Folk sound USA

Subject: Folk sound USA
From: Cool Beans
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 10:37 PM

Who among us remembers a TV special, circa 1961, entitled "Folk Sound USA"? It aired once, and only once, on, I believe, CBS. Cisco Houston was the host. A very young Joan Baez sang "Plaisir D'Amour" and a similarly youthful Peter Yarrow, sans Paul or Mary, sang "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime." Also showcased were Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Mildred Bailey, Frank Warner and Flatt & Scruggs (doing "Salty Dog Blues"). Is there a video available? Or did I hallucinate the whole thing? It does not appear in the video archive of the Museum of TV and Radio in New York (but they do have the first episode of "Dr. Kildare.")

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: Anglo
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 01:34 AM

I recently saw a film clip of Lightnin Hopkins (included on an instruction video), he sang "Pull a Party " in a moderately lecherous manner, and I was surprised to see the camera often cutting to the face of a very young Joan Baez. Would this be from that? If so, the rest of it must be around somewhere.

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: Cool Beans
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 08:44 AM

Nope. Hopkins sang a different song on the show; it'll come to me eventually. But the time frame must have been close.

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 01:13 PM

YES, I watched it. I taped the audio onto a huge old 2-track Webcor treel-to-reel tape recorder with a hand-held microphone sitting on the floor of my mother's house in front of the only coclor TV in the high-rise building I grew up in in Chicago. I had thought that the show aired in 1959---the year I was senior in highschool.

To this day, I can see Cisco walking out onto the stage with his guitar saying,

"MY NAME IS CISCO HOUSTON---FOLKSINGER---AND I'VE BEEN ON THE ROAD A GOOD PART OF MY LIFE !"

Then he sang the best version of Woddy Guthrie's "I've Been Havin' Some Hard Travelin'" that, to this day, Ive ever heard. Baez was there for sure. So were Scruggs and Flatt, Casey Anderson, John Lee Hooker doin' his song about "The Tupelo, Mississippi Flood". John Jacob Niles was there as was Frank Warner. A chorus did a musical version of Walt Whitman's poem "I Hear America Singing" (the worst thing on the show).

LONG AGO that tape became unplayable. The iron oxide was flaking off all over the heads and the acetate was as brittle as hell. Before I got rid of all of those tapes, I managed to dub off some of it onto a cassette. It's a lousy recording. But Cisco is there. So is John Lee and Scruggs and Frank Warner. But I'm really glad to have that much of it. Those reels of mine (over 250 of them) are probably in a landfill somewhere. I donated them all to The Old Town School Of Folk Music back in the 70s--but they disappeared.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 01:15 PM

A few years ago I started another thread here also looking for a video of this program. No luck !

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: GUEST,Cool Beans
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 01:56 PM

Thanks, Art, for the reality check! I too taped the audio on a reel-to-reel (a Bell, not a Webcor) but have no idea what happened to the tape. I was in high school, too. I remember that Flatt and Scruggs performed "Earl's Breakdown." I had never heard the term before, except preceded by "nervous." It didn't seem the sort of subject you'd would write a tune about, especially such a jaunty one. Oh, Lightning Hopkins sang a song called "Maude."

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: Pinetop Slim
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 01:51 PM

The lament in this thread, Carolyn Hester's upcoming two-part radio program, a recent visit to the Cat by Hedy West, a stop at Oscar Brand's website, the Ramblin Jack movie, Odetta's new recording -- it all has me thinking how much I'd enjoy a Legends of Folk Music tour; a series of master classes by the masters. Something, anyway, that could give us one more treat from the people who made folk music exciting in the late '50s and early '60s, and one more chance to show them our appreciation. Judging from Pete Seeger's and Jean Ritchie's continuing concerts, folk music is like fine wine in that it improves with age.

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: Cool Beans
Date: 02 Jun 10 - 11:58 AM

I FOUND IT!!!! A mere 10 years after I began this thread, I watched Folk Sound USA at the Paley Media Center in New York (formerly the Museum of Broadcasting, formerly the Museum of TV and Radio). Art, it is exactly as we remembered it. The show aired in June, 1960, on CBS, sponsored by Revlon (the commercials are included). The choral version of Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" is godawful; I believe it was composed by a random note generator. The rest of the show is quite wonderful. It was the first time I ever heard bluegrass and I immediately fell in love. A year later I got my first guitar.

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Jun 10 - 05:47 PM

Cool-Beans,
As I told you in my reply to your P.M., I am amazed that they named the museum in New York after Tom Paley!!! (Just kidding.)

That choral arrangement really was off tune I think! When I dubbed my original sound tape onto a cassette, that was one of the songs I didn't bother to hold onto.

A question for you! I don't remember Lightning Hopkins being on the show. I know he wasn't on my tape. Was he on the video you saw??!

Art

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Jun 10 - 07:42 PM

Cool Beans, did you get any indication whether this program might be made available to those of us who can't get to Manhattan? DVD? Online?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: GUEST,open mike
Date: 02 Jun 10 - 08:45 PM

there might be copies available thru the center..
the film archive center that had copies of Kendall's
t.v. show was able to make copies...

here is the page about it and no one has commented yet

http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=folk+sound&p=1&item=T84:0155

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 04:48 AM

Frank Warner did not sing Blue Mountain--as the article from the Paley Center indicates. Frank Warner sang the New York state lumberjack ballad called "The Rackets We Had Round The Blue Mountain Lake" or simply "Blue Mountain Lake" which came from an informant named Yankee John Galusha.

"Blue Mountain" is a cowboy song from Monticello, Utah that was written by Judge Fred Keller.

And it seems Lightning Hopkins was not on this CBS program.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: DebC
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 08:09 PM

All I can say is....WOW.

Deb Cowan

Subject: RE: Folk sound USA
From: GUEST,RCarolinian
Date: 20 Nov 15 - 01:24 PM

John Lee Hooker was the blues singer on the show. Somewhere I have seen a reference to the young Bob Dylan being influenced by the show. Ring a bell with anyone?