Subject: RE: over 250 new PLACES photos at Art'sPlace
From:
Azizi
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 07:05 AM
BK Lick, thanks for confirming that it's fine to write comments about those photographs. I guess I knew that, but I didn't didn't know that visitor comments would show up beneath the photo for public viewing.
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With regard to the instruments being played {or in the case of the little girl, pretending to being played}, I went back to view that photo again. Bookmiller Shannon is playing a banjo and the little girl is playing a guitar.
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Perhaps I'm the only one here who didn't know anything about Bookmiller Shannon. But, in case there are others, I'm going to take the liberty of reposting an article about that renown banjo player. This is the entire article with the exception of its ending reminder about a scheduled radio program of his music that was held the week this article was released:
"Carlos "Bookmiller" Shannon, born on Cow Mountain, Jan. 16, 1908, played the five-string banjo with fellow Stone County native Jimmie "Driftwood" Morris, among others in the area. In October 1959 in Timbo, Shannon recorded several banjo solos for Alan Lomax.
The sessions were coordinated with the help of Driftwood; Driftwood's father, Neal Morris, and folklorist John Quincy Adams. Lomax also recorded folk performers in Landis and Herpel. Driftwood's father also gathered players, performed himself and offered this commentary — courtesy of his own Arkansas father, also a teacher: "Dad [said] music had no end. That you could learn all the other guy learned, and after you got that down, then something else would crop up ... that's why music advanced ... that it would fit the time in which they lived. They said music grew like the grapevine that is never pruned, that each year it put on a little bit more."
"Bookmiller" Shannon was the only performer recorded during the North Arkansas sessions not born in the 19th century, but he still pulled out some good examples of what was becoming popular in the United States as "folk music."
The song "Buffalo Gals," recorded by Shannon and endemic enough in American culture to be prominently featured in the 1947 movie "It's a Wonderful Life," dates to minstrel days. The wonderfully titled "Down in Arkansas Among the Sticks" was later immortalized on the long-running country music TV show "Hee-Haw."
The origins of "Cotton-Eyed Joe," are murky. It's a dance, a song — and may have been a real person. And what does it mean to be "cotton-eyed"? The "Cotton-Eyed Joe" has been used in both black and white square dance halls for many decades.
Some say "The Eighth of January" was composed to commemorate the War of 1812; others say the tune may have already been in existence and merely renamed for the U.S. victory over Britain.
"Bookmiller" Shannon recorded his banjo version of "The Eighth of January," but the tune has special meaning for Jimmie Driftwood, as he took the basic melody and crafted it into his "Battle of New Orleans." Coincidentally, Driftwood's song was a hit the same year Lomax's ancient-sounding field recordings were made.
"In the dark and tangled hills of the state of Arkansas," Lomax wrote after making his recordings, "the approved mode of conduct was nonconformism, whether this meant a life of train robbing like Jesse James or simply of reciting songs and bawdy stories." But "Bookmiller" Shannon let his banjo tell his stories. He died June 28, 1985, his five-string banjo techniques studied and lauded across America.
http://arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=54620419-e756-4a33-a1f0-1eb7b8249254
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Also, here's a link to a interview Bookmiller Shannon gave to a school student:
http://www.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/shannoninterview1305.html
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sj
