The Rice Thresher, Vol. 97, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, April 9, 2010 Page: 21 of 32
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RICE RADIO FOLIO
KTRU 91.7 FM
THE THRESHER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT OF THE RICE RADIO FOLIO. SPRING 201 O
Rediscovered Sounds
recordings from around Southeast Asia.
A couple of releases from South America
came out as well, including some rough-
edged 'forbidden' electronic funk from the
gangland of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
By Mark Flaum
Drop the needle and a ghostly warble
escapes from the speaker, barely audible
over the scratchy noise that accompanies it.
The song, barely 20 seconds long, is hard
to recognize as the French children's tune
"Au Clair de la Lune." This is the oldest
recording in existence, made in 1860, some
17 years before Thomas Edison invented
the phonograph. It's also the first release
on Parlortone, the new vinyl sublabel of
Atlanta-based Dust to Digital Records.
Dust to Digital, run by former college
radio DJ I>ance Ledbetter, goes to great
lengths to restore lost and forgotten music
for contemporary ears. The label title re-
fers to the process of digitizing music from
78-rpm records, a technology that has been
theoretically obsolete since the middle of
the last century. In 2004 the label's first
release, Goodbye, Babylon, brought to light
half a century worth of gospel, spiritual
blues, hymns, and sermons spread over six
compact discs and packaged in a beautiful
pine box. The music is full of fire and God
and the hiss and scratch of the recording
media of its time, preserved in the perfect
balance to unite power and history for
new listeners.
I>ater that same year, the label released
a follow-up of Christmas songs, and the
next year another ambitious project came
around—a complete retrospective of the
Fonotone label, the last 78-rpm label in
America and the work of Joe Bussard, life-
long record collector. Bussard recorded,
released, and occasionally performed on
Fonotone Records between 1956 and 1969,
clinging to the 78-rpm format even as the
medium fell from favor into obsolescence.
The set was released over 5 cds in an old-
style cigar box.
The following years brought increased
activity from Dust to Digital. The label
released a DVD version of a documentary
about Bussard entitled Desperate Man
Blues, along with a soundtrack from the
film. They released a box set of string
band music gathering some of the earliest
recordings of the string bass in jazz and
blues bands. They released a collection of
Sacred I larp singers through history. They
also expanded their releases beyond just
American musical history with a collection
ofTuvan throat singing and a compilation of
78-rpm records from around the world.
Their next ambitious project was to
release the field recordings of music docu-
mentarian Art Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum
Folk^
Melodli Tuvi, Dust To Digital
spent 50 years traveling America with his
recording equipment, knocking on doors
and tracking down lost and forgotten mu-
sicians. Spread over two 4-CD sets (with
the future possibility of a third from the
archives) these releases capture blues,
folk music, and all varieties of American
ethnic music from the source.
DESPERATE
MAN BLUES
DISCOVERING THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN MUSIC
i WINNER i / winner \
What is the
Rice Radio Folio?
The Folio is first and foremost a programming and listening
guide designed to help you keep up with what's on air. For your
pleasure, our DJs also generate a healthy serving of album
reviews, playlists, band profiles, concert calendars, interviews,
and news and information about KTRU and the Houston music
scene.
The Folio was a more regular feature from the 1980s through
the early 1990s, when it educated and entertained readers on
a weekly basis. The station's boost to 50,000 watts and resul-
tant lack of a reliable on-campus signal until the late 1990s
contributed to its (partial) abandonment. Now the folio lives
gain, in a longer, if less frequent form. If you are new to KTRU,
the Folio is an excellent place to begin what will no doubt be a
long and fruitful love affair. If you're already hooked, the folio is
just another way to get more of what you love.
is not only a historical survey, but also a
deep expression of the spirit of the record
collector.
Robert Millis is also peripherally in-
volved in another label dedicated to expos-
ing unheard music. Based out of Seattle and
run by Sun City Girls bassist Alan Bishop,
the Sublime Frequencies label has built a
reputation for finding traces of Western
culture reflected in a kaleidoscope of in-
ternational influences. Bringing together
field recordings (Bishop's own along
with Millis and several other like-minded
listeners), tapes collected around the
world, and collages recorded directly off
the radio, Sublime Frequencies presents
world music in a new light.
Early on Bishop set out to avoid the
formal library archive feel of the great
Smithsonian Folkways, Nonesuch Ex-
plorer, and Ocora labels, among others. He
also sought to stay clear of 'world music'
genre releases packaged for export. The
label's first releases were all music from
around Indonesia: a collection ofSumatran
folk and pop music from tapes, a collage of
radio music and talk from stations around
Java from the same trips, and Bishop's
own recordings of gamelan and street
music from Bali.
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Desperate Man Blues, Dust To Digital
Dust to Digital always releases very
thorough liner notes, even books, with their
music. In two cases especially, the book
itself takes precedence over the music. The
most recent example is a collection of pho-
tographs of immersion baptisms, entitled
Take Me to the Water. Beautiful black-and-
white photos very nearly overshadow the
choir recordings and sermons from the
first half of last century. 'Hie label's first
book release is entitled Victrola Favorites
and celebrates not only historical music of
the 78-rpm era, but also the record sleeves
and artwork that accompanied it. Compiled
by Robert Millis and Jeffrey Taylor (of the
band Climax Golden Twins), the 2-cd set
Thai Pop Spectacular, Sublime Frequencies
After their Indonesian musical tour,
Sublime Frequencies released two DVDs
of musical performances, one from Burma
and the other from Morocco. From there
sources became more varied: radio col-
lages from Palestine, Syria, and around
north Africa, taped music from Mali, and
recordings from India, Thailand, and Ne-
pal. They also continued to release perfor-
mances and musical rituals on DVD. Field
recordist Laurent Jeanneau contributed
Bollywood Steel Guitar, Sublime Frequencies
In 2006, Sublime Frequencies added
a new direction to their catalogue—
collecting and recording works by artists
who wouldn't otherwise receive any
exposure in the western world. 'ITie first
musician to have a full release under his
own name on Sublime Frequencies was
Omar Souleyman, a musical legend in
Syria whose name whose mastery of the
cheap synthesizer was as yet unknown to
western audiences. A compilation entitled
Highway to Hassake gathered songs from
10 years of mostly cassette releases, and
three years later Sublime Frequencies
released an album of new material from
Souleyman. Other SF recording artists
include Group Doueh, a guitar-led band
from the western Sahara. Group Inerane
and Group Bombino, also from North
Africa, eventually followed. Imst year the
label helped arrange a European tour
for Omar Souleyman and Group Doueh,
the first time either artist had performed
outside their home country.
Sublime Frequencies and Dust To
Digital are just two of the labels bringing
lost and forgotten music out of obscurity
and straight to our ears. Soundway Records
and Analog Africa are revealing the influ-
ence funk and rock have had in Nigeria.
Ghana, and Benin. Mississippi Records
out of Portland has gathered an extensive
following for their releases of forgotten or
overlooked blues, punk rock, and more. As
the 21s! century gets underway, these labels
are helping ensure that the hidden gems of
the last century—the first full century of
recorded music—are not lost forever.
Learn more about these pioneering
labels and their upcoming releases at
www.dust-digital.com and www.sublime-
frequencies.com.
Africa's Greatest Band:
Franco et le TPOK Jazz
By Chris Spadone
Congolese guitarist, singer, band-
leader and composer Francois Luambo
Makiadi, better known as Franco, "the
sorcerer of the guitar," was 20th century
Africa's most important musician. This
bold statement is amply supported by
the recent release of two double CD
retrospectives, Francophonic Volume
/ (1953-1979) & 2 (1980-1989). The sets
demonstrate Franco's amazing longevity,
prolificacy, and innovation. From 1950
until his death in 1989, he recorded over
a thousand songs, created a dominant
style of African guitar playing, trained
generations of musicians, and in Africa
attained a celebrity status equivalent to
Elvis or the Beatles in the West. These
new collections allow the listener to dis-
cover not only the evolution of a musical
genius, but also the history of one of the
world's great dance traditions, Congolese
rumba.
1953-1979 charts Franco's progres-
sion from hotshot Afro-Cuban guitarist
to master bandleader. 1980-1989 features
fluid guitar work and the distinctive rumba
sound of TPOK Jazz (Tout Puissant Or-
chestra Kinoi, the powerful Kinshanan
Orchestra). Both collections include a 48-
page booklet of photos, recording notes,
translations, and biography. Compiler Ken
Braun distills Franco's vast catalogue
down to 28 essential tracks on the first
set and 13 on the second. Even the most
fanatic Franco-philes have nothing but
praise for his choices. I prefer the second
for personal (memories of my lost youth
working in Africa) and musical reasons. In
the 1980s, OK Jazz stretched out in long
complex jams, called sebenes, of percus-
sion. guitars, and horns, which build in
tempo and rhythm, sounding a bit like an
Afro-Latin Grateful Dead.
Continued on page 3
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Wilde, Anna. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 97, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, April 9, 2010, newspaper, April 9, 2010; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth398458/m1/21/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.