Revolt of the ILX Brigade: New Post-Fahey Folk For PPL that post in the Takoma & Tompkin's Square Threads

Yep, we were talking about her on Rolling Reissues 2013:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LENA HUGHES 'Queen of the Flat-Top Guitar' out Jan 29, 2013
Reissue of Impossibly Rare early 60's LP. New notes by JOHN RENBOURN
CD/LP/DL out January 29, 2013 on Tompkins Square

A musical "amateur" that best exemplified true artistry, Lena Hughes was born in Grape Grove Township, Missouri, in 1904. Though she never recorded any 78s and only one LP, Hughes was most influential through her steady performances at various fiddler conventions and folk festivals throughout the Ozarks. She was an excellent fiddler, banjoist and guitar picker who retained the largely extinct repertoire of parlor pieces and the variety of specialized tunings that were necessary to play them. She lived most of her life in Ludlow, Missouri and passed away in 1998.

Lena Hughes' repertoire can be divided roughly in half: finger-picked numbers adapted from fiddle tunes and recast parlor guitar pieces gleaned from popular sentimental songs, hymns, and 19th century airs. As a faithful attendee at folk festivals, Hughes was accompanied by her guitar-playing husband, Jake. Her most mesmerizing performances, such as Pearly Dew, Spanish Fandango, and Kentucky Moon Waltz, depend heavily upon the resonance of the open chord as it relates to the picking of the melodic line, primarily on one string. This tonal reliance is most similar to the "celestial octave" that Washington Phillips employs, with similar effect, on his Train Your Child. This ethereal harmonic technique, which seems so natural in Hughes' playing, is the holy grail for most finger-picking guitarists. Her lack of pretense and her mastery of this repertoire is what defines her legendary status.

These recordings were made in the early 60's in Arkansas and released in very limited fashion as a private press LP. Remastered by Chris King. Designed by Susan Archie. New liner notes by JOHN RENBOURN.
CD : TSQ 2813 / LP : TSQ 2820

Distributed by INgrooves/ Fontana US, Cargo UK for Europe, FUSE Australia

Also Available : Obscure Giants of Acoustic Guitar Trading Cards (Lena's in there)

very cool

Right nice cover
http://www.tompkinssquare.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/TSQ2813_QueenOfTheFlatTopGuitar.900.jpg

And today, she's on NPR (with Renbourn and others talking about her)
http://www.npr.org/2013/02/06/171294400/the-ancient-vibration-of-parlor-music-revived-by-two-generations

totally sweet record - i wrote a little about it here: http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2013/01/30/lena-hughes-queen-of-the-flat-top-guitar/

digging daniel paul grody right now

very meditative, definitely skirts the borderline of windham hill stuff, but i dunno, it's pretty and catching my wintery mood right now

Any links? Nothing on spotify

Grody is on spotify, listening on your playlist :-)

oh damn

wtf just did a search and it wasnt there then now it is IDK what is happening!

I've had some weirdness with searches lately

http://dyllanhersey.bandcamp.com/track/never-going-back-to-sunflower-river
someone just sent me a link to this -- she's not all takoma-y (she sings) but this is a nice lil fahey tribute.

really good sound/video quality clips of six organs of admittance live in 2008, minneapolis, won't embed have to go to the site:

http://scheduletwo.com/video/six_organs_of_admittance/coming_to_get_you

Wow, was just going to revive the thread for something unrelated, but excited to check out that Six Organs video!

don't hold out on us!

Was going to post this Daniel Bachman tour-only 7" song that Tompkins Square just put up. Has some mandolin and background drone on it, really nice sounding track. Dude is going out on tour for like two months straight, so lots of chances to catch him (tour dates are listed with the song on soundcloud):

https://soundcloud.com/#tompkinssquare/brother-green-by-daniel

cool i'll check that out, think he's coming to mpls i gotta go

cool, two shows near me. maybe i'll go to both...

wait now i don't see it :(

i swear global tetra posted about it ;_;

he posted about william tyler upthread?

oh shit that was it! ok i'll stop crying now and go to tyler

Been meaning to dive into this thread for weeks and then I saw Daniel Bachman play on Saturday and he was great. Also a super sweet guy as noted itt. He opened for Meg Baird who was good too but this was the first time I'd ever seen Fahey-ish stuff played live and it was amazing to see the technique in the flesh.

as well as the tour dates listed on the soundcloud, Daniel Bachman's playing Wednesday in San Francisco

Can someone c/p the Bachman dates into here? Soundcloud is wonky on my shitty old laptop

Here you go -

February 28 – KPFA 9pm w/ Derk Richardson
March 1st Oakland – Stranded in store 6pm (w/ Powell St. John)
March 2 Corvalis, OR
3rd – Eugene KLCC 2pm, CD World in store 4pm, WOW HALL (w/ Richard Crandell) 8pm
4th – Salem House Show (email us for details)
5th – Portland OR (in store Music Millennium 6pm) Valentine’s @ 9pm (w/ Marisa Anderson)
6th – Seattle 730 KEXP feature airs / 7pm instore @ Wall of Sound
7th – Palouse WA The Tav
8th – Boise in store at Record Exchange 6pm
9th – Salt Lake City
10th – Fort Collins – Bizarre Bazaar
11th – Denver – The Deer Pile
12th – Amarillo – Palace Coffee
14th – Austin SXSW (Tompkins Square Label Show @ St. David’s Episcopal Church w/Luther Dickinson, Alice Gerrard, Hiss Golden Messenger, Harry Taussig)
16th – Marfa 8 or 9pm Marfa Book Co.
17th – Albuquerque NM – House Show (email for details)
18th – Taos – Taos Mesa Brewing
19th – Flagstaff – House Show (email for details)
20th – Phoenix AZ
21st – Tuscon 21st at La Cocina
22nd – San Diego
23rd – Los Angeles – Human Resources (w/ Chuck Johnson)
24th – Berkeley – Berkeley Arts Festival

April 4 – 1PM East Village Radio, 4PM WNYU New Afternoon Show (both w/Don Bikoff)
April 6th – Northampton
April 7th – Boston
April 8th – Portland – The Oak and the Ax
April 9th – Burlington – Monkey House
April 10th – Hudson *
April 11th – Rochester *
April 12th – Pittsburgh
April 13th – Columbus – Wild Goose Collective
April 14th – Bloomington IN – Landlocked in store 4pm
April 15th – Chicago - The Hideout
April 16th – Bloomington – Normal IL
April 17th – Kansas City, MO– Speakeasy
April 18th – Memphis
April 19th – Nashville
April 20th – Chattanooga
April 21st – Atlanta
April 22nd – Asheville – Izzys Coffee
April 23rd – Greensboro NC
April 24th – Chapel Hill – Night Light
April 25th – Richmond – Weezies
April 26th – Charlottesville
April 27th – Blacksburg – The Cellar
April 28th – Baltimore (w/ Max Ochs)
April 29th – Philly – Highwire Gallery
April 30th – Brooklyn NY – Union Pool (w/ Don Bikoff)

goddamn just went to electric fetus to get the new bad seeds record and picked up "the new possibility: john fahey's guitar soli christmas album" for 3.99....AND an SEALED ORIGINAL PRESS of "artist proof" by chris darrow for 11!

love that fahey xmas album. and the darrow LP is one of my favorite discoveries of the last year or so. perfect record.

it's weird i just listened to that fahey record for the first time yesterday on spotify and there it was! i think it's better than the other xmas album of his

This thread is gold, obviously! You are just reaping the rewards for creating it Upper Miss. Sh@kedown (weird to type that in full for some reason.

haha feel free to ignore the @ which is kind of annoying in retrospect

I will skip the @, no problem. More that it's hard to say in my head while I type it, but not a big deal at all.

That Lena Hughes album, the parts I have heard, is a real treat. A big part of the appeal of this stuff is that I appreciate the "resonance of the open chord" from a guitar so much. Something I have a seemingly endless appetite for.

yeah it's so nice, there's such an unhurried, relaxed feel to it, she's not a super complex player but she's so precise with what she does do and she has a very unique vibe

Agreed. Complexity is not the main thing for me, vibe and tone and all the other stuff goes a super long way. Complexity is fine when done well, but complexity can go wrong really fast when applied to solo guitar.

once again so many thanks to spottie for the spotify playlist

one thing that was mentioned in passing here that is really amazing:

nick schillace

n/p

I've been really enjoying this stuff. Been giving a lot of time to John Renbourn over the last few weeks.

kinda digging this guy http://mikefekete.com/
via a rec on delta slider.

Listening to the new Richard Thompson

Pretty good so far! Songs range from solid to really good, every solo is a fucking stunner

Really good band, and hats off to Buddy Miller, sounds great, recorded analog

I wish all his 80s and 90s records sounded like this

I am pretty out of the loop when it comes to Richard Thompson. Do you have a good recommendation on where to start, keeping in mind I am definitely most interested in his guitar playing. Guess his catalogue is vast and goes in a lot of different directions, but great solos and playing would trump most other things for me (as a starting point at least).

for guitar, maybe Strict Tempo?

I mean, as far as just great records (which have a lot of great playing) the Linda albums: Hokey Pokey, Shoot Out The Lights, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, Pour Down Like Silver

there's a Fairport live album that's supposed to be great

Thanks, have had recs for most of those Linda albums, especially "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight", so maybe I'll start there. Will look for "Strict Tempo" too.

I Want to See the Bright Lights is a pretty good jumping off point IMO, was the first one I ever got and it's just stunning from front to back

Stunning from front to back sounds alright to me. Seems like absolutely the way to go.

probably out of print, but that ryko watching the dark comp is great.

fyi, any new yorkers lurking here, a friend just tipped me that Charlie Parr is playing next Thursday at the Rockwell Music Hall on Allen street.

oh neat! he's really good live

he has a new album out too, i heard it at a friend's house, not on spotify, but i think the band is a lot of guys from the Black Eyed Snakes (Alan Sparhawk from Low's old blues sideproject)

Parr's new record has a band on it? That piques my interest, even moreso that it's Black Eyed Snakes folks... hope it'll end up on Spotify at some point.

Slightly off-topic, but isn't Spotify in dire shape financially? I am starting to realize the extent to which I've become reliant on it, if it went under, I don't know what I'd do.

Start buying records and supporting the arts?

I live below the poverty line and am on food stamps, but nice idea. I do buy records when I can.

actually brings up a question i've wondered about -- i know the spotify payout is tiny for artists, but let's say i listened to a steve gunn record 50+ times on spotify. does his takeaway equal the amount he'd get if i bought it for $6.99 on amazon?

Nope. Fractions of a penny per play = 50 times that still doesn't buy Steve a 16oz Baja Blast.

Not a single artist mentioned in this thread would survive if Spotify was the only game in town. Not intending to derail thread, just seems to me these folks can use our help more than, say, Action Bronson or something.