Real Art on WMFT!

Subject: Real Art on WMFT!
From: Dale Rose
Date: 29 Nov 98 - 03:51 AM

I was listening to the monthly Old Time Music Show on WMFT from Tampa, Florida, and about 13 minutes into the second hour, this guy comes on and I think to myself, "Boy, that guy sounds like Art! No, that is Art! He was doing Fair Margaret and Sweet William. They followed that up with a couple of nifty songs by Suzanne Thomas from her new CD on Rounder, including one of my favorites, Faded Coat of Blue.

Then the fellow comes on and talks about the music, including this gem, "Art Theme, Art Thime, never do know how to pronounce his name~~whatever his name is!" He gives a good plug for the album, available on Waterbug, just in case you haven't gotten around to getting your copy yet. Then he plays Art's version of Bye and Bye. Recommended listening!

OK, enough jabber. Punch the REAL ART button to go directly to the Real Audio archive of the show. They archive their shows for a month, so you have a little while yet to catch the show, originally broadcast on November 7.

You've got several choices here. Preferred, of course, is to listen to the whole works, but if you just can't wait to get to a real work of Art, then here is how I recommend you get there. It is a two hour show broken up into two segments. First listen to their opening spiel which is only 24 seconds long. As soon as the first hour loads, run the slider down toward the end of the hour, and let it run over into the second hour long segment. As soon as that one loads, run the slider down to about 12 minutes. Art will be up right away!

WMFT has a number of shows that you all would likely be interested in, including a Celtic Show on Thursday evenings. One note of caution, their site is maddeningly slow since it is loaded up with totally unnecessary graphics. Here is a link to their Saturday Archives, which you can use to get anywhere you want to go on their site. You won't find the Old Time Music Show listed, it is always the first Saturday of the month in the Saturday Bluegrass slot.

Subject: RE: Real Art on WMFT!
From: Dale Rose
Date: 29 Nov 98 - 06:18 AM

I don't know where I got WMFT. Make that WMNF. It is late/early. That accounts for the html error, too~~at least that is what I am blaming it on.

Subject: RE: Real Art on WMFT!
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 29 Nov 98 - 12:51 PM

I heard Art just last night on WETA out of Washington, D.C., on Mary Cliff's show called "Traditions." She knew how to pronounce your name, Art (of course, Art is pretty hard to get wrong). She got the Thieme part right, too! She played "Way Down the Road" and another song about people getting stuck in the wilds on vacation and cooking up the pet poodles, Fi Fi and Foo Foo. Art, do you remember what booming 12-string you were playing on "Way Down the Road"? Sounded as loud as an orchestra.

Mary was also nice enough to mention your new CD on Waterbug records. Aren't folk DJ's some of the nicest people?

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Real Art on WMFT!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 Dec 98 - 11:09 PM

Thanks for your comments folks. They're appreciated.

And thanks to Mary Cliff and her long-running radio show in D.C. too. The 2 songs Mary chose to play are both by old friend Craig Johnson.

(And Mr. Roger,thanks for giving away the punch line to the song about the family trip to da U.P..!!@#$%^&*(*&^%$#@! ;-)

Truly, Craig has written some wonderful songs. He was living in an old folkie house with wonderful non-stop music in DC then. I'm sure Mary Cliff knows him well. One party with Alice & Mike & Cathy Fink and many others at that house with a hollowed out watermellon filled with moonshine (as I remember it) will stay with me even though I try hard to get it out o' my head. As a member of the Double Decker String Band (with Bruce Hutton & John Beam) he's one of the most tasteful and expert old-timey musicians I've ever heard.

That's NOT a 12-string guitar on "Way Down The Road". It's a 9-string guitar. Some here at Mudcat know I can't pick any more (MS) and in the past, before it got so I couldn't play the instruments, I'd do anything to stay on the road makin' a living. Sooooo, I took the Martin D-76 bicentennial guitar that I'd won in a raffle at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music (cost me $3.00) and drilled 3 extra holes in the center of the tuning stock. I put 3 banjo tuners (straight-through planetary gears)in those holes to make a 9-string guitar. That idea was one I got from hanging around Big Joe Williams--the great Mississippi blues singer---when I was younger. He had installed a 3-tuner metal strip across the top of his tuner stock. (one stuck out past the wood.

For me, the idea was to get a BIG SOUND. The SINGLE bass strings kept the instrument from having a muddy sound like so many 12-strings have with their doubled octave strings. I wanted clear bass. I doubled up on the treble strings--all 3 pairs of those were unison strings. Also,I tuned way down (a full note--sometimes a bit more) and kept a capo on the first fret to lower the action even further. (Anything to make up for what I thought of as diminishing instrumental expertise.) Then I did more strumming (ala Bob Gibson) and less intricate picking.

And that particular room in the University Of Wisconsin Memorial Union had a tremendous amount of echo, but Tom Martin-Erickson (WIS Public Radio) did a great job of recording my concert that night. I wanted to lead off the CD with that track, but Paul Stamler thought (and I eventually agreed) that DJs would notice the less than pristine sound on that track and not listen any further.

When my hands got worse,I went back to 6 strings---and then to a 000-18-----always keeping the strings tuned quite low and a capo at the first fret; kept to the first 5 frets too.

The above is why the CD is taken from older concerts.

Again thanks for talkin' up the CD!

Art

Subject: RE: Real Art on WMFT!
From: Bo
Date: 02 Dec 98 - 04:05 AM

Thanks for talking up the guitar mods frankly and honestly. You're a great resource.

Bo

Itchin to try a 9string guitar.

Subject: RE: Real Art on WMFT!
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 02 Dec 98 - 06:09 AM

Sorry, Ary. I just lost my head (and the song's tail) in all my excitement. You know it was funny even before the punch line. Thanks for the info on the 9 string. It sounds like it worked the way you planned. Good thinking.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Real Art on WMFT!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Dec 98 - 01:49 PM

Another numb hands tip to guitar players:

I, also, used heavy gauge strings when I went back to a smaller 6-string guitar. These THICKER strings made it easier for me to "feel" the strings and ie. to make chords. I'd still keep the strings tuned a full note low and always used a capo for that fraction of an inch lower action. Played gigs only closer to home. (Tied in with the Mississippi River cruise gigs I did for nearly a decade more...)

Subject: RE: Real Art on WMFT!
From: northfolk
Date: 03 Dec 98 - 10:24 PM

I've always believed in art for art's sake...so this year I'm going to continue the indoctrination process by giving my son Art's CD for some holiday that falls near the winter solstice....