Radio Free Earth

I was pokin' around on YouTube looking for Cajun music clips and came across this. I'd never seen this before.

Here's a nice 24 minute video with Pete Seeger and Majora Carter, an activist. You too can learn to sing:

In this Wired blog entry David Kravets reports on the music industry's attempt to make AM and FM radio pay not only songwriters and composers, but also record labels and recording artists, to broadcast songs.

The radio broadcasters say they are in the business of promotion, and shouldn't have to pay. They help artists.

The labels say broadcasting without paying is akin to piracy. And because they have succeeded in making on-line music providers and broadcasters pay, there is now added weight to their argument.

But I wonder where the public, who theoretically owns the airwaves, and the independent artist, who can't get played on radio to save his life, figures in the equation.

Who are the real pirates and what has been stolen?

Here's a short video of a news profile of Si Lewen, the father of a longtime friend of my parents, who donated all his artwork a couple years ago to the nonprofit organization my parents run. Click through to see the video.

Here's a nice remembrance of Bo Diddley by Dave Alvin, who played with him in LA one night in 1983. Bo Diddly died on Monday, June 2.

Here's Little Richard singing about "Bama Lama Bama Lou" - she may be related to our "Bama Lou," but it's so hard to tell:

It's been beautiful out, and spring isn't leaving me much time for blogging. However, here's an interview about Karen Dalton with a guy who ran a folk club in Boulder, Colorado until the early Sixties. If you don't know about Karen Dalton, here's your chance to find out.

Start with this video if you like:

by Josh Wachtel

Behind-the-scenes RFE-er Alexei Panshin has just posted the first of five parts of an essay titled "Sympathy for the Devil," about a Robert Heinlein story called "Solution Unsatisfactory" written in 1941 before the U.S. entered World War II, and prophesying that the war would be put to an end in 1945 by a radiological weapon that could destroy entire cities.

The story is tricky, though, and in untangling it, Alexei has a lot to say about contemporary politics and how we might solve one of the major problems of the world we live in today: With the power available to destroy ourselves and our environment, how can humans survive?

Part 1 is here. Parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 will be published every other day until the whole is available on-line.

by Josh Wachtel

When are we going to quit stealing people’s food?

When are we going to quit stealing people’s oil?

When are we going to quit stealing people's lives?

When are we going to start taking care of ourselves?

Click here to see a ragged black and white recording, supposedly of the Holy Modal Rounders, doing "She Done Sold It Out." There's a whole lot of them rounders there for this session.

Alexei Panshin writes, "I think you've made a mistake with James Burton. He never played with the Rock'n'Roll Trio, who were Johnny and Dorsey Burnette and Paul Burlison on guitar. Burton was a good bit younger and made his first mark on 'Susie Q' with Dale Hawkins, and then played behind Ricky Nelson where he first got attention and later Elvis Presley."

And: "Paul Burlison, who was born in 1929, died in 2003. He's the one who discovered he could get a fuzz tone with a loosened tube in his amp. James Burton was born in 1939 and is still playing. He even has his own website."

Now this looks interesting:



BOUND TO LOSE: THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS by FILMMAKER PAUL LOVELACE
2006 – USA – 1 hr 27 min – d. Sam Wainwright Douglas and Paul Lovelace
From the Greenwich Village folk music scene of the early 1960’s, to the tumultuous and drug-hazed years of touring, to the present day, this highly entertaining documentary charts the success and struggles of the Holy Modal Rounders, a music group whose songs appeared on the soundtrack of Easy Rider. Featuring interviews with Dennis Hopper and Sam Shepherd (who was the band’s drummer for a few years), the film humorously chronicles the lives of band mates Steve Weber and Peter Stampfel, eloquently ruminating on the line that divides (or connects) genius and madness.

This movie will be screened at the County Theater in Doylestown, PA, May 5 @ 7 p.m. and the Ambler Theater in Ambler, PA, May 8 @ 7 p.m. Both screenings will be introduced and discussed by director Paul Lovelace.

Yvonne pointed out that the guy playing with Johnny Burnette below
is not James Burton. Does anybody know who it is?

Meanwhile, this guy compares better with the person in the photos accompanying the interview.

Here's a link to an interview with James Burton, who nobody knows but everybody's heard.


And here's him playing with Johnny Burnette and the Rock'n'Roll Trio: