Music: Bela Lam & Family - Poor Little Benny (1920's field recording)
Virginia native Zanddervon Beliah Lamb, renamed Bela Lam by Okeh Records, performs the song Poor Little Benny with wife Rose Meadows.
With Bela’s brother-in-law Paul and son Alva, they became local favorites near the Blue Ridge Mountain region in the 1920’s, eventually being called to New York City to record six songs.
Influenced by the local religious music of the day, Bela Lam & the Greene County Singers, as they would come to be known, are notable for their shape-note harmonies, highly influential during the period
Hawaiian Hula Song, a classic. A seductive beauty does the hula while a duo play on guitar and slide. During the last third of the song, the rhythm picks up, becoming swingy.
Where Hawaiian traditional and American Jazz meet, practically western swing.
This tremendous educational documentary from the mid-1970’s examines the priceless contributions of African-Americans to musical heritage, so closely tied to their unique history in the United States. From Africa upon slave ships captive immigrants brought with them melodies, cadences and rhythms that inarguably gave rise to music considered ‘modern’ today.
Beginning with the genius Louis Armstrong’s triumphant return to Ghana in the late 1950’s, we trace the evolution of music from West Africa to the Virginia colonies of the early 1600’s. Over the next 400 years, as this distinct root of American culture takes hold, incredible clips of filmed performances by Mahalia Jackson, Josephine Baker, Bessie Smith, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, and Duke Ellington illustrate the black experience.
Contemporary musicians such as Nina Simone, BB King, Cannonball Adderly (w/ Joe Zawinal - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy), and Sly & the Family Stone, along with a funky-ass filmed number from an as-yet-undocumented-on-the-internet off-Broadway production called “The Me Nobody Knew” punctuate the memory of the past, the spontaneity of the moment and determination for the future.
Gordon Terry performs his hit song 'It Ain't Right' live, backed by the great Billy Mize and the equally talented Cliff Crofford. Another clip documenting the birth of authentic rockabilly.
Pre-dating both Marty & Elaine and Millie Jackson, Martha Davis wears the pants in this relationship.
Influenced by the great Fats Waller, she and her husband, bassist Calvin Ponder, who would later play with Earl Hines, performed in nightclubs across Chicago.
Ozark Jubilee Boys perform "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" live in this country tinged version of Big Joe Turner's rhythm & blues hit. Witness rockabilly in the making as this young western swing band goes rock & roll.
Louis Jordan performs "How Long Must I Wait for You" with his Timpany Five. Considered by some to be no more than a long running novelty act, back in the day he battled Chick Webb and conceived lyrics with wit that rivals Dylan or any modern-day rapper.
Whistler & His Jug Band came up out of Louisville, Kentucky, and became the first recorded jug band, according to R Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country. They recorded at least twenty-one songs between 1924 and 1931. The names of the musicians remain unknown.
Folk master Pete Seeger narrates Alan Lomax's documentary on the evolution and appreciation of American folk music. Special cameo performances include Woody Guthrie and Brownie McGhee, amongst many others.
Amazing to think that professional people got paid to cook up masterpieces such as Gothic American Cornflakes. But are times really different today, forty years later?
The recipe is quite simple, really. Take one part cornflakes, one part current youth culture cliché, throw in a little General Mills dough, then marinade in Madison Avenue saccarine and ... VOILA! the old-fashioned, half-baked Saturday morning scrapple of which almost anybody can reminisce.
In this case, the lyric "This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land" has been conveniently re-written as "Eat country cornflakes!" The repetition is enough is enough to make any sadistic psychological interrogator proud.
In this re-discovered clip, the classically trained Bill Powers sings an operatic rendition of the song Caroline. A performer with with few if any informative references online, he is accompanied by the similarly under-appreciated member of the Brown Sisters on piano.
It's Rosalie Allen, who taught herself to play music as a child in Pennsylvania on her brother's guitar. Involving herself with radio, she scored her first hit covering Patsy Montana's "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart."
In this piece, Rosalie sees her beau off to war, a scenario the world has seen a little too much of lately ...
Later, Rosalie Allen would become a popular County & Western DJ in NYC through the 1950's, and later opened up her own retail C&W music shop.
Drugs: A Day in the Death of Donny B. - 1969 anti-heroin film.
Poor Donny B. ... forever wandering the streets looking for that fix to end all fixes. Those around him, his family, people in the neighborhood, functionaries in the system, however, know what's in store ... the degradation of junkie-life.
A surprisingly non-sanctimonious anti-smack film, this 1969 cautionary tale uses a docudrama motif underscored by a groovy soundtrack the kids can dig.
'A Day in the Death of Donny B.' makes for a thoroughly entertaining short.
