The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #67966 Message #1141376
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
19-Mar-04 - 08:37 PM
Thread Name: The Weavers and the McCarthy Era
Subject: RE: The Weavers and the McCarthy Era
Ron Olesko has me trying to remember just what interested me in folk music. Being from the southwest, many of the cowboy songs and western poems were known to me, and we sang them indoors or out, riding on school buses and even, sometimes, on horseback. My home area was over 50% Spanish- speaking. so we knew many of those songs as well. With college came the bawdy ballads of Oscar Brand. The Kingston Trio became a part of it, as well as a collection of old recordings of Irish melodies of my grandmother's- mostly commercial arrangements as I remember. We listened to the Weavers, but I think the scratchy recordings of Jimmie Rodgers and his yodels (my father had collected them), and of the jug bands and the like were even more appreciated. Rather a strange melange, but typical, I think, of folk music influences outside of the major centers, and outside of the Appalachian-Piedmont, and in my part of America.
I am probably getting the order and dates mixed up, but at my age, memories sort of blend together.
Does anyone remember Walter Winchell? His "newscasts" were widely listened to. I remember he made some remarks about the German Sangerunde (Sp.?) Hall in Austin, TX, outside of which we drank gallon upon gallon of dark beer in their Garten. He misfired (as he often did) by accusing it of being a Nazi center, but nearly all of the Germans there were descendants of settlers who came during the 19th century. Of course he was taken seriously by people from outside of central Texas. In some ways he was a tinpot McCarthy. This was 1940, the year before I was invited to serve in the Army.