Arkansas Field Recordings on web

Subject: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Sourdough
Date: 08 Jul 00 - 03:33 AM

I just stumbled on what I think is a new bebsite that is being developed. It is made up of field recordings done in the late fifties by, of all things, a traveling salesman in the hill country. You can listen to them in Real Audio streaming or you can download them at near CD quality.

It looks as though they have only indexed and digitized the first fifty or so songs, starting with "A" and they are at "E".

I tried a number of songs and they were interesting. Among the recordings is "Dick German, the Cobbler". Yes, it is the American version of the song Tommy Makehem made familiar. It is late and I am tired so I haven't fexplored much of the site. I will leave it now for others to discover what treasures lie in it.

Sourdough Sorry to make you cut and paste but here is the URL:

http://www.smsu.edu/folksong/maxhunter/SongTitle.html

Sourdough

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Ed Pellow
Date: 08 Jul 00 - 07:53 AM

Thank you Sourdough - looks like a fantastic resource - won't be doing any work today...

Ed

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 08 Jul 00 - 08:12 AM

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

I've booked marked it and will study it more thoroughly later. Thank you, Sourdough!

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Margaret V
Date: 08 Jul 00 - 11:05 AM

Wow, Sourdough, this is fantastic! Thank you so much for making us aware of it. I think A through E will keep me busy for a while! Margaret

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Dale Rose
Date: 08 Jul 00 - 11:11 AM

There are many more things of interest at the The Shepard Room at The Springfield and Greene County, Missouri Library. The Max Hunter Collection is sponsored by them and by Southwest Missouri State University at Springfield. Here is an earlier thread which discusses the holdings in the Shepard Room. I mean to get up there in person sometime. I may not be able to get back home!

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: IanC
Date: 08 Jul 00 - 11:12 AM

Thanks, Sourdough!

I've added the thread to my tracer until I get time to set up a web bookmark to the site on my portable.

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Giac
Date: 08 Jul 00 - 11:45 AM

Sourdough -

I can never thank you enough for this link! If you search by artist, by the way, you can get a lot more songs. The treasure I found, however, which I must yet verify, is a singer named William Edens from Monte Ne (misspelled in their listing)Arkansas. In 1949, 1951 and 1952, I attended a girls camp at Monte Ne. The man in charge of the riding stables was a Bill Edens. Many evenings, he and some of his friends played music for square dancing at the camp pavilion, or at the lodge.

Can't be sure this is the same man, but it is awfully coincidental if not. Monte Ne isn't big enough to cuss a cat without gettin' hair in your mouth, so it seems pretty likely this is he. I remember him singing most of the songs credited to him in this listing. He let me play his guitar a few times and showed me a couple of chords.

Talk about a blast from the past! Thanks again, this is great.

Giac

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: IvanB
Date: 08 Jul 00 - 01:25 PM

Sourdough, wonderful site, and, actually, it seems many more are indexed and digitized than A to E. It seems when you go to the catalog by title, you are taken first to the A to E page, which is why those letters are 'grayed' out. But if you click on any other letter you'll go to the appropriate page for those titles. As a test, I clicked on and listened to a version of The Two Brothers and it worked fine.

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Sourdough
Date: 09 Jul 00 - 01:53 AM

IvanB: You're right, of course. I get some of my best exercise jumping to conclusions so when I saw the list ending at "E" and having read the intro where they said the site was under development... I can't get over how much is on this site. For some reason, my computer soundcard took tonight to be finicky so I am unable to listen to the singers.

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: PoohBear
Date: 09 Jul 00 - 02:16 AM

great site! bookmarked for future reference when i have a bit more time...thanks! Cheers....PoohBear

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 10 Jul 00 - 01:12 AM

Actually, I installed a link to the Max Hunter collection a few months ago--go the the links page of the Mudcat, look under the "M"s for "Max Hunter Folk Song Collection" and click from there. Or just get rid of the "SongTitle.html" portion of the above link, and you'll come in at a better window that'll give you a better idea of the scope of the collection.

The collection is searchable by song title, by source (the singer of the song), and by catalogue number. What's available is not just songs beginning with the letters A through E. There are almost 1600 songs in the collection, which are being digitized by catalogue number. As of last week (first week of July 2000), they were up to number 470 out of 1594.

And you're right--this is an incredible resource!

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Sourdough
Date: 10 Jul 00 - 01:42 AM

Giac - That's interesting. It sure does sound like it's the same man that you got to listen to back then. Don't you ove concidences like that? I'll bet that'd be a good thread, coincidence and music.

Charlie Baum - There's such a tremendous amount of information available that there doesn't seem time to look up all the links and I missed it on Mudcat Links but you sure did find a good source.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 10 Jul 00 - 02:35 PM

Sourdough--I didn't find the resource--the credit belongs to those who started the earlier Mudcat threads about the Max Hunter Collection. I just created the link at the links page.

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Arkansas Field Recordings on web
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 11 Jul 00 - 12:17 AM

I recorded Max Hunter singing songs from his collection back in the early 1960s. The record is out of print now, but we still offer the recording as a "custom casette" with the original booklet that went with the LP (containing notes written by Mary Celeste Parler and Vance Randolph). Max then gave me directions to the homes of several of his favorite singers, among them William Harrison Burnett, Ally Long Parker, etc. Burnett may be heard on my <1>Ballads and Songs of Tradition (CD-1005) -- the new collection of field recordings from the Folk-Legacy Archives. CLICK HERE then click on "custom" and look around.

Sandy