f84


I’m probably not the target audience, but I would have appreciated a lot more in the way of scene-setting and contextualising, such as film of the villages themselves, inter- actions between the musicians, something of the people’s homes and lives, perhaps some archive shots, and, if the objective is to pass them on, more depiction or description of the dance moves. It feels like a missed opportuni- ty; there would have been plenty of room on the DVD for a more vigorous and engaging, documentary-style approach.


www.gofolk.dk www.folkshop.dk Andrew Cronshaw


“liberal arts college in Annapolis, Maryland” – Holzman’s interest in folk music was fed by another student called Bob Sacks and his record collection. It was a dorm world that included Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Leadbel- ly, John Jacob Niles, Richard Dyer-Bennet, Burl Ives and Susan Reed. Becoming Elektra’s story takes us to 1973 when Holzman moved on.


Early on in Becoming Elektra – The True Story Of Jac Holzman’s Visionary Record Label, it is good to realise that Houghton is not merely recycling slabs from Holzman and Gavan Daws’ Follow The Music – The Life And High Times Of Elektra Records In The Great Years Of American Pop Culture (although clearly something of a subtitle affliction stuck). That 1998 oral history is unavoidable for anyone dealing with the Elektra story and Houghton has had privileged access to the out-take interviews.


Becoming Elektra


Mick Houghton Jawbone ISBN 978-1- 906002-29-9


2010 marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of Elektra Records, in its heyday one of the major US record labels peddling folk, ‘international folk’ (a forerunner of ‘world music’), blues and rock music. The label brought Europe Judy Collins, Phil Ochs, Tim Buckley, Tom Paxton and The Incredible String Band, Love, The Doors, Paul Butterfield Blues Band and MC5 (and America Queen); or the originally comma-less Koerner Ray & Glover, Judy Henske and The Bauls Of Bengal; or the ones that got away like Cynthia Good- ing, Mark Spoelstra and Kathy & Carol (Kathy Larisch and Carol McComb). Often however, the other movements and currents intrigue more, like Joshua Rifkin’s The Baroque Beat- les Book project or The Charles River Valley Boys’ Beatle Country and Elektra’s little weirdnesses like Joyce Grenfell (“quintessen- tially English”) and Alasdair Clayre.


Founded by a 19-year-old Jac Holzman in 1950, Elektra merged, as Mick Houghton explains early on, “his two great passions: folk music and audio engineering”. At St John’s – a


Becoming Elektra may owe a debt to Holzman and Daws but the story – including spin-off label Nonesuch (“Quality Record- ings… At The Price Of A Quality Paperback”) – is more lucidly told here. And better illustrat- ed. Examples are a royalty statement to Danny Fields, correspondence from Holzman to Tim Buckley’s manager, Herb Cohen and Freddie Mercury’s letter to Jack [sic] Holzman – self- standing stories in their own right. You don’t get everything but Becoming Elektra is a phe- nomenally engineered feat of construction.


www.jawbonepress.com Ken Hunt


Stories From The Anne Grimes Collection Of American Folk Music


Anne Grimes Ohio University Press ISBN 978-0-8214-1943-4


Anne Grimes was one of that noble band of amateur American song collectors who worked diligently, usually without any finan- cial support or professional advice, to pro- vide us with a picture of the status of tradi- tional song in their own area. Her specialist area was her own state of Ohio and the time that she did most of her work was in the 1950s and 1960s. Largely she was working on her own, though her husband James was a superb photographer and many of his pho- tos grace the pages. Anne died in 2004 at the age of 91 and the book was completed by her four daughters.


Anne made her mark as a singer, often accompanying herself on her much-loved dul- cimer. The main way she made her contacts was through her own performances to the wide range of historical societies, teachers’ groups etc., asking her audiences for leads to singers in their families and this proved to be a very successful approach. Even other people she performed with might get the treatment. To Bill Fields, singing to his guitar at the Ohio Folklore Society, she said, “I expect that you’ve got better songs than that down there near Ironton”, and this led to an introduction to his uncle Arthur, an important informant from whom she recorded a number of Child Ballads. At one point she makes the bald statement, “Most of the songs traditional in the Midwest are of British origin”, and the examples in this book bear this out, but this may also reflect what she was looking for. She certainly developed a love of the dul- cimer (or ‘dulcerine’ as it was called in some parts) and her collection has a high percent- age of dulcimer accompaniments.


Most of the book is made up of enthralling tales of her informants and her encounters with them, along with the words of some of the songs she collected from them, and it is clear from this writing and from the examples of interviews on the accompanying CD, that she really had good interactions with her singers. There are a few examples of the transcription of the tunes in Anne’s very neat and clear hand; that there are not tunes published for all the songs is one of the book’s few shortcomings.


The accompanying CD has 33 musical examples from her collection. These suggest that she did not find any really outstanding traditional singers compared with, let’s say, her contemporaries, the Warners working on the Eastern Seaboard with the likes of John Galusha, Lee Monroe Presnell and Frank Prof- fitt. This does not prevent this book being a vital acquisition for those with a serious inter- est in traditional song.


www.ohioswallow.com Vic Smith Folk On Wight


Brian Reeves Coco Designs ISBN 978-0- 9552916-1-6


The various movers and shakers of the halcyon days of the folk revival are now reaching a ‘certain age’ and feel that they want to write a record of how it all was. In recent years docu-


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