Alan Govenar (56 page)

4. Rediscovery

1.
Allan Turner, “History as Close as a Turntable,”
Houston Chronicle,
Section 7, November 16, 1986.

2.
John A. Lomax Jr., “The Life and Times of John Lomax, Jr.,”
Houston Folklore Bulletin,
5:5, John Avery Lomax Family Powers, 1842, 1853–1986, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, Box 3D 218. Others involved in founding the Houston Folklore Group include Ed Badeaux, Chester Bower, and Harold Belikoff. “Hootenanny at the Alley, July 20, 1959” program. Lomax Family Papers Box 3D 215.

3.
Richard Carlin,
Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways
(New York: HarperCollins, 2008), pp. 28–31.

4.
Samuel Barclay Charters IV,
Jazz: New Orleans 1885–1957,
Jazz Monographs No. 2, February 1958 (Bellville, NJ: Walter C. Allen). This monograph is not a book per se. It was privately published and was an index to “the Negro musicians of New Orleans.”

5.
Sam Charters, interview by Alan Govenar, March 13, 2008.

6.
Samuel B. Charters, liner notes to
Lightnin' Hopkins,
Folkways LP 3822.

7.
Chris Strachwitz, interview by Alan Govenar, July 12, 2009.

8.
Ibid.

9.
Charters, Folkways LP 3822.

10.
Samuel B. Charters,
The Country Blues
(New York: Da Capo, 1975), pp. 254–261.

11.
Carlin, pp. 111–133.

12.
Sam Charters, March 13, 2008.

13.
Ibid.

14.
Ibid.

15.
Ibid.

16.
Ibid.

17.
Undated correspondence from Sam Charters to Moses Asch. Moses and Frances Asch Collection, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Lightning Hopkins file.

18.
Sam Charters, interview by Alan Govenar, March 13, 2008.

19.
Strachwitz, July 12, 2009.

20.
Mack McCormick, in Chris Strachwitz's, “Lightnin' Hopkins Discography, Pt. 2,”
Jazz Monthly,
no.10 (December 1959), p. 14.

21.
Strachwitz, July 12, 2009.

22.
Ibid.

23.
In the early twentieth century,
hootenanny
referred to things whose names were forgotten or unknown and was synonymous with
thingamajig
or
whatchamacallit.
It was also an old-country word for
party.
In various interviews, Seeger said that he first heard the word
hootenanny
in the late 1930s in Seattle, Washington, where Hugh DeLacy's New Deal political club used it as a name for their monthly music fundraisers. In New York City, Seeger and the Almanac Singers (1940–41) adopted the word
hootenanny
to describe their folk music events, as did other groups focused on traditional music, including People's Songs (1946–1949), People's Artists (1949–1956), and
Sing Out!
magazine (1957).

24.
Kyla Bynum, interview by Alan Govenar, August 30, 2008.

25.
Ibid.

26.
Mack McCormick, Liner notes to
The Rooster Crowed in England,
77 (UK) LP 12/1.

27.
Ibid.

28.
Timothy O'Brien, MA thesis, p. 64.

29.
This show was in the original Alley Theatre location that only held about two hundred people, not the existing Alley Theatre, built in 1968, which seats eight hundred.

30.
Interview with McCormick, Timothy O'Brien, MA thesis, p. 65.

31.
“Hootenanny Scores Hit,”
Houston Post.
Arhoolie Records clipping file.

32.
Bill Byers, “‘Hootenanny' Singers Win Applause at Alley Program,”
Houston Chronicle,
July 21, 1959.

33.
Mack McCormick, undated letter to John Lomax Jr. papers. Op cited. Box 3D folder 318.

34.
John S. Wilson, “Lightnin' Hopkins Rediscovered,”
New York Times,
August 23, 1959.

35.
Kyla Bynum, interview by Alan Govenar August 30, 2008.

36.
Charlotte Phelan, “Song Maker,”
Houston Post,
August 23, 1959.

37.
Mack McCormick, liner notes to
Lightnin' Hopkins, Country Blues,
Tradition LP 1035. What McCormick apparently didn't understand at the time was that a good portion of Lightnin's repertoire was probably gleaned from phonograph records.

38.
Mack McCormick, liner notes to
Lightnin' Hopkins, Country Blues,
Tradition LP 1035.

39.
Patrick B. Mullen,
The Man Who Adores the Negro: Race and American Folklore
(Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008), p. 122.

40.
Benjamin Filene, p. 116.

41.
Sam Charters,
The Country Blues,
New York: Da Capo Press, 1975, p. 266.

42.
Mack McCormick, “Lightnin' Hopkins: Blues,”
The Jazz Review,
Vol. 3, no. 1 (January, 1960). Reprinted in
Jazz Panorama: From the Pages of Jazz Review,
edited by Martin Williams, New York: Crowell-Collier Press, 1962, p. 313.

43.
Isabelle Ganz, interview by Alan Govenar, August 28, 2008.

44.
Kyla Bynum, interview by Alan Govenar, August 30, 2008.

45.
For more information on
Sweatt v. Painter,
see Robert D. Bullard,
Invisible Houston: The Black Experience in Boom and Bust
(College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1986), pp. 126–129.

46.
Benny Joseph, interview by Alan Govenar, 16, 1989. For more information, see
Houston Post,
March 9, 1960, Section 1, p. 1,
Houston Post,
March 17, 1960, and
Houston Informer,
March 19, 1960.

47.
Jim Mousner, “Houston Negroes: Despite Problems Their Life is Sunnier,”
Houston Post,
April 24, 1960.

48.
For more information, see Alwyn Barr,
Black Texans:
A
History of Negroes in Texas, 1528–1971
(Austin: Jenkins, 1973). Howard Beeth and Cary D. Wintz, eds.,
Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houston
(College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1992).

49.
The Rooster Crowed in England, 77 (UK) LP 12/1.

50.
Mack McCormick, liner notes to
The Rooster Crowed in England,
77 (UK) LP 12/1.

51.
Ibid.

52.
Phelan, August 23, 1959.

53.
Country Blues,
Tradition LP 1035 and
Autobiography in Blues,
Tradition LP 1040. Diane Guggenheim (a.k.a. Diane Hamilton) founded (and funded) the Tradition label, after signing the Clancy Brothers, the company began to earn profits. When the Clancy Brothers were signed by Columbia in 1961, the label ceased to be viable, and the catalogue was sold, possibly to Translantic, and then to Everest Records in the 1980s.

54.
Robert Shelton, “An Earthy Shirt-Sleeve Type of Folk Art,”
New York Times,
January 30, 1960.

55.
Mack McCormick, in Chris Strachwitz, “Lightnin' Hopkins Discography, Pt. 2,”
Jazz Monthly,
no. 10 (December 1959), p. 14.

56.
The Unexpurgated Folk Songs of Men,
USFOM, a label created by McCormick and Strachwitz and released in December 1963, and later reissued by them on Raglan LP 51.

57.
Mack McCormick, liner notes to
The Unexpurgated Folk Songs of
Men, Raglan LP 51.

58.
“The Dirty Dozens,” from
The Unexpurgated Folk Songs of Men,
Raglan LP 51.

59.
A
Treasury of Field Recordings Vols. 1 and 2,
77 LA-12-3; Dobell's Jazz Record Shop, 77 Charing Cross Road, London; and D.K. Wilgus, “Record Reviews,”
Journal of American Folklore,
Vol. 79, No. 314 (October–December, 1966), 632–633.

60.
Lightning Hopkins, letter to Ed and Folkways Records, November 26, 1959, Moses and Frances Asch Collection, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Lightning Hopkins file.

61.
Memo, February 10, 1960, Ibid.

62.
Moses Asch, letter to Ed and Folkways Records, November 26, 1959, Ibid.

63.
Lightning Hopkins, letter to Moses Asch, December 12, 1959, Ibid.

64.
In an interview with Timothy O'Brien, McCormick claimed that he had in fact written to Folkways to produce a record with Hopkins, and the Sam Charters “showed up.” O'Brien, p. 70.

65.
John
A.
Lomax, Jr. Sings American Folk Songs,
Folkways LP 3508, 1956; Mack McCormick, letter to Ed Badeaux, Moses and Frances Asch Collection, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Lightning Hopkins file.

66.
Sam Charters letter to Moses Asch, January 13, 1960, Ibid.

67.
Ibid.

68.
It was reissued in 1967 under the new title
The Roots of Lightnin' Hopkins
and is still available as a CD today.

5. The Blues Revival Heats Up

1.
Anthony Rotante, “Sam ‘Lightnin' Hopkins: A Discography,” Discophile (UK) #45, December 1955.

2.
Chris Strachwitz, “Lightnin Hopkins Discography—Pt. 1,”
Jazz Journal
5, no. 9 (November 1959), pp. 25–26, and Chris Strachwitz, “Lightnin Hopkins Discography—Pt. 2,”
Jazz Journal
5, no. 10 (December 1959), pp. 13–14.

3.
Jeff Todd Titon, “Reconstructing the Blues: Reflections on the 1960s Blues Revival,” in
Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined
edited by Neil V. Rosenberg Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993, p. 225.

4.
Mack McCormick, interview by Andrew Brown, January 23, 2006.

5.
Ibid.

6.
Interview outtakes from The Blues According to Lightnin' Hopkins, 1969.

7.
John Lomax Jr., letter to B. J. Connors, June 3, 1960. Lomax papers, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. Box 3D 318.

8.
Mack McCormick, interview by Andrew Brown, January 23, 2006.

9.
Chris Strachwitz, interview by Alan Govenar, May 20, 2009.

10.
Alfred Frankenstein, “UC Folk Festival is Skillfully Shaped,” San
Francisco Chronicle,
July 4, 1960.

11.
Lightnin' Hopkins, interview by Barbara Dane on KPFK-FM, Los Angeles, CA, July 8, 1960.

12.
Barbara Dane, interview by Alan Govenar, March 27, 2008.

13.
Ibid.

14.
Billboard,
Vol. 79, No. 16, February 29, 1964, p. 7.

15.
Ed Pearl, interview by Alan Govenar, July 17, 2008.

16.
For more information, see Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell,
The Life and Legend of Leadbelly.
New York: HarperCollins, 1992, p. 2.

17.
John Lomax Jr., interview by Barbara Dane, July 8, 2008.

18.
Pearl, July 17, 2008.

19.
For more information, see Chris Smith, That's the Stuff: The Recordings of Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Stick McGhee and J. C. Burris (Shetland: The Housay Press, 1999).

20.
Ed Pearl, interview by Andrew Brown, e-mail correspondence, June 9, 2009.

21.
Hopkins and McGhee were already quite familiar with each other; they had both recorded for Bobby Shad, and McGhee had actually recorded a song “Letter to Lightnin' Hopkins” in 1952, in which he referenced Hopkins' “Hello Central,” and how he was going to Houston to see Lightnin's women.

22.
Dane, March 27, 2008.

23.
“Down South Summit Meetin',”
Billboard,
October 24, 1960.

24.
Chris Strachwitz, interview by Alan Govenar, July 18, 2008.

25.
Paul Oliver, interview by Alan Govenar, September 5, 2008.

26.
Ibid.

27.
Ibid., June 3, 2009.

28.
Ibid., September 5, 2008.

29.
Ibid.

30.
Ibid.

31.
Pete Seeger, interview by Alan Govenar, August 29, 2008.

32.
Ibid.

33.
Letter from John A. Lomax, Jr. to Irwin Silber, August 1, 1960. Courtesy Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

34.
Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, Lightnin' Hopkins file.

35.
Robert Shelton, “Lightning Strikes,”
New York Times,
October 15, 1960.

36.
Ibid.

37.
Seeger, August 29, 2008.

38.
Nat Hentoff, “A Long Way from Houston,”
Reporter
December 8, 1960, pp. 63–64.

39.
Ibid.

40.
Pete Welding, “Jazz Notes: Lightnin' Hopkins,”
Coda
3, no. 10 (February 1961), pp. 28–29 and Pete Welding, “Lightnin',”
Down Beat
(July 20, 1961), pp. 18–19.

41.
Welding,
Coda,
p. 29.

42.
“Lightnin' Hopkins—A Description,”
Jazz Journal,
October 1959, p.5.

43.
Robert Shelton, “Lightning Hopkins at the Village Gate,”
New York Times,
October 24, 1960.

44.
The first Bluesville release was with Al Smith and was followed by Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Willie Dixon, Lonnie Johnson, and Roosevelt Sykes, among others.

45.
Last Night Blues,
Bluesville LP 1029.

46.
Mack McCormick, liner notes to
Last Night Blues,
Bluesville LP 1029.

47.
Ibid.

48.
Joe Goldberg, liner notes to
Lightnin': The Blues of Lightnin' Hopkins,
Bluesville LP 1019.