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15 Dec 02 - 10:20 AM (#847762) Subject: Songcatcher movie From: Porky the Buffet Slayer Saw a DVD movie last night called "Songcatcher," about a folklorist collecting traditional folk songs in Appalachia in 1907. A very good movie with some excellent traditional music and dancing. In the director's commentary on the DVD, she said she took many fictional liberties and that it was a tribute to folklorists like Cecil Sharp who did the real collecting about 10 years later. |
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15 Dec 02 - 11:21 AM (#847777) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Keith A of Hertford Wow, first sighting for months! |
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15 Dec 02 - 11:48 AM (#847785) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: GUEST, Goosed Really? There's a movie titled "Songcatcher" about a folksong collector? Amazing that nobody's started a thread on Mudcat before this. Goosed |
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15 Dec 02 - 11:55 AM (#847789) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Steve Latimer Porky, Love your handle. You have opened yourself up to some snide comments on this one. There have been several threads on Songcatcher, so many in fact that it has become a bit of a running gag here. Thanks for posting, I assume that you are new here. Welcome. I try to make a habit of doing a thread search before posting to see if it has been discussed before. If it has I simply post to the existing thread. Don't let the locals scare you away, we'd love to hear more from you. |
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15 Dec 02 - 11:57 AM (#847792) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Keith A of Hertford Sorry if I came across as snide. Only kidding. Best wishes, Keith. |
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15 Dec 02 - 12:00 PM (#847794) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: GUEST, Goosed Same here. As Steve Latimer notes, the threads on "Songcatcher" have become a running gag. Welcome Porky. Goosed |
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15 Dec 02 - 12:29 PM (#847809) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Uncle_DaveO When the movie was new I kept watching for it to show locally. Missed the few showings. I've been bugging my video rental outfit for it ever since, but no such luck. I think they think it's too small and specialized a market for them to carry it. Dave Oesterreich |
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15 Dec 02 - 12:38 PM (#847811) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Banjer Wait til 'Spaw sees this...Din't he threaten some kind of Hari-kari if he saw 'just one more mention'? Teheeee....gotta love it!! Welcome to Porky the Buffet Slayer. Wait til ya meet 'Spaw...he'll tell all ya ever wanted to know about Songcatcher!! |
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15 Dec 02 - 12:45 PM (#847815) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Banjer Porky, If you will go to the thread search function and date it back three years it will give you all the threads that have come about on this movie. There may be information in some of them that is vital. |
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15 Dec 02 - 12:55 PM (#847822) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Ed. Or just do a filter |
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15 Dec 02 - 01:23 PM (#847830) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Barry Finn Here's just a bit on Dame Olive Campbell & don't discount her just because Cecil Sharp casts a long shadow. She stood on her own & never in the shadow of Cecil Or her husband John. In 1916, Cecil Sharp was collecting ballads and Jack Tales in and around Madison County, NC. Sharp was an English musician and collector. The following is from Betty Smith' book. In 1916 Cecil Sharp, an English musician and collector, came to Maidson County. He was interested in songs and ballads of British origin. The "Laurel Country" along the North Carolina – Tennessee border proved to be fertile ground. Sharp visited singers in five Appalachian states, but here he found the most primitive conditions and the most songs. Sharp brought with him an assistant, Maud Karpels, and for the first time both texts and tunes were written down. From Jane Gentry he collected seventy songs and ballads, more than from any other singer he encountered in the Southern Appalachians. Forty of these are included in Sharp's English Folk Song s from the Southern Appalachians, a collection unparalleled in America. We know about Jane Gentry and her songs because of an incredible set of circumstances linking John and Olive Campbell, the Russell Sage Foundation, Frances Goodrich, the Presbyterians, Dorland Institute, and Cecil Sharp. Sharp came to the southern mountains at the request of Olive Dame Campbell, wife of John C. Campbell, director of the Southern Highland Division of the Russell Sage Foundation. Beginning in 1907, John Campbell traveled through out the southern mountains for more than ten years doing a social survey, and his wife often traveled with him. It was in December 1907, on one of their first field trips, that they visited Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky. Olive Campbell, a New Englander, had sung, "Barbara Allen" as a child, but during his visit she heard it sung by Ada Smith, one of the students. 'Twas in the merry month of May, The green buds were swelling, Poor William Green on his death bed lay For the love of Barb'ra Ellen. Campbell (John or Olive?) was overwhelmed by this experience and wrote: Shall I ever forget it! The blazing fire, the young girl on her low stool before it, the soft strange strumming of the banjo – different from anything I had heard before – and then the song! I had been used to singing "Barbara Allen" as a child, but how far from that gentle tune was this – so strange, so remote, so thrilling. I was lost almost from the first note, and the pleasant room faded from sight; the singer only a voice. I saw again the long road over which we had come, the dark hills, the rocky streams bordered by tall hemlocks and hollies, the lonely cabins distinguishable at night only by the firelight flaring from their chimneys. The these, too, faded, and I seemed to be borne along into a still more dim and distant past, of which I myself was a part. Barry |
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15 Dec 02 - 02:35 PM (#847858) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Banjer Thanks Ed, for clarifying. That's what I meant but just didn't word it right. |
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15 Dec 02 - 02:48 PM (#847863) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: catspaw49 Y'all know this turkey is running on HBO about all the damn time for the past two months? Pork, welcome to the 'Cat and I would normally become apoplectic at the starting of yet another thread on this, but I'll cut you some slack.........Now don't do it again...........I gotta' go get some Maalox............. Spaw |
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15 Dec 02 - 03:13 PM (#847874) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Porky the Buffet Slayer Sorry if I opened up a can of worms. I thought there must have been some discussion about Songcather before so I did a search of the Forum from the box that says "Lyrics and Knowledge Search" and it returned no results. So, I just assumed that this movie, which seems much more relevant to Mudcat than some of the discussions here, was somehow missed. I now see that it's the filter search that works. BTW, I heard about this movie a couple of years ago, but it sure never came to any theater around here. So I thought maybe it was one of those things that gets made but never released, and that's why I couldn't find any discussion of it. I was pleasantly surprised to find it on DVD yesterday at Blockbuster. It's a good movie and it honors folk music, the traditional culture, and the folklorists who collected it. Even if it was fictionalized. |
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15 Dec 02 - 03:57 PM (#847898) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Mudlark Great nom de Mudcat, Porky....welcome. Barry...thanks for your input. The quote at the end, especially, was lovely and so evocative of the Ozarks as well, back in the late 60's/early 70's. In Madison County, Ark. when we moved there in 1970 there were still many rural mountain homes w/o electricity or running water. I can still remember coming from California, a total city girl, wondering what all those little houses out back were for... In our area there was not such a strong music tradition, but oh, the storytelling. I often wished for a tape recorder, but most of these shy people would have clammed up at even the mention... |
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15 Dec 02 - 06:01 PM (#847944) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Mark Cohen I'm mighty proud of you, 'Spaw. But if the Maalox doesn't work, what you got to do is go into that little house out back and give a good long holler. Maybe even a scream or two. It'll make you feel better. Somebody mentioned this movie at a music party I went to last night in Hauula (not to be confused with Haaula, which is the next town down the coast). She said she has a friend, an ethnomusicologist in North Carolina, who saw the movie and then read her a list of about 30 factual inaccuracies! It reminds me of when I was a medical student in the summer of '76, working with the rescue squads in the Philadelphia Fire Dept. I would be sitting in the firehouse watching "Rescue!" (later called "Rescue 911") with the firemen. I would say, "No way! You don't give oral phenobarbital to a child who's having a seizure!" and the firemen would say, "No way! You don't take a 2 1/2 inch hose into a building that size--gotta be at least a 3 1/2!" Welcome to the 'Cat, Porky. Aloha, Mark |
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15 Dec 02 - 06:17 PM (#847948) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Jeri I sit yelling at Public Health inaccuracies. Cujo: "Dammit, you do NOT show symptoms that fast with rabies and that dog probably wouldn't be able to walk let alone jump on a car!" And commercials "She's supposed to be a CHEF?! She's got a freakin' wristwatch on!" Doesn't do any good at all. SuperSearch isn't currently working in the forum - just the DT. Not surprising previous threads couldn't be found. I was going to link to them but I couldn't find 'em. |
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15 Dec 02 - 06:24 PM (#847951) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: GUEST,Q Ed picked up 13 threads with his filter (above). |
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15 Dec 02 - 06:28 PM (#847955) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Jeri AHA! Thanks Q and Ed. I was using SuperSearch - I'm afraid I really like using it. I miss having it. I miss a lot of things - like Ed's post. |
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15 Dec 02 - 08:12 PM (#848005) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: SINSULL Is there a "Songs from Songcatcher" CD? hee heee heeeee. |
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15 Dec 02 - 08:38 PM (#848016) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: dick greenhaus Sinsull- Yes, there's a "soundtrack" CD, but it doesn't have the voices from the movie. Most of the movie characters were actors, not singers, and they only learned the verses that appeared in the film. |
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15 Dec 02 - 08:40 PM (#848017) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: GUEST,Q Yep, believe it or not, the producers couldn't restrain themselves. It was a Vanguard release. Many songs were fragmentary, and changed for the actors (the chuckling by SINSULL somehow leads me to believe that she knew this). Only 4 of the tracks were of songs in the movie, itself. Vanguard has attempted to redeem itself by releasing Songcatcher II, which "is authentic....Most of the recordings on this CD are around 40 years old..." Songs sung by Doc Watson, Sarah Guning, Doc Boggs, Maybelle Carter, etc. Seventeen tracks but only 46 minutes, however, a cheat. The list is at Songcatcher II |
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15 Dec 02 - 08:47 PM (#848020) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: GUEST, Goosed Well, the Vanguard people did go a long way toward redeeming themselves. The difference between the soundtrack CD and Songcatcher II is like the difference between night and day. It certainly could have been mad longer thought. Goosed |
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16 Dec 02 - 10:43 AM (#848161) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: dick greenhaus Soncatcher II had the considerable advantage of having Sheila Kay Adams as a consultant. It's apparently outtakes from early Newport Festivals, which ain't bad. Available at CAMSCO, of course. 800/548-FOLK (3655) |
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16 Dec 02 - 11:42 AM (#848196) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: nickp Despite its poor reviews, I wanted to get a copy on video but it's unlikely to make it out on general shop release in the US - let alone here in the UK. Managed to get an ex-rental copy via Amazon (they have some uses) including postage for less than I can buy a new video here (or maybe even over there!). I was lucky maybe having seen similar for much more. OK so it leaves a huge amount to be desired but it was filmed near Asheville - our favourite holiday place - and we know some of the extras, so it was worth a shot. Can't say I'd watch it often and squirm at the less accurate bits - but it'll get watched from time to time. Wouldn't pay the full rental price (about $70 then) but was happy with the $12! As for the cd... I've avoided the first but may consider the 2nd. Nick |
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16 Dec 02 - 02:44 PM (#848339) Subject: RE: Songcatcher movie From: Melani Well, I don't mind another thread on "Songcatcher"--it reminded me that I haven't seen it yet. |