Thank You
This is Mole in the Ground #13. It’s been a weekly source of joy writing about my musical obsessions, made even better by your responses. Hearing from friends and even some strangers—I smile to think a few of you enjoy my intrusions into your inbox. Best of all, the times I’ve been corrected by people who actually lived the music I can only hope to write about. Thank you all for taking time to read these ramblings. If there’re topics you’d like me to write about, elements of these newsletters that work well or drive you mad, please do let me know.
There’s exciting stuff coming, maybe even a second blog this week. For this one, I wanted to try something new: a musical motley crew from all corners of the internet.
Karen Dalton, Solemn in Switzerland
This video made the rounds on the regions of the internet I frequent. There’s hardly any footage of Dalton, who was Bob Dylan’s favorite singer.
Stationary visual pairing: this flick with middle finger-sized doobie dangling from her lips.
John Fahey Haunts the UCLA Folk Festival 1964
Soon to pursue his Masters in Folklore at UCLA, Fahey performed at the school’s folk festival, led by folklorist D.K. Wilgus. This recently surfaced recording is the oldest live tape of Fahey. He plays a tasty “Some Summer’s Day” at 1:40 and then a duet with Bill Barth, “Moon Going Down” @6:10. The two do their best to copy Charley Patton / Willie Brown’s 1928 paramount recording. Fahey, scholar he was, explains the esoteric tunings. They may mean more to you than they do me.
UCLA’s ethnomusicology archive has more treasures, and I spent hours searching for Fahey recordings. This tape drove me nuts, a blues guitar workshop. Right at the beginning, someone says “Fahey? He was last seen with his manager ED Denson.” The man then fails to materialize. At 1:26:20, they claim Fahey will teach part two of the class, but there’s no part two to be found!
Someone yells “Cocaine!” at Bob Dylan, I think?
Title says it all. I can’t tell. Maybe I’m hearing things? But this week I finished Dave Van Ronk’s (and Elijah Wald’s) The Mayor of MacDougal Street, and DVR mentions how “Cocaine Blues” became his signature song for a second. People thought he wrote it, but he credits Gary Davis.
Seeger introduces Dylan, Newport ‘64. Listen: what’s that person shout twice before Dylan gets on stage?
Dylan was known to take from Van Ronk. Here, he does “Cocaine” at The Gaslight, ‘62.
Skip James on Film
Newport ‘66 this time, the Fahey-rediscovered master of the murderous falsetto, Skip James. Who’s the pot-bellied fellow looking slick in those shades? Blues Noir.
Lucinda Williams learns the blues overseas
Listening to Pentangle’s “Way Behind the Sun,” I thought, she sounds just like Lucinda Williams. But I had it reversed of course, Williams must have been listening to Jacqui McShee. Strange how the blues—endogenous to the US—winds up influencing American musicians by way of Britain.