Lyr Add: Good Old Dora (Casse Culver)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Good Old Dora (Casse Culver)
From: oldhippie
Date: 07 Jun 17 - 07:49 PM

I used her "Crystal Skies" as a theme song for my radio show for awhile years ago. "Three Gypsies" was an excellent LP.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Good Old Dora (Casse Culver)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 17 - 03:28 AM

Casse Culver: Back To The Bars
by Rogi A. Rubyfruit

"It's time to leave the nest of the women's music circuit and take myself into country 'n western bars and festivals. I don't know what's going to happen. It's like getting in a spaceship and flying off to Venus."
For Casse Culver, veteran feminist musician, women's music has been a safe place, a cradled home in which her music was loved because it came from her. "I walk into a women's concert and can open up there in a way I never could in a male bar. But I'm happy to report, I'm feeling strong enough to jump out and see what happens. I might get real busted up and come back crawling. That's o.k., because I'm not going to stop doing my woman's work."
A good deal of Casse's woman's work can be found on her new album, Three Gypsies, produced by Wisewoman Enterprises and distributed by Olivia Records.
Casse is intrigued with the development of non-linear feminine methods of communication. Her music, a saucy blend of cow-dyke twang and east coast metaphor, actually has a chance of making it on the straight country 'n western circuit. It combines farce, fantasy, and fury, into a moving display of her own life and politics.
"A woman's concert and participating in ritual are very similar. The ritual is more intense because there are fewer of us and we're all doing exactly the same thing. We all become, at once, the performers and the audience. It's taking the performance situation and distilling it. It's hanging out with the girls and havin' a good time!"

TRIBAL PROFESSIONALISM
Casse is determined to make a living from her music. Any other work for her is a "shit" job. But using art to make a living "puts a burden on the art that shouldn't be there," she knows. "one of my greatest fantasies is being in a garden full of women working. I pick up my autoharp and sing so our work will go easier. Someday I would like to live with a tribe of women."
Within the tribe we now have, Casse has noticed that women are not making their own work easy.
"I'd like to see them (producers, technicians, etc.) take themselves more seriously. I'm getting the amount of money I request, but they're still volunteering their labor. We've got to be more realistic about how much ticket prices have to be in order to support all the labor that goes into putting on a concert.
The way matriarchal economics might work is that with small audiences, each of us has to bear more of the burden. Ticket prices have to be higher, workers have to get paid less. Instead of increasing ticket prices to capitalize on the fame of the star-trip, as the patriarchs do, we matriarchs should decrease ticket price as the audience grows larger. Vhen you're playing to audiences of 3,000, the ticket prices can reasonably be brought down to $2.00. Some women are still afraid to ask for what they need o survive, afraid to put a price of $3.00 on a ticket. There also has to be education to show the grass, expenses, and net profit — if any."
Casse may be growin' and goin', but she's not doing it alone. She's now looking around for women musicians who, "have been working hard on their craft and are willing to take this risk." She wants to be part of an all woman team, and wants to know "Anyone for the Belle Star Band?"

from Lesbian Tide, Mar/April 1977

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Good Old Dora (Casse Culver)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 17 - 03:24 AM

CASSE CULVER
Lesbian/feminist, Casse Culver, has been writing and singing her own material since 1963. Her career began as a streetsinger in Washington, D.C. , and, in 1969 she was signed to a publishing and recording contract by Albert Grossman. Refusing to write top-40 material, Casse won a release from Bearsville Records in January and has since been free to present her music in her own way, void of veneer and flash.
Casse's material moves audiences from footstomping exhuberance to silent reflection, including everything from country music for city folks to love songs to women. Her music is strongly tied to her commitment to the women's movement as is especially clear in It Was Me, which was written during the mid-60's.
Casse toured the United States this summer playing for women's groups. Plans for the fall include opening a 4-track recording studio for women, cutting her own album, and of course concerts. The studio will be rented out by the day for practically the same fee commercial studios rent out for by the hour... $50. Inquiries are welcome. Contact: Casse Culver, 217 12th St, SE Washington, DC 20003, [phone].

From article in Paid My Dues, October 1974

Subject: Lyr Add: Good Old Dora (Casse Culver)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 17 - 03:16 AM

GOOD OLD DORA
(Casse Culver)

There's not a person who could hold me here
Like trying to hold on to a river
Not a man nor a mountain that could make me insecure
No way to separate or sever

CHORUS
Good Old Dora nurses me when I'm ill
Good Old Dora flatters me when I'm well
She brings the bucket and I bring the sponge
And together we're gonna clean up this whole town!

I watch the fish, they're moving like quick-silver
They never make a wrong or awkward turn
They never ask 'What's received?' or 'Who's the giver?'
They reveal there's so much we can learn

Well, autumn is a fine time for long talks in the evening
And having your friends and music handy
No use sighing about the summer's leaving
Every season has her home and family

Looking down the lane I'm a-wondering how to go
I pause to check my sense of direction
One rugged mile, gonna take it kinda slow
Next stop we make is at perfection!

words and music by Casse Culver, ©1975 by Casse Culver



Casse Culver performs some good old ditties like "First Unto This Country," but is known best for her own compositions, such as "Good Old Dora," a rollicking, foot-stomping, sing-along song of women-friend-energy. It's on her album Three Gypsies, produced by Urana Records, Wise Women Enterprises, Inc., P.O. Box 33, Stonington, Maine 04681, distributed by Olivia Records, P.O. Box 707237, L.A., CA 90070.


Source: Sing Out! Magazine, Volume 25, Number 6, 1977 - page 30

Also in the Rise Up Singing Songbook

I'll type up a MIDI if you ask. [e-mail]

More information about Casse Culver and this song: http://queermusicheritage.com/nov2004cc.html