New Lost City Ramblers
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Artists:
Top
The New Lost City Ramblers
- Genres: Folk
Biography
During the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s, the New Lost City Ramblers introduced audiences to the authentic string band sound of the 1920s and '30s, in the process educating a generation that had never heard this uniquely American sound of old-time music. While maintaining music with a social conscience, they added guts and reality to the folk movement, performing with humor and obvious reverence for the music. In 1958, Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley modeled their band after groups like the Skillet Lickers, the Fruit Jar Drinkers, and the Aristocratic Pigs, choosing a name in keeping with the past. When Tracy Schwarz replaced Paley in 1962, the NLCR added solo songs from the Appalachian folk repertoire, religious and secular, educating a large segment of the American population about traditional music. Folkways recorded the NLCR on five albums in the early '60s, making the Ramblers famous and leading to TV appearances, successful tours, and appearances at the Newport Folk Festival. A songbook with 125 of their songs came out in 1964 and sold well.The NLCR served at least three important purposes: they brought real folk music to a huge audience, they were highly entertaining, and they led their audience to rediscover the original music on which they had based their band. After the NLCR's heydays, Tracy Schwarz went on the road with his wife and then his son, gradually leaning toward Cajun squeezebox music; Mike Seeger toured with his wife, Alice Gerrard, and did many solo spots; and John Cohen continued playing in another string band, while making award-winning documentaries about the old music. In the '90s -- over 20 years after they had last entered a studio -- Schwarz, Seeger, and Cohen reunited as the New Lost City Ramblers to record There Ain't No Way Out, released in 1997. In 2009 the band celebrated its 50th anniversary; sadly however, Mike Seeger died of cancer on August 7th of that year at his home in Lexington, VA -- he was 75 years old. ~ David Vinopal, Rovi
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Top
New Lost City Ramblers
| New Lost City Ramblers | |
|---|---|
| Origin | New York City, New York |
| Genres | Old-time, folk |
| Years active | 1958–present |
| Labels | Folkways |
| Past members | |
| Mike Seeger John Cohen Tom Paley Tracy Schwarz |
|
The New Lost City Ramblers is a contemporary old-time string band that formed in New York City in 1958 during the Folk Revival. The founding members of the Ramblers, or NLCR, are Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley. Tom Paley later left the group and was replaced by Tracy Schwarz.
The New Lost City Ramblers not only directly participated in the old-time music revival, but has continued to directly influence countless musicians who have followed.
|
Contents
|
Career
The Ramblers distinguished themselves by focusing on the traditional playing styles they heard on old 78rpm records of musicians recorded during the 1920s and 1930s, many of whom had earlier appeared on the Anthology of American Folk Music. The New Lost City Ramblers refused to "sanitize" these southern sounds as did other folk groups of the time, such as the Weavers or Kingston Trio. Instead, the Ramblers have always strived for an authentic sound.[citation needed] However, the Ramblers did not merely copy the old recordings that inspired them. Rather, they would use the various old-time styles they encountered while at the same time not becoming slaves to imitation.
On Songs From the Depression, the New Lost City Ramblers performed a variety of political contemporary popular songs from the New Deal days, all but one of them taken from commercially issued 78s, and that one is "Keep Moving," identified in the album notes only as "from Tony Schwartz' collection — singer unidentified" [1] when actually it is by Agnes "Sis" Cunningham, the full title being "How Can You Keep On Moving (Unless You Migrate Too)." The omission later caused Ry Cooder, who listened to the Ramblers album, to record the song as Traditional on the first edition of his Into the Purple Valley album, an omission he gladly corrected when informed of it. Cooder also covered another song from the same New Lost City Ramblers album, which he may have heard on a poorly labeled cassette copy: "Taxes on the Farmer Feeds Us All" which the New Lost City Ramblers credit to Fiddling John Carson but which the Cooder notes still list as "traditional."[2]
The New Lost City Ramblers' extensive recordings for the Folkways label, after the death of Moe Asch, became part of the Smithsonian Institution, which reissues Folkways titles on CD.
Discography
- The New Lost City Ramblers (1958) (Folkways Records)
- The New Lost City Ramblers Vol. II (1959) (Folkways)
- Songs From the Depression (1959): see [1] (Folkways)
- Old-Timey Songs For Children (1959) (Folkways)
- The New Lost City Ramblers Vol. III (1961) (Folkways)
- Tom Paley, John Cohen, Mike Seeger Sing Songs of The New Lost City Ramblers (1961)
- The New Lost City Ramblers (1961)
- Earth Is Earth Sung by The New Lost City Bang Boys (1961) (Folkways)
- The New Lost City Ramblers Vol. 4 (1962) (Folkways)
- American Moonshine & Prohibition (1962) (Folkways)
- The New Lost City Ramblers Vol. 5 (1963) (Folkways)
- Gone to the Country (1963)
- Radio Special # 1 (1963)
- The New New Lost City Ramblers with Tracy Schwarz: Gone to the Country (1963) (Folkways)
- String Band Instrumentals (1964) (Folkways)
- Old Timey Music (1964)
- Rural Delivery No. 1 (1965) (Folkways)
- Remembrance of Things to Come (1966) (Folkways)
- Modern Times (1968) (Folkways)
- The New Lost City Ramblers with Cousin Emmy (1968) (Folkways)
- On the Great Divide (1973) (Folkways)
- 20th Anniversary Concert (1978)
- 20 Years-Concert Performances (1978)
- Tom Paley, John Cohen, and Mike Seeger Sing Songs of the New Lost City Ramblers (1978) (Folkways)
- Old Time Music (1994)
- The Early Years, 1958-1962 (1991) (Folkways)
- Out Standing In Their Field-Vol. II, 1963-1973 (1993) (Smithsonian Folkways)
- There Ain't No Way Out (1997) (Folkways)
- 40 Years of Concert Performances (2001)
References
- ^ FW05264 liner notes, also may be read at the Smithsonian site
- ^ Compare Smithsonian Folkways notes to "Into the Purple Valley"
External links
- Illustrated New Lost City Ramblers discography
- Illustrated Tom Paley discography
- Discography at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
- Interview with John Cohen & Tom Paley - 50th year of NLCR
- new (2009) documentary film about the New Lost City Ramblers, with Mike Seeger, John Cohen, Tom Paley, Tracy Schwarz and many others
- NPR Radio Piece about 50th Anniversary of the New Lost City Ramblers
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Artists
Copyright © 2012 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.
Read more
Mentioned in
Bluegrass at Newport: 1959-1963
(1959 Album by Various Artists)
Bill Moore
(Folk Artist, '20s, '30s)
American Folk and Country Music
(2003 Music Film)
Tom Paley
(Folk Artist, '50s-'70s)
Rainbow Quest: New Lost City Ramblers
(Music Film)
» More