Cultural Conservation Narrative Stage: Federal Cylinder Project: Ethnic Radio
Web Video Text Tracks Format (WebVTT)
WEBVTT
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Speaker 1: South Dakota Cowboy asking well where did you learn that and he says well I'm about half a cowboy you know and he is just a champion steer roper and he's called Windy Bill.
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[[Soft Guitar Music]]
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Speaker 1 Singing: Oh Windy Bill was a Texas boy and he could rope you bet. Swore the steer he couldn't tie, he hadn't met us yet.
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The boys knew of an old black steer that ran down in the draw. At the bottom of the malpais and a sorta bad outlaw
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Now many a boy had tried this steer but he got away for fair. We bet old Bill a two to one he couldn't quite sit there.
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He saddled up his old gray horse his back and withers raw, He started after the old black steer that ran down in the draw.
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With his sam stagg tree and his new maguey and his spurs and chaps to boot
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His rope tied to the saddle horn he tackled that old brute But when he caught the old black steer the cinches broke like straw
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and his sam stagg tree and his new maguey went drifting down the draw
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Old Bill lit in a flint rock pile and his face and head was scratched we got him up and we dusted him off and sorta got him patched
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he just stood there a'cuss'n madest man you ever saw whie his sam stagg tree and new maguey went drifting down the draw
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there's a moral to my story, boys, as you can plainly see. Don't ever tie your catch-rope onto your saddle tree
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but take your dally-welters to the California law. Your sam stagg tree and your new maguey won't go drifting down the draw.
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[[applause]] Thank you.
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Speaker 2: k, well now it's participation time, going to turn this actually over to you all out there and see if you have some questions.
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I know you probably have some curiosity about the way different animals have to be rode, the way the rodeo is conducted in different parts of the country.
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We have the experts here to answer those questions, so, uh, any questions out here? Yes, in the front row. [[background question]] is there any, is there any one horse
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{Background question} [[inaudible]] the rodeo riders the worst horse ever?
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Speaker 1: Well that's quite a question, alright, I've talked to several boys that run way back
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like a horse like Steamboat was
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there was very few people that ever made a ride on Steamboat, from what he, that was before my time.
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But, there was very few that ever contested him very good
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that as a -- made, you know, the champion on him or anything.
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There's been a lot of horses, yeah, that stand out better than some of the rest
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But I think, I dunno, what do you think about that Duff?
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You, you heard a lot about Steamboat.
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Duff: Yeah, well that's a--just running through my mind, right today
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There's some awful good bucking horses that really buck, but
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I don't know if; I don't know of any that's never been ridden yet.
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The young cowboys, they seem to; seem to be a little tougher than the horses are raised nowadays
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But there are, maybe to answer your question
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There, there are quite a number of bucking horses that these guys like to draw
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Because they really buck and they know they can win money on them if they get 'em rode.
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They don't always get 'em rode, they get bucked off a lot of times
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{Question asked in background} Has the breeding improved? Now are they breeding bucking horses better now than they were 40 years ago, 50 years ago?
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Duff: I don't, I don't think there are
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I don't. I think they used to have better quality bucking horses
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I let Ken and Glenn comment on that
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and the reason I think they used to
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'cause a good Bucking horse has to be quite a big horse
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and active. So years ago they, they still had lots of work horses
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draft horses that they worked in the fields
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and uh, like for instance
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If you crossed them with a good thoroughbred stud
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you got a big active, uh, horse
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and if he was inclined to buck why, he was sure a bucking horse
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but the stock are a little smaller nowadays 'cause they don't have this draft horse blood in them like they used to
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{Background question} May I ask a question? [[inaudible]]
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Unknown Speaker: What qualities do you look for in breeding a bucking horse?
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Speaker 1: Well, look for a horse with good size and one that's real athletic, you know. By crossing, uh, crossing a bigger horse with a thoroughbred...we all know how athletic a thoroughbred is. But then, I've always said that a bucking horse is kind of a freak of nature too.
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Unknown Speaker: Well, let me just, let me just butt in, if I can?
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
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Unknown Speaker: In terms of the thoroughbred, of course, the legs are very, very thin.
Speaker 1: Mmh-hmm [[affirmative]]
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Unknown Speaker: In terms of the bucking horse, I think, you know, the legs have to be a lot sturdier, in most cases, wouldn't they?
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Speaker 1: Well, by crossing the two, see, you get a heavier leg, you get a heavier bone from your big draft horse. But he's got enough thoroughbred that naturally he'll be a little more active.
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Speaker 2: There was one family in Montana that bred bucking horses and still does, and they started out about 25 years ago. Well, they had bucking horses before that.
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But they bought a shire stallion that weighed seventeen hundred pounds, so it was unmanageable. It had terrible traits, you know, he just fought and kicked and struck and everything, and they crossed him on all kinds of range mares and they got...then he died real early, and then they got a horse called Prince from him.
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And uh, Major [[?]], I forgot the other names of them, but they, they passed them traits on. And when the duke horses from that shire stallion, like Major Reno was the bucking horse a year or some, a few, 20 years ago, 15.
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Why, uh, he was from that breed. And they sure was tough horses and you had to be awful careful with them in the chute or everywhere. They just...it was was kind of dangerous and they was so big and strong. And bucks are hard...A lot of guys didn't like to go to the rodeos where they was at because they didn't have much chance of riding them.
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They sure had that strength in them that...to fight you as well as buck.
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Unknown Speaker: Question over there? Your side, yes?
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[[background question]] Is there a ride--?
Speaker 1: No they're all numbered and they're drawn for by number.
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Speaker 2: Yeah I was to a bucking horse sale here a year ago, and they brought horses in that some of them was spoiled saddle horses
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and work horses that was spoiled and horses they'd run in off in the range, and they brought in a 5 year old,
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and they said black stud that come in wild and he was about the hardest damn horse that I ever seen for many a day, and they they wouldn't buy him.
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The guy was buying bucking horses and then they bought one that didn't buck near as hard but was high and kicking out
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and I asked this boy I said "Why didn't you buy that horse instead of that one?" I said "that's a lot harder." He said "You know that and I know that."
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But he said "that horse is gonna kill somebody and the boys don't make money on that type of horse."
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He couldn't be rode to where they can make money, they wanted something that kicked high, you know.
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It's got to be a business any more see yeah that horse-he-that horse was ready to eat the boy that even wanted to pick the man off'n the horse hell he would've stomped him in the ground. yeah, he -- no way you know
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Speaker 3: We had a question way in the back here [[background question]]
Speaker 3: the question is: What are the three biggest rodeos today?
Speaker 2: Pendleton
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Speaker 4: I'd have to say my hometown of Pendleton, Oregon then Cheyenne, Wyoming is considered an old and a big rodeo
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and then I'd have to put in Calgary, Alberta, very famous rodeo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's about it.
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Speaker 3: Any other variations from the panel here?
Speaker 4: Well, the early building shows early in the year are really big too, like the Denver stock show and Fort Worth, Texas stock show
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and Houston, they're really big in terms of attendance and prize money and length that they run too
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about twenty-two performances, something like that
Speaker 3: Question right here in front
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[[background question]]
Speaker 4: Oh yeah
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[[background question continues] [[Cross-talk] {SPEAKER name= "Speaker 3"}
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This is a, this is a great cowboy debate
Speaker 4:
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A great controversy between what, Texas and Satan or something, but anyway, Texas style
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of cowboyin' they tie the rope to saddle horn and California style they have a longer rope and don't tie it
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and take a turn that's called dally-welta or dalley welters in Anglicized Spanish. And uh then you can let it slip or you can turn it loose or you can undally and get up closer whatever you wanna do and it used to be a law in California they couldn't rope steers tied on. They had to dally. And dallying's easier on the cattle in your saddle and horse and everything but the one drawback is you can possibly lose a finger, you know the nylon ropes will saw your finger off just quick as a saw if you get it in there. I've sharpened this one just a little bit. [Audience laughs] And if you look, if you look down on your dally that's called watching your belly button. [Audience chuckles] [ineligible noise [[?]] ] ya supposed to know where the horn is and dally instantly without. I knew one guy said if you couldn't throw rope and just out there into space and dallied before you hit the ground, you couldn't dally. Do it fast. Just do it fast.
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Somebody else wanna talk about the in favor of tying off before we move on.
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You want to get me into it dont you oh I think they do. I think theres horses not all of them maybe, but I do believe I'd seen horses that would stand real nice and shoot and everything go out their and buck, the whistle blows, theyd start right there.You know it. Then theres others still trying to kill ya if they can get at ya. I had an old gentle grey mare I broke when she was two years old and punched cows on her until she died a few years ago. and a up until she was real old and slowed down she'd bucked everytime I go on her. but then just for a little bit to warm up then she's alright and you knew she never would again, but she had that buck in her and liked it. and a when she got too old to get off the ground shed scurry around in a little circle and kind of bog her head like that and kind of played like she was bucking, but she sure had a lot of it in her. And if you made a mistake on her that she didn't like she'd buck pretty good too and she'd kind of spin and jump backwards. Was pretty interesting to ride. I had rode side horse that I got a hold of was a good horse. He was tough. A pretty fair cutting horse that wasn't bad on the rope. but he was about the orneist damn thing that I ever had in my life when he wanted to be. He threw me off more times then any other one horse I was ever on. But if I got as Glen said in time with him when he started I was alright and he go so he knew that he got so her could feel evidently when I'd go right he quick. Then I'd try to make him buck. They know when they got ya disadvantaged and go to work on ya that was lots of them you cant make a mistake you gotta ride perfect all the way or if you get a little on tilt they'll go to work on it and finish you off. I started to mention this a while ago in this fella from the tracks asked his question, but i've always considered a bucking horse a kinda a freak of nature really, because pertanear every horse the first time you saddle down and rode unless you a lot of time out in our country they don't take much time driving the horses lines when they get ready to break him they put the saddle on and jump on. That say oh well at least nine, nine horses out of ten will just really buck ya but that might be if you a if you get through that ride and he bucks til he's through that might be the last time he's ever bucking in his life and yep once in a while the horse will come along and they like to get them in a rodeo and it seemed to buck everytime their on and they seem to love it but which is a kind of freak and I don't think theres one out of ten horses that way. Maybe one out of fifty wouldn't you say Glen. It's hard to find them now that consistent. Yeah. Yeah again in the orange.
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Speaker 1: And they used to have quarter horse races down there and of course obviously New Mexico they have the famous race down in"
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Speaker 2: "Ruidoso"
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Speaker 1: "Yeah right. What's the difference between a quarter horse and a thoroughbred versus[[?]] how they're bred.
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Speaker 3: "Well uh the quarter horse I think the name quarter horse kinda explains a little bit, they're a horse that's yeah they're bred they're heavy muscled horse, and they've got a real fast burst of speed for a short distance.
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They couldn't run run with a thoroughbred on long distance but they are extremely fast I think they're considered probably faster than a cheetah which is supposed to be fastest animal in the world for a short distance and that's because of the powerful muscles.
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If you look at a good quarter horse's hind leg he's just got muscles bigger than Charles Atlas, it's just phenomenal really the way they're muscled up.
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Speaker 1: They can run a quarter in like 20 seconds or something like that"
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Speaker 3: "Yeah, really fast"
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Speaker 4: "Another question? Yes, over here"
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[[inaudible question]]
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Speaker 4: "How long does it take to break a horse?"
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Speaker 2: "That can vary, you know, if individual and all."
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Speaker 5: "When you talk about breaking a horse, a lot of people say well that horse broke, he been rode two or three times you can ride him up and down the road.
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To me, when you break a horse, you got to learn him some just like sending a kid to school.
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You know, god dang it, I say it takes a good year anyway and sometime longer to make a good horse like a rope horse or cow horse or something. If you just want one that some kid can ride around a while, heck I've seen that happen in 3 or 4 days or so they take them riding. And maybe you get another one that wouldn't take you quite a while. I seen a guy handle a horse one time that had been spoiled. And in a week's time after he took a hold of that horse, he had the feller's that owned the horse wife riding him around nothing to it."
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Speaker 1: "Well a horse gets a way with something. Maybe you were riding a horse here and he bucks you off and he takes off across the country. It's kinda hard to take it out of him, he's done that see, and he wants to get it done again. He got rid of ya."
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Speaker 2: "He sure learned something right there."
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Speaker 1: "Yeah, right."
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Speaker 3: "That's the wrong school."
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Speaker 1: "Yeah. A horse to me is no more than a person; they all got their own disposition and everything. Some horses I can whip them a time or two like you could a little kid and fine get along. The next one will fight you right back.
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Sometimes you can coax a horse, you know just coax it out of him. We had a stallion one time I could do anything with him and talk to him but the minute if I'd draw back a rope like I was going to hit him or something, his ears went back and boy he was ready to chew on you right quick. He didn't want no more of that at all, he was a gentle horse."
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Speaker 3: "We have time for one more good question. Who's going to cough up with it?"
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[inaudible audience]
Speaker 3: Last shot.
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{audience} "Nobody wants to ask. I'll ask a hard one. What's the difference really in breeding between a standard-bred and a thoroughbred? {SPEAKER I don't think I could answer that question very satisfactorily, I think the two breeds, maybe the standard bred is a little bigger horse, a little heavier boned, I don't know. Do you say that Glen or Ken?
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{SPEAKER All I know about 'em, and I've been around quarter horses and bronco horses and seen a lot of thoroughbreds and I don't know if I've ever seen a real standard bred except in books. But I think some of the ranches, some of the old time ranches used to breed some standard bred horses to get a little bit bigger horse, I think you were right that they're a little bigger and heavier. I think they use 'em for jumpers and stuff like that, and hunters and so on, they gotta pack a bigger person over a long strenuous course and everything like that.
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Speaker 1: I think they used them a lot in light, light teams when people used to, when the only transportation was buggy or a team horse. You could really, really make a classy little fast-stepping team out of those standard breds.
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Speaker 2: Where I grew up, the two types of horses we had there that we thought the more of, in fact, we had oodles of wild horses, but the good horses there was the Hamiltonian, which was a light coach, what they used to use on these stagecoaches, a light-boned workhorse, see. And then they had the, uh, oh hell, the little horse that uh. . .
Speaker 1: Morgans?
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Speaker 2: Morgans. And Morgan stallion and, you got a horse that had a good disposition as a rule and made a real good stock horse. That was the two types.
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I'll never forget the first Arab horse that come into the country was a mare. Everybody wanted a colt out of that Arab. And, as far as I'm concerned, they can have 'em. I've never seen one yet in my line by jeez, if it didn't get it in a tight spot, it would blow up with you.
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Speaker 2: You might get a whippin' soon as we get off this stage. I hear there's a lot of. . .
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Speaker 1: Well, uh...
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Speaker 3: I think Candy Guinness [[?]], our exit music. [[laughter]] If you like what you've heard here, there's gonna be another performance on the main stage at the far end of the walk here, at, yes at 3:45. And in between times, all the cowboys hang out over in the saddle-making tent so if you want to carry on with inquiring information about Western culture, see us on the main stage 3:45 or any time during the week at the saddle tent. [[laughter]] Do you have time for a little short song?
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Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
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Speaker 3: A short song. [[guitar playing]] We respond well to crowd pressure. [[laughter]]
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Speaker 2: You can end any program with this song and then nobody wants no more. [[laughter]] This is my sheepherder's song.
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[[singing]] When it's time to sheer the sheep in old Montana, when the jaybird sings a guinea [[?]] sweet refrain. When the grass is on the knolls and the gopher's in his hole, that's when I'll be coming back again.
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So you better watch your step while I'm away dear, I'll be checking up on you and that's a fact.
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So be waiting for me honey, don't take any wooden money. When it's time to sheer the sheep, I'm coming baaaack. [[imitates a sheep's baa while singing the word back]] [[laughter and clapping]] [[end of song]]
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Speaker 3: Can we have a big hand for Glen Orlin, Ken Trowbridge, and Doug Sevier?
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[[inaudible talking]]
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Dorothy Lee: Good afternoon. Welcome to the Federal Cylinder Project workshop. My name is Dorothy Lee and I work for the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress in what's called the Federal Cylinder Project; which is a project designed to preserve and catalogue and duplicate and return tape copies of cylinders of mostly American Indian Music to American Indian communities.
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Umm, for those of you who are sort of unsure of what a cylinder player is, there's one sitting in the forefront of this large photograph behind me.
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Singers would, as you can see these are two Omaha singers singing into a horn in 1905, the person operating the machine is a historian named Melvin Gilmore and on the end of that horn attached to that horn is a little diaphragm sort of like the little vibrating membrane in a kazoo and attached to that is a little needle and as you sing, the sound waves are amplified through that cone and recorded onto one of these things, which is a wax cylinder.
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This is a late model wax cylinder from the 1930s, uh it's a six inch cylinder, these are the long playing variety
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and these are the short variety these are the early ones. Um, the sound quality of these cylinders is not very good and the moment what we're trying to do is duplicate these cylinders and filter them just a little bit and um so that people can listen to them. The cylinders were recorded between around 1890 and the 1940s and they were recorded by anthropologists and folklorists and ethnomusicologists who went out to the field.
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Umm they were afraid, these scholars were afraid that American Indian music was going to disappear very quickly that American Indian culture in fact was going to disappear very quickly and so they recorded almost frantically.
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They-there are about 7,000 cylinders in the Library of Congress of American Indian music alone umm and this is only one of numerous collections of American Indian music on cylinder throughout the United States.
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There are thousands of cylinders elsewhere. Umm, for scholars and anthropologists they were meant to be a resource, a research tool, umm sort of museum preservation of culture, but what they have turned out to be for American Indian communities especially is a kind of family album. In one sense that is their people recorded on these cylinders, umm who are-who died in the 1920s and 1930s and they're memories for a number of American Indian people.
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And they also contain an enormous resource of culture um of different kinds for those communities that are trying to preserve and conserve their culture. This is the cultural conservation learning center and what we've been talking about all afternoon and what you'll be hearing for the rest of the afternoon are efforts by a number of people to preserve their culture, to hang onto and enhance and amplify their culture, and for American Indians, these particular songs that have been recorded are particularly important.
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A number of communities, for example, have lost all of their native speakers so that these songs contain the only records of particular American Indian languages.
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A number of other communities are trying to preserve language from the few remaining native speakers and we have with us Villiana Hyde who is at the far left uh who has been working on Luiseno culture um preserving Luiseno language and next to her is Louise DeFredo [[?]] who is Gabrieleno and Luiseno um and both of them have been working with me um in listening to some of these cylinders and trying to, to figure out what's on the cylinders um and the sorts of of what we've been trying to do essentially is elicit memories from, from Villiana and see if we can um stimulate some some more songs to come out.
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I'm going to uh ask the engineer to play um a cylinder recording made in 1904 of a Luiseno peon game song and then I'm gonna ask Villiana if she would be willing to sing um a peon game song. We'll play the cylinder first.
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[cylinder is played] [[Villiana sings]]
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Speaker 1: Vilana[[?]], Louise, could you talk a little bit about the peon game?
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Louise: Do you want to talk about peon?
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Vilana: "You, are they asking you?"
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Louise: Okay, I'll talk about peon. Uh that's a peon goes way back, long before the Spanish came and colonized California. The name peon was given by the Spanish because the game involved gambling and I suppose after it was over, we lost our money, hence we the name was called peon. The game, excuse me, was called peon.
00:26:36.000 --> 00:27:07.000
Um it's still played today. It's one of our, it's one of the traditions that has really, really lasted. There's a back before contact, there was a peon circuit. Today, there still is when groups from one reservation will go to other reservations and play and then vice versa. There's a whole circuit that they that they go through and it's all through California. There's goes all the way up to Northern California and all the way down to the border and even into Arizona where some of the California Indians are today such as the Mojave and the Chemehuevi.
00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:33.000
Um basically it's a game of two teams. Um there's a fire always in the center. It can't be played unless there is a fire. It's one of the numerous hand games that Native Americans had. There's two teams of men, four on each side. There's a fire in the center. There's a man who keeps count. He's a coinman for us and uh he has he holds in his hand sticks and they're on the teams. Each man holds one black and one white bone.
00:27:33.000 --> 00:28:03.000
But of the four men, only one of them will have will have either a white bone or a black bone that he's holding, that has to be guessed who has that. So when they sing the songs, they sing those songs as a sort of distraction. They play and sing this songs at the same time so while the bone is being switched around, you can't tell who has it. It's a form of distraction and the women in the background sing chorus and um then when it's over, the song is over, that's the time to guess.
00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:31.000
And if you get it right, the man, the headman, coinman will give your your team a stick. And because of the nature of the game, the sticks keep going back and forth but when the sticks are finally gone, whatever team has the most sticks, wins. And those games have been known to go on all night, well into the morning and the stakes get as high as three and four thousand dollars. And um it's widely popular, not only with the older people, the younger people, everybody comes. It's one of the things that we really show up for is peon. Do you want to say anything else about peon?
00:28:31.000 --> 00:29:59.000
Speaker 2: [singing]
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:19.000
Louise: "This is a, that's one of my favorites. Um, there for the Gabrieleno, there are no speakers of the language left as Dorothy was pointing out, but the old songs one of- the neighbors of the Luiseno were the Gabrieleno, the Luiseno were native to what is now San Diego and San Diego County. But the Gabrieleno were the people who were one time in Los Angeles and all of Orange County.
00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:43.890
And this song just tells about how excited the Luiseno are because they can hear them getting closer, they say here's they come, here they come the Gabrielenos, everyone come ready to play peon. But that's basically one of the songs. And these songs are good because they tell us about who our neighbors were, what our net- what our network at one time included, within these songs, there's a lot of history and lot of story that goes along the the verses.
00:30:47.000 --> 00:31:02.000
Speaker 1: [[??]] beginning of the film - tell them I'm singing the starting of the film
Speaker 2: Oh that which you just sang is the start, right?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, it's another
Speaker 2: So you wanna sing it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes
Speaker 2: Go ahead
Speaker 1: But if I get quiet, you know, I'm just forgetting [[chuckling]]
00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:06.000
Speaker 1: [[starts singing in native language]]
00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:18.000
Speaker 2: Ok, this is the beginning now, [[ping on]] there's all kinds of things that go on, there's all kinds of choruses. There's a beginning and it's started by the [[?? Koi main ??]], he starts singing and women in the background always keep chorus and then the singers themselves sing chorus.
00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:29.000
Speaker 2: They sing back and forth to each other, they sing as opponents and also, you know, they tease each other [[laughter]] in the songs. Like, "you miss me, don't you know where I'm hiding?", that's what some of the verses say about the bones that they're holding in their hands.
00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:36.000
Speaker 2: So what she's going to sing is the beginning of the set of verses that starts the [[?? peyon ??]] games off.
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:56.000
Speaker 1: [[singing in native language]]
00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:14.000
Speaker 1: [[laughter]] I made a mistake [[resumes singing]]
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:27.000
Speaker 1: [[continues singing]]
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:39.000
Speaker 2: And what she wanted me to tell you earlier is that we keep beat. And there's also a chorus of people who, in a way, they grunt, because they're trying to confuse their component. And they keep beat the whole time, the women that are singing the choruses.
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:48.000
Speaker 1: So, you would hear this song but you would also hear heavy, heavey, uh, it's it's would be like our version of the drum: people keeping beat but with their voice.
00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:59.000
Speaker 1: [[grunting in time to a beat]]
Speaker 2: [[crosstalk]] Well --
Speaker 3: [[crosstalk]] that's the way
Speaker 2: yeah But it's very distracting {speaker 3??} It's a cylinder noise [[cylinder noise]] [[laughter]]
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:07.000
Speaker 2: See, we have a, ha, yeah, really [[more cylinder noise and laughter]]
00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:11.000
Speaker 2: That's what we put up with on the cylinders but we're still very very grateful to have the cylinders.
00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:20.000
Speaker 3: Um, these cylinders have been used in all kinds of cultural and community education programs. And Rayna has been working with a number of --
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:26.000
Speaker 3: This is Rayna Green who's the director of the American Indian Program at The Museum of American History at The Smithsonian --
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:37.000
Speaker 3: and she's been working with a number of cultural centers and travel museums, um, in efforts to, uh, regain and educate people about their own culture. And I was wondering if you would like to talk a bit about that.
00:33:37.000 --> 00:34:00.000
Rayna Green: Many of the, uh, Many of the tribal museums and tribal cultural centers and language projects depend so much now, regretfully, on many of these old cylinder recordings and museum collections. And in a way, it's ironic that these things which have really been taken away from Indian people in so many ways have now come back.
00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:32.000
Rayna Green: And, what, uh, many tribal people are doing with them is, is, uh, amazing, and marvelous to see. In the Kiowa tribe, for example, we had Gus Palmer, Jr., who runs their elder center, here last week and he is using these old tape recordings, the tapes, of the federal cylinder project recordings, to replay for the Kiowa elders who then can, for the first time in years and years, hear many of the songs that have now been lost to them.
00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:45.000
Rayna Green: For example, they have - many songs exist in cycles and there'll be 7 songs or 14 songs or 21 songs in a cycle. For example, "sun dance songs" or "ghost dance songs".
00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:58.000
Rayna Green: Um, or some old songs where people haven't heard them in years because the behavior associated with them is gone. Courting songs, for example, and love songs, which were used in an almost "courting season".
00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:25.000
Rayna Green: And he is replaying these songs for the Kiowa elders, who then remember other pieces of the song cycle. Or who remember their relatives who sang these songs and, who then are taking the songs and using them again and singing them again to reconstruct ceremonies or to recall historical memories or to recall relatives and to put the pieces back, of things that have been gone away from people.
00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:47.000
Rayna Green: My own tribe, the Cherokee of Oklahoma have, we have reconstructed many songs that were lost to us a long time ago when we made the move on the Trail of Tears from North Carolina to Oklahoma. Many of these old animal dances and songs, some done with masks, which we no longer make, these are called "Booger songs".
00:35:47.000 --> 00:36:12.000
Rayna Green: You've all heard of the "Booger bear" and we say these are animal spirits that, uh, had, uh, we did dances to those. And many of those dances and songs have been long gone, but, some of the old federal cylinders have some of these animal songs and dances on them from the Eastern Cherokee and our people will now be able to hear those again after they have not, not been there.
00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:32.000
Rayna Green: We used these songs in language projects, uh, because many of the songs have old words: ritual words, ceremonial words, um, items of usage that now people don't use at all. And we can reconstruct old forms of language with them and hear again the way our people spoke, um, a long time ago.
00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:59.000
Rayna Green: So these cylinders, and these old tape recordings and museum collections have now become very important to us. Our artists re-copy some of the old designs, people hear the songs. I think in a way, one of the things that's important to remember about reconstructing these old songs is not simply to reconstruct the past. Indians, you know, more than anyone else are a living museum.
00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:34.000
Rayna Green: We are not simply repeating the past. For us, uh, I think it really is a blessing for the future. We want our children to know what our people were like. We want our children to know what we're like. And, so, to set down memories, really, is to, um, give a prayer for the present, and, as well, for the future. And, so, I think as these old things come back to us, uh, they become new things again. We reconstruct them, reshape them, and they live in the present, and then they will go toward the future.
00:37:34.000 --> 00:38:07.000
Rayna Green: So, we don't regard them only as historic artifacts that are now gone and passed forever. But, really, as a way of, of, of, um, making parts of our tribal world and our tribal vision and tribal culture live again and be usable for a longer period of time. And I think that's a use of these things that, really, is one of the most important. Not simply to freeze things in the past. But to make them live again for the present.
00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:31.000
Speaker 2: Not only do these old songs have, um, old cylinders have songs that have been lost and forgotten, but there are a number of songs on these cylinders that have been played on the reservations for years. These are also expressions of cultural continuity, that is, they are not just things that have been lost, they are things that help Indian people to reaffirm a certain sense of a linkage with the past.
00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:43.000
Speaker 2: And Tom Vennum has been working with Chippewa, Ojibwa materials in the northlands of this country. And he's found, um, that that is especially true there.
00:38:43.000 --> 00:39:25.000
Tom Vennum, Jr: There certainly is cylinders that I've played for the older singers on reservations that are immediately recognized, although youngers singers today, uh, would tend not to know what the purpose of the songs were. I think probably in most instances that, as Rayna pointed out, as the context in which songs were traditionally performed have diminished drastically since Indian people were first moved on reservations. And since, um, certain economic pressures on them have changed their lifestyle from what it was, there are certain ways of doing things that no longer include song, or as we know that song once accompanied a large, large variety of activities.
00:39:25.000 --> 00:40:00.000
Tom Vennum, Jr: We find today, as Rayna said, that, uh, India culture is alive. It's not something that is simply "digging up the past" because Indian music is very very much alive. It has never died out. But it has changed and particularly in this century, and recently with the advent of inexpensive cassette recorders, Indian people have begun to document their own music. You see at Pow wows today, just as many people standing around recording their own singers at the drum, as you do see people singing and dancing.
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:26.000
Tom Vennum, Jr: And what has happened as a result of this is that a large pan-tribal style and repertroire has emerged as the whole dissemination process of moving a song from one particular reservation to another and even from one tribe to another. Althought borrowing from other tribes has been traditional in American Indian culture as long as we've known about it.
00:40:26.000 --> 00:41:29.000
Tom Vennum, Jr: The early cylinders are valuable as they are historical documents of the way things were. I, uh, one thing that I did want to mention: there's certainly in the federal cylinder project has been an ethical dilemma that has faced us, those of us who have worked in it: in a lot of the early material that was recorded contains very sensitive, sacred material and frequently the people who recorded it were not aware at the time - those that were doing the collecting - were not aware of the sensitive nature of it, and the singers themselves were slightly baffled by the white man's recording device and weren't really, you know, truly aware of the implications of what it is that they were doing. A lot of songs were recorded that would never have been made public; that were secret songs that were only to be performed at certain times of years, and with certain groups and all sorts of taboos and restrictions on the use of these songs.
00:41:29.000 --> 00:42:04.000
Tom Vennum, Jr: And the fact that these cylinders are now in the federal agencies means, in fact, that they are open to the public. And they are, in essence, Indian secrets which are right there and anyone can go in, by law, and listen to. This is a problem that we've tried to address. We've argued about it. I know a lot on staff, whether you just put red flags by all the sensitive material, we thought that was a bad idea because somebody would be coming through there could be looking only for that and would be suddenly directed to the hot items, so to speak.
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:22.530
Tom Vennum, Jr: But I think that as these things are returned to the Indian communities, that they are done with the caveat that there is some sensitive material there and the hopes that tribal groups will consult with their medicine men and go through the material and place their own restrictions on how this material should be used.
00:42:24.000 --> 00:44:38.000
Speaker 1: Um, before I ask Valana to perhaps end this session with another song, I was wondering if anyone had any questions about what we're doing with the cylinder project or about the kinds of things that we've been talking about this afternoon. Do you have any questions about these songs?
Speaker 2: One thing, I just wanted to point out, you know, some people when they hear "Indian music", you know they really think of only one kind of music, and usually they think of what is Plains Indian music, or what you would ordinarily hear at a so-called Pow wow, but, you can hear from the couple of songs that Valana has sung that Indian music, really different tribal music, is very very different all over the country and the variety is amazing and I hope that some of you find ways to hear some of that variety, I think you'd be, uh, just, uh, you will marvel at the wonderful differences of the different tribal songs. We don't, and we don't all know each other's music except through this sort of modern cassette technology, sort of come and listen to it.
Speaker 1: Valana? [[Singing]]
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:45.000
[[Clapping]]
00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:57.000
Speaker 1: It's going to be another workshop here in just a few minutes on conserving traditional radio, so I urge you all to stick around. [[Laughter]]
00:44:57.000 --> 00:45:03.440
Speaker 3: [[??]] in conserving traditional music, uh, I'd like to invite you all to come in and sit down.
00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:22.000
[[Background Noise]]
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:24.000
Speaker 1: I'll go - Do you want me to go find him?
00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:27.000
Want me to introduce you?
00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:30.000
Speaker 1: Uh- Nick Spitzer, a folklorist from Louisiana
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:38.000
who has been coordinating the Louisiana area and has worked pretty closely with cajun and creole culture in Louisiana
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:43.000
and has done a lot of radio himself, Nick.
00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:49.000
[[Background Noise/Laughter]]
00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:53.000
Nick: Well here they are. This is a show called "Dead Air"
00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:55.000
No - [[Laughter]]
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:57.000
We've got some - we got some folks who are going to come up here
00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:01.000
and talk a little bit about the role of radio in culture
00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:05.000
and you'll pardon my cough drop, buy my voice was shot and uh
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:10.000
I needed to make a comeback - and so - I should probably just turn it over to Mick Maloney sitting in the middle
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:18.000
Uh - I don't know everybody up here so maybe I better let the people who are uh, here to introduce them - introduce them as we go on
00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:25.000
But the issues we'll be dealing with have to do with how radio - uh- has been beneficial to cultures where
00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:30.000
people get the whole of their own radio stations in their regions, in their cities
00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:36.000
and have some of their own culture on the airways, whether it's in the form of a non-english language
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:40.000
uh - or some form of art for like music, or story telling
00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.000
and at the same time, the possibility, perhaps, that radio; like other media, tend to uh-
00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:48.000
flatten traditional culture by providing stereotypes of the culture
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:53.000
or by demanding that - uh - that people listen to the music and - uh - the speech
00:46:53.000 --> 00:46:58.000
of a mainstream society. So, it can work both ways and we can talk about that.
00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:02.000
We might also talk a little bit about modern cultural documentary radio,
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:10.000
which is what people actually use radio, perhaps from an outside media source, to document a tradition and re-present it to a much broader audience.
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:15.000
So with that said, maybe - uh - Glenn, you're - you're usually a Mr. Interlocutor here
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:18.000
Why don't you introduce everybody, because I - I'm a newcomer to this area
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:19.540
Unknown: [[inaudible]] - Right?
00:47:21.000 --> 00:48:06.000
Speaker 1: Immediately to my right is Reverend Samuel McCreary. Reverend McCreary, who is one of the lead songster's managers for the gospel quartet that's with us here from Nashville, Tennessee- The Fairfield Four- Reverend McCreary has been actively involved with live radio broadcasts all the way since 1937, when he and the Fairfields began broadcasting in Nashville over a local station named WSIX. I think a little later we'll talk further about that radio and some of the impacts, but now I should turn it over to interlocutor number three and performer himself Mr. Vick Maloney.
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:50.000
Speaker 2: Well, uh, I don't know in what context I'm being turned over to, except that to introduce both myself, who already has been introduced, and Jack Cohen here, who is a great flute player from the county Galway, who grew up in an atmosphere of tradition and music, learned his art there, as most people did in the old days from the older people, and immigrated to America in 1949 and had enormous experience of both listening to and occasionally performing in ethnic radio situations in the Irish community and also on television too, and, uh, then of course Nick can also introduce a man who's better known to him than he is to me though I've become good friends with him over the course of this week here, and then everybody will have been introduced. [[Laughter]]
00:48:50.000 --> 00:49:53.000
Speaker 3: That's appropriate to a radio panel that's all introductions. This is Dewey Balfa, from Basile, Louisiana, and uh Dewey is a longtime French musician and leader of local traditional cultural Renaissance in French Louisiana, which has been done through the making of music in dance halls and at festivals and in leaving Louisiana to come to places like this so that people back home would hear the great success that groups have had with their music elsewhere, but on a weekday basis or a weekend basis, Dewey has at many times been the host of a local radio show over KUN. He broadcasted for many years from a local lounge in Basile, the Bearcat as I recall, with his family band, and he's also been a disk jockey playing French records on the weekends over various stations, and he's also from a culture where French music radio has been a very important factor in keeping people aware the of music and aware of family connections and what's going on over a whole region. So welcome, Dewey.
00:49:53.000 --> 00:51:56.700
Dewey Balfa: Glad to be here. [[Laughter]]
Speaker 1: The group that we've got here really represents very different sorts of participation with radio, maybe the best way to start off is by talking about, by giving a historical overview speaking about some of those communities who have long been represented on the radio, but only in a certain way. I'd like to start maybe by, well, I guess going the furthest back with Reverend McCreary and talking about his- having him tell us about his interaction with local radio. African American music in this country did not really get a voice over the radio at all, especially in the south, until the late thirties and through the forties. At that time all the radio stations were white-owned, operated, and managed. As a result, the very little African American programming that did go on was determined entirely by commercial factors. If a radio station felt that some of their sponsors needed to reach out to an African American audience, they might add perhaps fifteen minutes in a days worth of programming that would reach out to black audiences, as opposed to their normal white audiences. It was this early tokenism, really, but tokenism that was based entirely on commercial interest that first allowed blacks a voice on the radio. Now, with Reverend McCreary, it was at least a case of community based music being put on the radio rather than playing records of any number of forms of African American performance at the time, be they blues, gospel, or jazz. The station WSIX, again, an all-white station that was playing primarily pop music, swing tunes, things of this sort, decided that it was perhaps appropriate to add some black programming. Reverend McCreary, how did that come about?
00:51:58.000 --> 00:53:26.000
Reverend Sam McCrary: Well we were just boys starting out in the -- the lady came in to help us, she was my business manager, and she went up and talked to Mr. Wolfhalt and he said, he would try to see how we'd react. We gave him a few numbers, and he decided that he would like to keep us. And we worked with him until we was promoted up to WLAC. And we did a pretty good job with...it was real hard, hard to adjust yourself to it, cuz we was used to singing and giving all we had. But you couldn't do that when you first started, you had to, be soft, you couldn't raise your voice. But, until we had a contest in that... He told us that we'll see which one of the public likes the best, if he like the gospel, if he like the other type you doing, we worked it out to your fit. So we started him out, and they just started adjusting us down, holding us down, with a control, until we, we started doing the job we didn't have to lighten up.
00:53:26.000 --> 00:55:26.000
Speaker 2: So in this case, as their period on the radio progressed, there were initially holds put on the music. The, the gospel group was told by a white management operating under a white aesthetic that you can perform community based music, you can perform the gospel songs, the jubilee pieces, that are part of your tradition, but only within certain limits. You can only go so far, it wasn't only volume that was being controlled it was more the style and the amount of expression, spiritual expression, that was allowed on the air. In this case, the radio station went to the people though, and allowed them to make the final decision, figuring since we are a commercial station, we're talking about sponsors paying us money to increase the advertisement of their products, we want to give what the people liked. So in getting on to WLAC, at that time one of the largest radio stations in the nation, a 50,000 watt clear channel station out of Nashville that broadcast from San Diego to Detroit down to Miami Florida. It was a contest that determined who was to go on the air and what sort of music. The station held a contest, four quartets, with the winner, the Fairfield Four, being the ones granted that live program. At that time the only live Black program in Nashville and, to boot, on a station that had such widespread range. Now, Reverend McCrary, one more question before we pass on. When you were singing with WLAC, earlier you mentioned that, uh, you got a new audience to come to the station because of your music, and that this, that that helped you all as a group become professionals, could you elaborate on that a bit?
00:55:26.000 --> 00:56:00.450
Reverend Sam McCrary: It did because, through the South, people didn't know too much about WLAC, they never tuned in. But when we started singing we must've attracted their attention and they began to come in, and, and Mr. Oliver which was the lead director, he said your mail is getting so heavy we got to hire two more secretaries. So and they did, hire two more, and they began to bloom out, and we gave something like a--
00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:24.000
Reverend Sam McCrary: took one song and put each one the men's picture on it, and everybody wanted that number, because they wanted to, some just want the picture and some want the song. So but that's one thing that helped it to go on and, and be wanted among the congregation.
00:56:24.000 --> 00:56:41.000
Speaker 2: It's important to just reemphasize as we move on that this was commercial radio. The programming was live from the studios, but it was always with a commercial sponsor. Sponsors which ranged from and could you just mention a few of those who...?
00:56:41.000 --> 00:57:12.000
Reverend Sam McCrary: Well we worked for Finer Flower, we worked at Loveman Clothing Store, we worked for Sunway Vitamin, and we worked for Colonial Coffee. And we would do from 6:15 and then we would start again at 6:45. And one time we was working for Loveman in the evening done at 3:45. We done about 3 programs a day.
00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:41.000
Speaker 2: So it was traditional music on the radio. The choice of the music ultimately was that of the group and implicitly of the community as they had been chosen by the community. It was commercially sponsored by businesses in the white community who were interested in reaching out to another community and as a result bringing that community's music to the radio for the first time.
00:57:41.000 --> 00:57:47.000
Mick, the condition was real different I think in the realm of Irish and Irish American music.
00:57:47.000 --> 00:58:04.000
Mick: Well it was and I'm going to hand over to Jack once it comes to 1950 because he was here then and I wasn't. And he can tell ya first hand what it was like in terms of his exposure to ethnic radio in the Irish American context and also his own involvement in it.
00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:22.000
Before that time I have a little bit of information I suppose. And I say a little bit also well because when you're talking about a widely dispersed community like the Irish Americans you know there are 40 million people in the country now who claim some form of Irish American ancestry.
00:58:22.000 --> 00:58:36.000
You always have to say that you have a little bit of information about that group because as a group, well it's not really a group it's many groups within that larger aggregation of people.
00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:50.000
But I talked to some of the real old, old timers people who were involved in ethnic radio stations, people who ran ethnic radio stations, some for over 35 years, and the story emerged to me as this.
00:58:50.000 --> 00:59:01.000
That Irish ethnic, the Irish ethnic population, was seen as a potential market by the radio stations as indeed were other ethnic populations in America.
00:59:01.000 --> 00:59:18.000
And that various radio stations offered various blocks of time to people in the Irish community sponsored by various businesses in the community and sometimes outside the community purely on a commercial basis.
00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:45.000
Now, the people who were running the radio stations were a diverse group of people, you can't say there was any one particular type, but one particular thing they all had to operate under was they had to appeal to the majority of the population. Otherwise, the radio station wouldn't succeed, the sponsors wouldn't, you know, wouldn't pay the advertising money, and this is all a very familiar picture, and one not at all divorced from the realities of commercial television at this particular time.
00:59:45.000 --> 01:00:02.000
So, independent of the personality or orientation of the person who was running the radio program, certain realities and those realities of commercial appeal were really operative. And the result was that they had to play whatever they thought the community would like.
01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:35.000
Now, when the radios start, 1920s, 1930s, and continued to the 1940s and so on into the present day, that was at a time in terms of the Irish transition in America, and where radio stations were most popular of course was in the major metropolitan areas, that the Irish were relatively well-assimilated, or acculturated if you want to use the word, along the line, you know that come here in various waves and droves for, they've been coming here for over a hundred and fifty years, and in terms of their relative status among other European immigrant groups, they were fairly well up the ladder.
01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:52.000
The commercial culture that they identified with for the most part, particularly those people who were not first-generation immigrants, was the culture of commercial America, it was the culture of musical, vaudeville, of tin-pan alley and particularly of the record industry which flowered in the late 1910s, and the twenties and thirties.
01:00:52.000 --> 01:01:22.000
So that the reality of it was that most Irish American people were buying a synthetic Irish American product which was the creation of tin-pan alley. Mostly songs written by non-Irish people who knew what the ethnic market wanted; themes of nostalgia and separation and so on. Traditional music, the sort of music that this festival here is dedicated to preserving was a very, very, very small component of that whole pantheon, if you wish, of Irish culture in America.
01:01:22.000 --> 01:01:30.000
As a result, the traditional culture, the jigs and reels, the horn pipes, the old songs; they got totally neglected by ethnic radio. Almost totally.
01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:40.000
Up to the point when Jack Coyne arrived and maybe Jack can take up the story from 1949 when you arrived and tell us what you were hearing in the Irish radio stations in New York City Jack.
01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:48.000
Well, there were two radio stations in New York City at that time. And it's like what you described, Mick.
01:01:48.000 --> 01:02:27.000
You can classify Irish music two ways in New York City or in Ireland alike. There's the commercial Irish music and traditional Irish music. And some of the commercial music claimed to be traditional and they're using the word traditional where it shouldn't be used. It was never used before but now they'll use it if it will help them commercially. So when I came to New York what was you'd hear on the radio was, the radio seemed to work more against tradition than it did any other way.
01:02:27.000 --> 01:02:37.000
What you would hear on there were a few of the bands who played at the bigger dance halls. And in those times, the dance halls used to get 3-5,000 people there.
01:02:37.000 --> 01:03:11.000
And it was big business. The people who played in those dance halls were the people who got all the publicity. They weren't the best traditional players, they weren't even classified as good. But as Mick explained to you, they did appeal to the majority of the Irish people because the tradition had gone down. It had gone down to a point that only for a few people it would have been lost completely. If you give head to the radio stations and the publicity that they were giving to the music.
01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:49.000
That's a hard thing to say and I imagine a lot of people won't like me for that but it is the truth as I know it. And it was much the same back in Ireland before I came out here, the radio, RadioIn [[?]] as they call it, they wouldn't play traditional Irish music and they used the excuse that nobody would listen to it. Well that might be true as they knew it, but as we knew it down through the country it was not true. The people like myself and Mick Maloney who grew up with that, we were always aching to hear some Irish music played on the radio and we heard it very few times.
01:03:49.000 --> 01:04:33.000
And well it has improved. I think a lot of that can be, the blame can be put on that as Mick says to the people who subsidize those stations and help them to operate, but I think more of the blame can go to the people who ran those stations that were the producers of the program. None of them were musicians or singers and they had no knowledge whatsoever of what was traditional, what was commercial and they were influenced by the people. They used the people to their best advantage like to tell them what they thought and none of them were musicians.
01:04:33.000 --> 01:05:05.000
For instance, until Mick Maloney came along who was a musician himself and knew traditional music and knew commercial music as he knows it because he plays it himself and understands it. None of us who are playing down here today at this festival he would be here at all. We would never be here tell of it all at all. I can go further like it's back home. I never played on the radio back home when I lived over there and I lived over there until I was 24.
01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:41.480
And a man came over here to America, Kieran McMahon, Kieran McMahon, in English looking for Irish musicians to record who had usually ones who had kept the tradition alive through the years. And I was recorded by him and after I left there I was played on the radio about 1,000 times if I had been played there once. So it goes to show you how they work. That the right man, you have to have the right man in the right place. That's about all I can say on the subject as I know it.
01:05:44.000 --> 01:06:08.000
Speaker 1: Well moving on to [uh] French Louisiana, Duey[?] [uh] is in a special situation I think, because when you talk about the national black-white folk musics of America, say Gospel on the black side, the, the old-time country music making the way into clear-channel radio stations, they reach much of the country with those kinds of musics.
01:06:08.000 --> 01:06:33.000
Speaker 1: Non-English speaking groups, or other groups outside that basic framework tended to have more localized either regional or urban audiences. [Ummm] In French Louisiana you have a situation where really there is no large city; I mean really large city, there is Lafayette; but uh, there's no really large city where you have a Cajun population. People were essentially rural fisherman, farmers, what have you.
01:06:33.000 --> 01:06:56.000
Speaker 1: So you didn't have a major radio station broadcasting Cajun music, but what you had instead were a lot of small radio stations that broadcast the music out over a particular region with low wattage, reaching several communities within every area. And [uh] as a result when we hear Cajun music say nationally now it's probably through a national public radio program or something like that.
01:06:56.000 --> 01:07:03.000
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be through a large clear-channel station, nor would it be as part of a-an urban ethnic radio [uh] station.
01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:16.000
Speaker 1: Duey, maybe you could say a little bit about your kinds of experience in radio. I'd like to know if-how you feel about that thing between commercial and tradition, because an awful lot of traditional Cajun music has been commercially sold back to the people.
01:07:16.000 --> 01:07:31.000
Speaker 1: And then certainly there are some--some musics or some performances in Cajun music that are probably more commercial than others. But [uh], what about what gets on the shows that you've been with, whether it's record shows or your own broadcasts. Are they uhh-- is
01:07:31.000 --> 01:07:33.000
there a difference like that?
Speaker 2: Well,
01:07:33.000 --> 01:07:53.000
the shows that I've done, either live or with records, I will more or less take the traditional sounds because of the fact that, we were very very very limited-- and I say we, the traditional musicians-- and the music itself was very very limited to air space. So
01:07:53.000 --> 01:08:00.000
I took advantage of the air power to play the music and talk about
01:08:00.000 --> 01:05:44.000
wanting to preserve the traditional music.
01:05:44.000 --> 01:06:58.000
Well, moving on to uh French Louisiana, Duel uh, is in a special situation I think because when you talk about the national black white folk music's of America, of say gospel on the Black side, the old time country music making their way into Clear Channel radio stations they reach much of the country with those kinds of music's, um non English speaking groups or other groups outside that basic framework tended to have more localized either regional or urban audiences. In French Louisiana you have a situation where really there is no large city, I mean really large city, I mean there is Lafayette but uh there is really no large city uh where you have a Cajun population. People were essentially rural fishermen, farmers, what have you. So you didn't have a major radio station broadcasting Cajun music but what you had instead were a lot of small radio stations broadcasting music out over a particular region with low wattage reaching several communities within every area and uh, as a result when we hear Cajun music say, nationally now it's probably through a national public radio program or something like that.
01:06:58.000 --> 01:08:05.000
t wouldn't be through a large Clear Channel station nor would it be as part of an urban an ethnic radio station. Duel maybe you can say a little bit about.
01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:24.000
Speaker 2: The so called uh, commercial Cajun music is referred to his home as Nashville Cajun music and they would get more of the airtime than the old traditional sound so, whether it was live or records, I stuck to traditional.
01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:51.000
Speaker 1: So there was that split-- there's another thing that's kind of interesting about Cajun music, sort of like I guess -in a small way- like the Grand Ole Oprey. The Cajun music shows, at least the live shows, are social events, uh, in other words, you don't just listen to it on the radio, you come out to Fred's Lounge or the Bearcat and dance if you're in the neighborhood and would like to do it. Are there any -other than Fred's Lounge right now- are there other shows doing that anymore at this point?
01:08:51.000 --> 01:09:42.000
Speaker 2: Not that I know of. I had a show for fifteen years that, uh, we had live music in a tavern and it was broadcast through, uh, certain station KEUN through remote facilities. And people would come, and it was only an hour, but then people would come to listen to the music, have a couple of beers, and dance a little bit, and then it was Saturday night, they may have gone to some other activities after the show but it was like from 5-6, the time where people would always-- the country people went to town and this was -- it was called the [[Bazzio?]] Cajun Hour and everyone would always call it "the happy hour".
01:09:42.000 --> 01:10:07.000
Speaker 1: Well, Dewey, uh, you've also done record shows, I know, on KEUN, and uh, what we heard last time, I put you on the spot and asked you to give us a sample of a commercial. Did you think you were-- or just some bit of your pattern. Do you think you could give us a little sample of, uh, what you would say on the air for an advertisement for, I don't know, one of-- Red's Garage or [[?]] Music Center, or one of those places?
01:10:07.000 --> 01:10:10.000
Speaker 2: I wanted to do a commercial about a Furniture store--
01:10:10.000 --> 01:10:12.000
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, how about Balfa's Discount Furniture?
01:10:12.000 --> 01:10:14.000
{Laughter}
01:10:14.000 --> 01:10:17.000
Speaker 2: Oh, Nick, no, let's talk about another furniture store. We don't close that one.
01:10:17.000 --> 01:10:21.000
Speaker 1: Oh, well you know--
01:10:21.000 --> 01:10:42.000
Speaker 2: [Spanish dialogue]
01:10:42.000 --> 01:11:26.000
Speaker 1: Alright, that'll get KEUN quite a few listeners, I'm sure. That reminds me of something real important, is that, uh, in the case of a non-English language, that, uh, the idea of having that on the air encourages people the feeling that they can speak the language in public places and that it's not just something that's hidden, maybe, or in the home alone, it -- it sort of goes against the general idea that every broadcast voice has to sound, you know, big, a la Walter Cronkite or others and that it -- there can be diversity in the way people sound on the airwaves, so the radio had an important impact that way. I'd like to maybe just shift a little bit here, uh,-- You wanna say something?
01:11:26.000 --> 01:19:07.890
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like to say that back in the late 30's, uh, there were live music, say on KVOL and Lafayette, which was the most powerful station, I don't know what the [[waters?]] was but once a week there may have been a fifteen minute program. The music was Cajun music, the singing was sung in French, but the commerials were read in English for the simple fact that the people owned the station was very careful in what you said, and they didn't understand what you said in French, you didn't speak French on the radio. So, we have made, uh, a lot of success since then because now, Nick, as you know, there's-- oh, I dont know how many-- radio shows that they have for different small radio stations
01:19:12.000 --> 01:19:22.000
Speaker 1: Is it sign-off time [laughs]?
Speaker 2: No, we've got ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Does anyone have any questions in the audience? We've all kind of talked about all these things. Anyone have any thoughts on the issues that are being raised here?
01:19:22.000 --> 01:19:28.000
Speaker 3: I don't think we've got into the area of the stereotypes. You did mention it at the end."
01:19:28.000 --> 01:20:00.000
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I think that had been a-- Mick had had a concern about that and I think the Irish commercial music to some degree probably eludes to that. I know in French Louisiana we do have some comedians that are-- that make records that are broadcast on the radio that are sort of they're exaggerations of Cajun speech and situations. I don't know, do you think there's much of a problem with that of Cajuns being stereotyped over some of the broadcast media or in records in Louisiana today?
01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:15.000
Speaker 4: Well I think I know who you are referring to. [long pause] I am not too excited about the way he presents the accent and--
01:20:15.000 --> 01:20:16.000
Speaker 1: Right
01:20:16.000 --> 01:20:21.000
Speaker 4: The French uh the French-speaking of South Louisiana.
01:20:21.000 --> 01:20:47.000
Speaker 1: Mhm. We have a strange situation in Louisiana because we have a North-South split culturally and as a result, there's a tendency, especially this one performer who has a cooking show which goes out all over the state on public television and around the country and he's from sort of the borderline of French Louisiana so he's often used his concept of Cajun humor to make non-Cajuns laugh.
01:20:47.000 --> 01:21:11.000
And actually, of some-- a certain number of Cajuns kind of laugh either with or at it too, and it causes a lot of ambivalence-- concern on some people's part. All we can do is broadcast you know as much traditional culture as possible and that's about all you can do. Though there are occasional editorial wars in the newspapers about the-- you know this particular person.
01:21:11.000 --> 01:21:14.000
Speaker 4: Well, he sells himself by doing that.
01:21:14.000 --> 01:21:23.000
Speaker 1: Right. That's true, the more controversy he starts up the more attention he seems to get. It's kind of unfortunate how that works. Mick, you had some comments on that I think at one point.
01:21:23.000 --> 01:21:53.000
Mick: Well, I don't think that any of us feel there is something wrong with commercial culture of any ethnic kind, I mean, it deserves an airplay reality in the life of the nation. Trouble is it tends to get too much airplay and that it tends to get, you know, it does propagate a certain stereotype. I mean the very stereotypical notion of any European country, and it doesn't not just Ireland but any of them, there's a limited set of symbols that tend to record the sounds about each country.
01:21:53.000 --> 01:22:15.000
And because people here are, you know, being caught off from the reality for such a long time, those limited set of symbols, they may be positive or negative, but they're limited, get transmitted in the culture power play, and it's not that they shouldn't be there, because they're real, it's just that the other side just doesn't get enough consideration.
01:22:15.000 --> 01:22:32.000
And I think what we're, nobody here is about to be the Folk police, you know, cultural fascists on the other side, it's just that the fact is that there is an imbalance, and when there is an imbalance it's usually the product of power structures.
01:22:32.000 --> 01:23:23.000
And I think we ought to realize that those power structures, you know, are a reflection of the larger society too, and we're living with an ongoing interrelated reality which means that we've got to be, in a way, elitist. We've got to fight against it and say hey, this stuff's good and it ought to get, it ought to get airplay, and it ought to be in festivals, and it ought to be in concerts, and I don't give a damn if people, you know, who control the power in the particular situation don't agree. You know, the fact is, it is sort of a battle, and I think in radio particularly, it's an acute problem because so many people's perceptions of what's real get shaped by what they hear on the medium that has become very powerful, and stereotypes have a lot got to do with that.
01:23:23.000 --> 01:23:33.000
{
Speaker 6: Just one thing I want to say about the radios in New York is, I was in one radio station in my lifetime, in New York.
01:23:33.000 --> 01:24:11.440
I was called in to speak a few words on one of the greatest traditional Irish musicians that ever left Ireland, named Sean McGlynn, who played at this festival before, and carried the tradition with him through thick and thin. Yet he never played on a radio program in New York City. And he was so unknown to them that they looked around to see who knew him and who could speak a few words on the good musician that he was and his traditions and the beliefs that he had. So that's, they're a little backward, I would say, in some respects.
01:24:14.000 --> 01:24:21.000
Speaker 1: "I think this brings us around to our own responsibility and one of the purposes for presenting this.
01:24:21.000 --> 01:24:54.000
We've talked about different forms of radio and the different power that radio has to represent or misrepresent a full community or in the case of the Irish it seems presenting a part of the community as if that were the full community, as if the forms of expression that go out over the airwaves are the only forms of expression from that community and thus creating a false sense of what that community's expressive repertoire is.
01:24:54.000 --> 01:25:28.000
We, as listeners to radio, have a certain power though. We've got to recognize that much of the radio we're talking about is commercial. All that goes out, those decisions that are being made are being made by sponsors who are interested in selling products. We are the very ones who often buy those products and by letting folks know, by letting those who are sponsoring commercial radio know, by talking to public radio stations
01:25:28.000 --> 01:25:52.000
and asking for a greater representation of the varied voices that make up the musical and song expressions of the varied communities in an area, we can have an impact. It's therefore to a real degree up to us as consumers and as listeners to commit ourselves to some degree, to taking some action.
01:25:52.000 --> 01:26:11.000
To see that communities are better represented, to see that the voice of the radio is not a voice which serves only to squash the expression of the varied groups that we have around us and of which we are a part.
01:26:11.000 --> 01:26:18.380
[[inaudible question being asked]]
01:26:25.000 --> 01:26:47.000
Ethnic radio shows can be together and trade tactics and even people who enjoy same kind of ethnic music on commercial or non-commercial radio stations can trade playlists or... or any kind of information about what they do in order to keep running or marginalize their radio audience?
01:26:47.000 --> 01:26:56.000
Speaker 1: There's no one event like that that I know of. There is the National Association of Community Broadcasters, which does have a group of people within it
01:26:56.000 --> 01:27:03.000
That occasionally meet and have discussions like these. But they tend to be pretty much ad hoc meetings which - you know - have some good things going on,
01:27:03.000 --> 01:27:13.000
But there is not really that much of a network, no pun intended, between the people that I've seen. Maybe - Allen- maybe you have some ideas on that, no?
01:27:13.000 --> 01:27:17.000
Unknown: Well, [[Inaudible]]
01:27:17.000 --> 01:27:24.000
Allen: I'm very excited about the meeting, 'cause I'm an old radio producer from the 30's
01:27:24.000 --> 01:27:35.000
and actually, in my view - um - radio has always been the way to get our material to the public the quickest
01:27:35.000 --> 01:27:47.000
Um, and um - see - the whole point is that transmitters cost a lot of money and receivers cost a little bit.
01:27:47.000 --> 01:27:53.000
So that's why they have us. Transmitter cost millions of dollars and we all can afford a receiver.
01:27:53.000 --> 01:28:03.000
And that means centralization, even with the best of intentions. And uh - the only places where it's coming out well is where by accident.
01:28:03.000 --> 01:28:12.000
The folk got on the air. Like they did in Nashville, and they created a whole region of sound. So, everybody now feels comfortable about being from
01:28:12.000 --> 01:28:20.000
being uh - being from the south. We got on the media again with the blues in Chicago, and the blues survived.
01:28:20.000 --> 01:28:34.000
So, it's all of that. In 1939 in Florida, by some fluke, I had a coast to coast program on CBS and uh - presented Woody and Pete and all those people,
01:28:34.000 --> 01:28:42.000
and I think that program had an awful lot to do with the beginning of the revival. It was a - it was - it just broke all the way through,
01:28:42.000 --> 01:28:54.000
Because everybody thought [[Inaudible]] was a pretty nice singer. And uh, we got letters from when I put that Molly Jackson on, who was a real high lonesome singer,
01:28:54.000 --> 01:29:06.000
We got fan mail from the backwoods saying, "That's the sweetest voice that was ever on radio." Meantime, my - my director of that show, was sitting there in the studio,
01:29:06.000 --> 01:29:18.000
He was the producer of 'The Chesterfield Hour', with his fingers in his ears. 'Cause that Molly offended every - every- thing that he thought was good.
01:29:18.000 --> 01:29:30.000
Um, so, I think radio is, and television, are the solution, and I think every community can have a kind of radio show that they want if they go to the radio station,
01:29:30.000 --> 01:29:42.000
and knock on the door and say, "We want our stuff on the air." No question about the fact though they'll get some kinda time and - that - that they really can go on,
01:29:42.000 --> 01:29:51.000
and once you get your, once you get your voice on the air, then things can build. As Nashville and many other places - places - have shown us.
01:29:51.000 --> 01:29:57.000
Because what we have is more interesting and better for people than what they've got.
01:29:57.000 --> 01:29:59.000
[[Crosstalk]]
01:29:59.000 --> 01:30:04.000
Speaker 2: Before they came along, we were just saying that ethnic communities and all communities in this country are composed of power balances,
01:30:04.000 --> 01:30:13.000
and the people that control the balance of power, who come to the station, or come, uh, to the outlet. The organ of public opinion, are not necessarily the people who
01:30:13.000 --> 01:30:21.000
have the best interests of cultural conservation in mind, and that is a for the political problem. That's what we've more or less been talking about.
01:30:21.000 --> 01:30:33.000
Allen: Let me tell you one thing, that happen to me right here in Washington. In the war, I was given the job of trying to get war bonds and things to the communities that
01:30:33.000 --> 01:30:44.000
weren't reached by the centralized system. And um, in my research, I found out there was one radio station in Arkansas that had a black blues singer on it.
01:30:44.000 --> 01:30:56.000
Was the only place in the south that that was true. And they launched a new kind of flour, Launthum Flour, from that station. And it turned out that no other
01:30:56.000 --> 01:31:07.000
kind of flour sold within the radius of that station but Launthum Flour. And the guy was coiling the money, this was in the days where there was great race prejudice,
01:31:07.000 --> 01:31:14.000
but the station manager was happy as a clan by this - about this - [[Inaudible]] that he had on the air, ya see?
01:31:14.000 --> 01:31:27.000
Well I went to the, I went to the top of that story, and a few other stories like that, and proposed that we have selected audience broadcast about the war message,
01:31:27.000 --> 01:31:29.000
We're right in the middle of the war.
01:31:29.000 --> 01:31:47.000
That was the end of me in the government agency. And the reason that it, the reason that I was fired, came right from the head of CBS. The president of CBS pointed his weight down, through the democracy, and said he wanted my head.
01:31:47.000 --> 01:32:02.000
And the reason for it, is very simple, that it meant that the CBS programs did not reach the whole market. You see? That there were other markets and the- than the particular kind of
01:32:02.000 --> 01:32:13.000
Media program that they were selling to the advertisers. That there were more kinds of taste out there than their particular medium represented,
01:32:13.000 --> 01:32:26.000
and they didn't want anybody to know there was anything else, and they weren't gonna have, they weren't gonna have war morale reach all those communities if it had to go that way.
01:32:26.000 --> 01:32:37.000
They wanted it done with "The Chesterfield Hour' approach and that was the end of that whole project in the government and uh, it just popped up here again on the mall.
01:32:37.000 --> 01:32:40.580
But I predict, you're gonna have a hell of a fight on your hands
01:32:44.000 --> 01:32:47.000
Speaker 1: "One more question, and then we'll close out."
01:32:47.000 --> 01:33:38.000
Speaker 2: "I did a study collecting a list of programs, post narrative programs throughout the United States. I was amazed to find that there were several hundred that I was able to collect. And I found out that most of those appear under the time brokerage arrangement. That the programs are directed and produced and directed by a private individual who goes to the radio station, buys a block of time and then he resells that time to advertisers and he plays his records or has his live music or whatever. And that is a very common pattern that the radio stations are willing to sell the block of time; this relates to your power element.
01:33:38.000 --> 01:34:30.000
And what happens in some communities is that these program directors or producers of these programs shift around frequently, every year or two to the radio station that will give them the best rates, you see, for the time that they buy. So they are often very stable in conducting these programs year after year but then the people have to search on the dial by these programs. So that, I just wanted to make a comment on that. And I did read some on this and it seems that this time brokerage, time broker arrangement was the most common pattern of uh financing uh and you know the radio programs, ethnic radio programs in general, not just ones that are represented here.
01:34:30.000 --> 01:34:45.000
Speaker 3: "You're absolutely right, that's exactly the way it is with all the European ethnic programs that I've uh come in contact with in in uh the East coast of America. Every single one of them works in that way. Except the ones in National Public Radio and in non-profit college stations and they're totally different."
01:34:45.000 --> 01:35:06.000
Speaker 1: "With that we'd like to go ahead and close the workshop. We appreciate uh you all for being a good audience certainly and a very attentive audience. And we'd like to ask for a big hand for Mr. Cohen[[?]], Dewey[[?]] Balfa[[?]], Sam Macrerie, Nick Malone[[?]], Nick Spitzer[[?]] and myself.
01:35:06.000 --> 01:35:11.380
Speaker 4: "Glenn Hensen[[?]]"
01:35:22.000 --> 01:35:25.000
Speaker 1: We're about to start another workshop here on the stage.
01:35:25.000 --> 01:35:30.000
Addressing more music and fewer issues.
01:35:30.000 --> 01:35:42.000
We're going to be now presenting two of the Blue Ridge's finest balladeers; Mr. Doug Wallin from Madison County, North Carolina and Frank Proffitt Jr. from Watauga County.
01:35:42.000 --> 01:36:33.000
They're going to be comparing and contrasting their ballad traditions, performing both traditional ballads from the British Isles as well as ballads rooted in this soil and probably a few party tunes and dance pieces to close out this set. All the while we'll be talking about the tradition how they came to learn and most importantly perhaps, what role do folklorists and song collectors play and have what role have they played in insuring the continuation and ongoing vigor of the ballad tradition in that area. Trying thus to link these two performers and their, their own relationship to song with the entire concept here at the folklife festival.
01:36:33.000 --> 01:37:18.336
[[inaudible background noise]]
