Holiday & Year-End Greetings from Arhoolie Records

Along with manager Tom Diamant, product manager, shipping and order department chief Jonathan Schiele, newly arrived administrative assistant Haley Ausserer, the whole crew at Down Home Music, the Arhoolie Foundation's chief digitizer Antonio Cuellar and yours truly, Chris Strachwitz, we want to send you Happy Holiday Greetings and wish you a Merry Christmas. I also hope 2008 will be a rewarding and healthy one for everyone!

Arhoolie Records has scaled back its recording activities during the past year since CDs are sadly fading from the scene. However, Arhoolie and the artists do earn money from legitimate downloads, and active touring groups still sell CDs at their gigs. On the other hand, the Arhoolie Foundation has been busy with various projects (see below). In 2007 Arhoolie Records did release three new recordings along with several re-issues. One of our recent CD releases has even been nominated for a GRAMMY in the newly established Cajun/Zydeco category: The Pine Leaf Boys!

Here is the list of our 2007 releases:

CD 525 - The Savoy Family Band: Turn Loose But Don't Let Go (this item is officially scheduled for January 08 release but the Savoy Family did a surprise promotion tour in the Bay Area just a few weeks ago and so we got it ready a bit early!) The family consists of parents Marc and Ann Savoy, and brothers Joel and Wilson. At all four of their gigs the Family was inspired, in synch and dynamic! Joel, who usually plays lead fiddle, shared many stunning fiddle duets with Wilson. These two just egged each other on to remarkable heights and segued smoothly to traded leads - it was truly amazing! Marc also seemed incredibly inspired and in full steam at all times with his accordion and even sang a number of duets with his wife Ann, who usually carries the vocals on her own as well as putting the bottom and beat in place with her solid guitar. Wilson also sang with feeling and power and is a knock-out on the piano. The Savoy Family's repertoire was remarkably varied and they utilized many combinations of instruments and vocals to create a most enjoyable and fun program each night, whether it was a dance or a sit-down concert or a combination! I feel this self-produced CD captures them in full bloom!

CD 531 - Stevie Barr: Along the Crooked Road. I recorded this CD in and near Galax, VA and it features the superb banjo playing of Stevie Barr, who is also a member of the fine young Bluegrass band, NO SPEED LIMIT (note: ARH CD 521) and writes some good songs. Stevie plays the banjo on all tracks and the CD introduces the listener to an amazing group of his wonderful friends, which I unfortunately neglected to identify on the outside of the package! You will hear: The superb old time fiddler Eddie Bond featured on 8 selections; singer, guitarist and composer Jesse Lovell who wrote and sang his very moving "I wonder if I done my best for Jesus"; two old ballads sung by young Martha Spencer who is also a member of the Whitetop Mountain Band (note: ARH CD 522); the amazing guitarist Wayne Henderson; gospel singer and guitarist Audine Lineberry singing several songs of her own and with the congregation of the Independent Baptist Church; Stevie's mother, Becky Barr, an ex-member of the Whitetop Mountain Band, with some of her favorite songs; and finally Jeff Little, mountain ragtime piano player supreme, tearing up "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" with Stevie on banjo like you've never heard before!

CD 533 - Pine Leaf Boys: "Blues de Musicien". This is the Pine Leaf Boys' second CD and it's up for a GRAMMY nomination! (For their first note: ARH CD 520). These five young Louisiana Creole/Cajuns with Wilson Savoy (vocals, accordion, fiddle, piano) as nominal leader along with the amazing Cedric Watson (vocals, fiddle, accordion), Drew Simon (drums and Cajun vocals), Jon Bertrand (guitar), and Blake Miller (bass) have been tearing up the dance floors not only along the Gulf Coast but at concerts and dances all over the US and in Europe. I hear rumors that the PLB's next CD might be a "live" album! That would be the only possible way to top this one!

CD 7051/52 - Tamburitza! "Hot String Band Music - From the Balkans to America: 1910-1950." A 2 CD set of re-issues from early 78s of the best and hottest Balkan Tamburitza bands recorded in Europe (1910s) and later (1920s - 1950s) mostly here in the US, where the genre really flourished and kept the immigrant community connected. Includes 40 page booklet with photos and bios - all done with the help of John Filcich who supplied me with many discs, photos, and more as well as contacts with historians of that ex-Balkan community.

CD 9058 - Rose Maddox (with the Vern Williams Band): "Beautiful Bouquet" We recorded this back in the 1980s when Rose Maddox was in top form and loved the Bluegrass sound which was rapidly gaining popularity in California. The Vern Williams band was certainly the best the best in that field out here on the left coast! It's an all gospel program which she dedicated to her late son. Rose first became famous in the 1940s and 50s when she was the girl singer with the Maddox Brothers & Rose - billed as America's Most Colorful Hillbilly Band! (We have a number of CDs by this incredible group!)

CD 9059 - Beto Villa: "Father of Orquesta Tejana" 15 delightful instrumentals by this famous pioneer of Tex-Mex orchestra music from south Texas. These are re-issues of his first recordings made between 1948 and 1954 for the regional Ideal label of San Benito, TX which was the first Chicano owned record company.

CD 9060 - Conjunto Bernal: "Mi Unico Camino" These are the first recordings by the now famous accordionist and today mainly preacher, Paulino Bernal - who along with his brother Eloy and singer Ruben Perez, revolutionized the sound of conjunto music. Included is of course their huge hit "Mi Unico Camino", a powerful and emotional song, which by the way opened the soundtrack of the film: "Lone Star".

We have some interesting items planned for 2008, including in January the above mentioned CD by the incredible SAVOY FAMILY along with 2 CDs of wonderful music recorded in New Orleans just before the destruction of hurricane Katrina: CD 532 Sammy Rimington - "Visits New Orleans": Sammy has long been my favorite clarinetist in the tradition of the late, great George Lewis, recorded live at the Palm Court restaurant with his Hot Six, with fiddler Michael Doucet, and finally a cut on which he joins the Treme Brass Band. A fine traditional jazz record. Also: CD 534 A New Orleans Visit - Before Katrina This CD features Michael and David Doucet, "Sunpie" Barnes, blues singer and pianist Henry Gray, Lars Edegran, Miss Lollypop, more from Sammy Rimington with Michael and with the Treme Brass Band recorded during a parade in the Treme. The music on these two CDs was recorded for possible inclusion in the forthcoming documentary film about Arhoolie Records and its owner, Chris Strachwitz. Since we recorded so much good music and know that so little usually appears in a final film and then usually only in short snippets and not really knowing when this film will see the light of day, I decided to release most of this fine music on CDs! This film is directed by Maureen Gosling and Chris Simon who are looking for more funding to make it reality and any contributions, small or large, are fully tax deductible and should be addressed to: Film Arts Foundation (project # 879 & known as "No Mouse Music" at this time) 415 9^th Street # 101 - San Francisco, CA 94103.

I am also working on two box size projects: CD 518 (A&B)/519 (A&B) "Hear Me Howling" - Blues, Ballads, & Beyond: San Francisco Bay Area Music in the 1960s (as heard and recorded by Chris Strachwitz at homes, clubs, concerts, festivals, and studios!) This package will probably be a book with 4 CDs with incredibly well researched articles about the artists and the scene in general by Adam Machado. The music ranges from legendary blues singers Jesse Fuller, Big Joe Williams, K.C. Douglas, Lonnie Johnson, Bukka White, Lightning Hopkins, Mercy Dee, Mance Lipscomb, Fred McDowell, Skip James, Big Mama Thornton, and Clifton Chenier - to local folks like Country Joe, Toni Brown, the Joy of Cooking, Bob Neuwirth, the Skid Band, Crabgrass, T.A. Talbott, Debbie Green, Merritt Herring, Alice Stuart, Perry Lederman, Barbara Dane, the Fondettes, Vern & Ray, Notes from the Underground - to incredible gospel by Rev. Overstreet and Rev. Gary Davis - to Cajun & Creole by the Opelousas Playboys and the Hackberry Ramblers - to jazz by Bob Mielke's Bearcats, Stanley Willis, Jerry Hahn, Smiley Winters, Bert Wilson, and Sonny Simmons! Much of this material has never been issued before - It's an interesting mixed bag of sounds from the 60s which I was lucky enough to catch on tape.

CD 454/455 - Austrian Folk Music: Field recordings I made with Johnny Parth (of Document Records fame!) back in the 1970s and later on my own in various parts of Austria. Set will include incredible documentation by scholar Ernst Weber which will probably mainly appear imbedded in one of the discs so that you can get a print-out! Wonderful, authentic, vernacular, regional music of great variety. Some of it appeared on two Arhoolie LPs with many previously unissued selections added. Maybe our California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (who is today Austria's most famous personality!) will get interested in this - charming as well as risque songs and music from his homeland! Besides notes by Johnny Parth and Chris Strachwitz, transcriptions of the songs will be available in the regional dialect, in high German, and the English translations!

The Arhoolie Foundation

The Arhoolie Foundation is continuing the digitization of the Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican-American recordings with the help of grants from the NEH and others. We are now well into the ca. 18,000 45 rpm discs with the continued help from digitizer Antonio Cuellar who has been intently listening to Mexican records for 5 years now! Some institution should make him an interesting offer as an expert on this fantastic but sadly neglected regional music. We are hoping to get the complete catalog of all our holdings out on the website soon, and we continue to collect biographical material about many of the musicians to eventually create an interesting encyclopedia of this regional music.

The AF is also involved in the production of a film about the New Lost City Ramblers. This historic group consisting of Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tracy Schwarz will in 2008 celebrate their 50^th year of bringing old time mountain music to the urban masses. The funding has been secured thanks largely due to the help of two very generous donors and the directing and editing is now in the hands of veteran documentary filmmaker, Yasha Aginsky.

The Foundation has just become a co-sponsor of the International Corrido Conference with the Chicano Studies Department at UC Santa Barbara under the able and devoted guidance of Maria Herrera Sobek. The conference will take place May 8 and 9, 2008 at the University of California at Santa Barbara and at Casa De La Raza in that city. This year's conference will be held in honor and memory of Prof. Guillermo Hernandez and the great Chicano singer, composer, musician and 1991 NEH National Heritage Fellowship recipient, Lalo Guerrero. The involvement of the Arhoolie Foundation in this conference is especially significant because Prof. Guillermo Hernandez was the originator and driving force behind these conferences devoted to the study of this incredible body of living narrative Mexican ballads. And even more important for the AF, he helped accomplish the digitization of the ca. 17,000 - 78 rpm discs owned by the Frontera Collection in conjunction with the UCLA Music Library by convincing the superstar group, Los Tigres Del Norte, to donate the funds for this project.

The Year 2007

In January I lost one of my very favorite cousins, Sharon Farr of Washington, D.C. in whose family homes our family was welcomed upon arriving in the US. I feel I grew up with him like a brother and will always remember the good times we all had at his grandmother's house in Reno, Nevada, where we were so generously welcomed. Later in the 50s in San Francisco, where Sharon went to art school, we had many delightful visits and experiences. Little Sharon, as we all called him, was not only a wonderful, talented artist but an incredible, kind and humorous human being.

February took me to Memphis, TN for the Folk Alliance Conference where we showcased the Pine Leaf Boys who brought a shot of reality to this gathering of mostly singer/songwriters. The other pleasant surprise was hearing the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a trio of young African-Americans who play old time black sting band music from an almost vanished era. What a delight and refreshing sound - how I would love to have had them on Arhoolie - but they were already taken!

March saw a house concert by Any Old Time String Band here in Berkeley and some superb authentic Flamenco shows at La Peña. Unfortunately another very dear cousin departed this world, Nancy McNear - she was always in such good spirits and the life of the party, and her grandmother literally came and rescued us from the bleakness of post war Germany. I wish I had spent more time with all good friends and relatives - it's getting scary how father time just moves on!

In April I took my nephew Tim and my niece Angela (for only a few days since they both had to get back to work!) on my annual journey to Louisiana. We caught the Pine Leaf Boys in fine form at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and later that evening again at the Festival Internacional in Lafayette, before ending up in Eunice where on Saturday we took in the jam session at the Savoy Music Center, then Fred's Lounge in Mamou, the Cajun broadcast at the Liberty Theatre, and a fantastic BBQ at Mr. Claude's - a good friend of the Savoys. Next day after a superb crawfish etouffee from Marc Savoy, we played tourists and drove down to Avery Island, then came back through New Iberia and stopped by to visit the grave of Clifton Chenier which now has a well marked grave stone. On Monday we took in some more sightseeing by going on a Cajun Country Swamp Tour with Butch of Lake Martin - what a treat to see the creatures so close-up! Then came the Crawfish Boil on Tuesday and I can only urge any of you who might be tempted to be cultural tourists and visit Louisiana in the spring, to contact Nancy Covey who does the best guided tours (festtours@aol.com).

After seeing off my relatives, I returned to New Orleans and visited with my friends, the Edegrans. I heard Lars with a wonderful string band at the Norwegian Seaman's Church and the next day barely survived a NO downpour of such proportions that most of the streets turned into rivers! By early May I ended up in San Antonio for the annual Conjunto Festival which presented legends like Paulino Bernal, Gilberto Perez, Ruben Vela among others. I heard Steve Jordan at the tiny club "Salute" on North St. Mary - he was in magnificent form - I had never heard him play or sing so well! On Saturday the Conjunto Fest had Nick Villareal, a fine performance by Eva Ibarra, Mingo Saldivar and Flaco Jimenez - all in good form! On Sunday I stopped by to visit the legendary singer Lydia Mendoza, who has been in a rest home for years but her mind is as sharp as ever. Then I drove to the lower Rio Grand Valley - simply The Valley as they say down there - stopped in Alice to visit Javier Villanueva at KUNO - who also runs the small Tejano Music Hall of Fame Museum. I visited Ramiro Cavazos of Discos RyN in McAllen and showed our film "Chulas Fronteras" in San Benito where the City Commission honored me by giving me a key to the city!

In June we hosted the Pine Leaf Boys from Louisiana, who came to play some gigs in the Bay Area. Later in the month I cooked fish at Archie Green's 90^th birthday party in SF. On my birthday (July 1) we were joined for dinner by Ann Savoy who was visiting her friend Linda in SF. Our big Birthday party took place on July 4^th this year when we celebrate Uncle Sam's and my birthdays. Great music as usual from Los Cenzontles who are just getting better and better - along with many others - including a surprise appearance by the Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band (Marc and Ann Savoy with Michael Doucet) who had been appearing at the Marin County Fair.

In July we signed a lease to open a second Down Home Music Store on Berkeley's trendy but high rent 4^th Street, with the hope that it might revitalize the slipping income of our San Pablo Avenue store. Time, rent, and the future of the CD as a viable sound carrier will determine the fate of Down Home's second home!

August took me to Washington, D.C. where the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress hosted a Labor Lore Convention in honor of Archie Green, who unfortunately was unable to attend. The interesting film "Morristown" was shown, Nick Spitzer gave an excellent key note speech and music was supplied by Hazel Dickens, Mike Seeger and a woman whose name escapes me, but who sang some powerful union organizing songs.

In October the generous Warren Hellman gave us all another free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park with just about every "name" present - attracting huge crowds for wonderful music under perfect skies without a single police problem! Just a few weeks later the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) of Washington, D.C. brought us "Music From the Crooked Road" - Mountain Music of Virginia which was presented locally at the Marin Center and in Santa Cruz. The troupe played all over the West and included old time fiddler, Eddie Bond; banjo player Sammy Shelor; guitarist Wayne Henderson; ballad singer Elizabeth LaPrelle; the Bluegrass band No Speed Limit; and old time band The Whitetop Mountain Band. The last two and the banjo player with No Speed Limit, Stevie Barr, all have CDs on Arhoolie! It was a superb program of authentic Appalachian performers from the Galax area of Virginia. I hope this program will tour other parts of the USA soon.

In November I just couldn't miss the annual Savoy party known as the boucherie! Fantastic as always, and a short visit to New Orleans with Lars and Kathy Edegran gave me a chance to attend an interesting lecture at the musicians union hall where two members of the Rebirth Brass Band spoke to a group of high school youngsters about playing music for a living. The group of about 50 African-American students brought their instruments along - probably at least 6 tubas, 6 bass drums, and 20 trumpets plus assorted other drums and horns - and ended up playing a powerful, highly syncopated, but totally in synch jam, which was invigorating and reassuring that not all is lost in NOLA as far as the roots culture is concerned. The fancy but interesting Ogden Museum in NO which exhibits a good bit of local vernacular art, hosted (yes!) the risque blues singer, Chick Willis who performed splendidly!

In December the Northern California appearances of the Savoy Family Band were for me the highlight along with our annual Christmas and Holiday Party on the 14^th. Thanks to all the musicians and friends who turn up to join in this joyful occasion - and thanks again to the Savoy Family Band for bringing us such a perfect and tasty dose of musical joy. Let's celebrate the living!

Cheers for now - Chris Strachwitz