,
"I just got your new [inaudible] book, it's wonderful."
The one about Bob Dylan and [inaudible].
I said, "Oh, no, that's the old one.
There's another one since then."
And the next one after that is going to be about those years that I was
in Lower Manhattan in the middle of the art world.
When I first came back from Peru, I just settled on Third Avenue
between Ninth and Tenth Street, because Robert Frank,
who wasn't that famous at photography yet, he was a friend.
So I moved in next door.
And then you look around
and you find the whole block is full of artists.
And then I looked into the history
of why there were so many artists there.
First of all, it was cheap rent, and the other was
that Willem de Kooning's studio was right on the same block.
So the name of the new book is Cheap Rents and de Kooning.
[ Laughter ]
But that's pretty much in the can --
it's not in the can, where do they put it?
>> In the works.
The works.
And I'm going to try to do a lot of drawing and get into my studio.
And when I get old, I'll have something to do.
[ Laughter ]
>> And maybe a [inaudible] book.
>> Oh, yeah, and a book about [inaudible] music in Peru.
I may go to Peru two weeks from now
for that film they're making about me in France.
>> OK. Well, if you need anybody to come along,
I'm sure you have other volunteers.
>> Get me a grant.
While you're out, get me a grant.
[ Laughter ]
>> Look, guys, I don't want to hold you
up because I know you have had a busy couple of days.
I just want to say once again, thank you from the Library
of Congress for coming to visit.
And I hope this is just one step along the way for us,
and that we'll continue to influence each other and to build
on each other's work, because it's a real exciting time.
And so thanks, guys.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.