Karen Dalton ~ Cotton Eyed Joe: The Loop Tapes - Live in Boulder - 1962 [Megaphone, 2007] 320/FLAC

CDMEGA15

Disk 1

01. It's Alright [Ray Charles] (5:45)
02. Everytime I Think Of Freedom [Adapt. Trad. Spiritual] (3:03)
03. Cotton Eyed Joe [Trad.] (4:31)
04. Pastures Of Plenty [Woody Guthrie] (3:52)
05. One May Morning [Trad.] (4:16)
06. Red Are The Flowers [Fred Neil] (5:31)
07. Blues On The Ceiling [Fred Neil] (3:19)
08. Run Tell That Major [Trad.] (3:22)
09. Down And Out [Cox-Feldman] (3:42)
10. Fannin's Street [Huddie Ledbetter] (2:33)

Disk 2

01. In The Evening [Leroy Carr] (5:10)
02. Old Hannah [Trad.] (3:27)
03. Pallett On Your Floor [Jelly Roll Morton] (3:38)
04. Prettiest Train [Trad. - Lomax Prixon Recordings] (4:10)
05. Mole In The Ground [Trad.] (5:47)
06. Darlin's Corey [Trad.] (4:42)
07. It Hurts Me Too [Mel London] (4:12)
08. Katie Cruel [Trad.] (2:33)
09. Blackjack [Ray Charles] (3:12)
10. No More Taters [Trad.] (4:57)
11. Good Morning Blues [Ledbetter] (3:36)



'Tall, beautiful, and haunted by hard drugs and alcohol, a situation that left her homeless and nearly toothless at her death in New York in 1993, Karen Dalton never found commercial success in her lifetime, but her extremely small recording legacy [just two albums, 1969's It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best and 1971's In My Own Time, and now this double-disc live set from 1962] reveals a maverick and singular musician utterly unlike anyone else on the folk [or any other] scene. Possessing an eerie, riveting voice and vocal style that could almost be called harrowing if it didn't carry so much of the real world in its emotional depths, Dalton's folk-blues repertoire consisted of odd bits of traditional fare [which she generally took in directions only she could have imagined], an assortment of Fred Neil songs [the artist she most resembles emotionally], Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child" [Dalton's vocal phrasing has recalled Holiday's for many listeners], and assorted R&B songs, often those made famous by Ray Charles, which she stripped down and took into startling new places. Accompanying herself on a Gibson 12-string acoustic guitar or her trademark long-neck banjo, Dalton performed live sets that were tense, draining affairs, leaving little doubt that this was a woman who sang from a place few others had ever even glimpsed. This remarkable live set was taped in October of 1962 at the Attic coffeehouse in Boulder, CO, by Joe Loop, and it unveils as a stilled and stark reading of Dalton's musical story, offering her eerie and moody version of Ray Charles' "It's Alright," an absolutely haunting take on the old fiddle tune "Cotton Eyed Joe," a real-as-it-gets rendition of Fred Neil's "Blues on the Ceiling," and a stunning run-through of the traditional [and for all practical purposes, Dalton's signature tune] "Katie Cruel," all of it done with the unhurried pace of an intense all-night conversation. Dalton has said that one doesn't sing songs, one speaks them, and that philosophy helps explain her idiosyncratic vocal style, which shifts lines into unexpected patterns, mimicking, in a way, the pace and flow of solo speech, although make no mistake, what Dalton does is singing, and singing done with a hushed urgency, and in a way, it is more like a free-flight jazz horn break on an old blues standard than anything else. Dalton's approach isn't for everyone, and this is far from an album to throw on at a party -- the barely veiled emotional power of these vocal performances is much more likely to produce a stunned silence than any kind of levity. She was one of a kind, and the real tragedy is that people are only discovering that now some dozen years and more after her death.' Steve Leggett

doug schulkind played one of these tunes on his increasingly sublime give the drummer some web radio stream on fmu this afterlunch & i was reminded of how pearlesque the majority of these performances really are. as doomed as doomed can be, yknow? during the extended winter of 2007-08 somewhere in portland, oregon, an entire haushold of broken-hearted junkies became utterly transfixed & haunted by these harrowing recordings. now some 3 years later, under a different roof & waning moon, more flavourful youngsters who don't shoot drugs are still getting turned on :) sweet progress!

VA ~ Winter Is Blue C90 mixtape [holy warbles, 2011]

TRILL 03

78 Side

01. Eddie South - Two Guitars 1929
02. Danai - Misirlou, 1947
03. Georges Boulanger et son Orchestre - Sombre Dimanche, 1934
04. Oscar Alemán - Bésame Mucho, 1943
05. Abe Ellstein Orchestra - Second Avenue square dance, 1950
06. Shorty Godwin - Jimbo Jambo Land, 1929
07. Harry Choates - Devil in the Bayou, 1946
08. Dick Reinhart - Always Marry Your Lover, 1929
09. Efisio Melis - Fiuda Bagadia, 1943
10. Wasyl Emetz - Ukranian Bandura, 1930
11. Amelita Galli-Curci - Sadko: Song of India, 1922
12. The Gilt Edged Four - Yiddisher Charleston, 1927
13. Damia - Sombre Dimanche, 1936
14. William Moore - Old Country Rock, 1928
15. Emmet Miller - Sam & Bill At The Graveyard, 1930

Wile Side

16. Mohd Rafi - Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind Par [Pyaasa], 1957
17. Samuel Malavsky - V'Shomru, 1929
18. Syl Johnson - Teardrops, 1959
19. Kookie Cook - Revenge, 1966
20. Grayson & Whitter - Rose Conley, 1927
21. Lata Mangeshkar - Kahin Deep Jale Kahin Dil [Bees Saal Baad], 1962
22. Malvina Reynolds - From Way Up Here, 1971
23. Freshly Wrapped Candies - Green Grass, 1987
24. Graham Davies - The Road Is Hard, 1976
25. Wiley Walker & Gene Sullivan - When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again, 1941
26. Stan Hubbs - Golden Rose, 1982
27. Spooky Dance Band - Nightmare Fantasy, y2k
28. Ben Douglas - Foxhunt, 1960





started making a mix of a buncha haunting 78's just to see if i could & once i had, i began to realize i been listening to pretty much the same tunes fer the last decade & disproportionately representing america & turkey. so i attempted to switch it up a bit & this is the result. too sad fer the public? kitty lovingly donated by murky

Brother Claude Ely ~ Satan Get Back [Ace, 1993]

CDCHD 456

01. I'm Crying Holy Unto The Lord
02. There's A Leak In This Old Building
03. Send Down That Rain
04. There Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down
05. Talk About Jesus
06. I'm Just A Stranger Here-The Cumberland Five
07. Thank You Jesus
08. I Want To Rest
09. You've Got To Move
10. Farther On
11. Jesus Is The Rock
12. Little David, Play On Your Harp
13. There's A Higher Power
14. Holy, Holy, Holy (That's All Right)
15. Dip Your Finger In The Water (And Cool My Thumb)
16. Do You Want To Shout
17. Those Prayers And Words Still Guide Me
18. My Crucified One
19. The Old Fireside
20. Fare You Well
21. I Want To Go To Heaven
22. You Took The Wrong Road Again
23. Stop That Train



'Brother Claude Ely recorded some of the most powerful & emotional Gospel songs ever made. Known sometimes as the Gospel Ranger, Ely spent nearly thirty years as a minister in the Appalachian heartland of eastern Kentucky, east Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and eventually to a migrant community in suburban Cincinnati.

His early efforts on the King label-recorded during Kentucky mountain religious services-preserve some excellent and spontaneous music from the white Holiness and Pentecostal traditions. Claude Ely was born in a mountain homestead some five miles from Pennington Gap, Virginia in a hollow called Pucketts Creek, VA.

At 12, physicians diagnosed him as suffering from tuberculosis, which they believed terminal, but he subsequently recovered. However, during his illness, he began to play musical instruments, although he had no prior experience. Ely subsequently worked as a coal miner and served in the U.S. Army during WWII. Afterwards, he returned home, had a conversion experience and worked in the mines until 1949, when he received a call to preach.

For the next sixteen years Brother Claude conducted numerous revivals and pastored churches in such mountain towns as Grundy, Virginia and Cumberland, Kentucky. During his pastorate at the Free Pentecostal Church of God in Cumberland, he recorded two sessions for King Records, the first apparently taken from a remote broadcast in the church to a radio station in Whitesburg, Kentucky, on October 12, 1953 and the second from a recording made at a revival meeting in the local Letcher County Courthouse the following June.

According to J.D. Jarvis, who was present, Ely initially had some reservations about commercially recording in a studio, but finally decided to permit cutting the material in an actual service and put them on disc. A total of fifteen numbers were recorded at both services although only eight appeared on single releases, but their uniqueness has long impressed folklorists and students of Appalachian religious traditions. Brother Claude’s rendition of songs like Holy, Holy, Holy (That’s All Right), There’s A Leak In This Old Building and especially There Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down are outstanding and the latter number went on to become something of a standard in the Gospel field.

Claude Ely continued not only to conduct revivals and Gospel sings, but also to minister churches. In 1962 and in 1968, he again recorded for King, but this time in a more conventional studio setting. Meanwhile his pastorate took him to Charity Tabernacle in Newport, Kentucky-within the Cincinnati metropolitan area-where he spent the last thirteen years of his life.

Not long after his last session at King, Brother Claude recorded an album at Rusty York’s Jewel studio, backed by local Gospel musicians such as Dennis Hensley, Phil Miles, Herschel Lively, J.D. Jarvis and Herman Crisp. He released it on his own Gold Star label. Ely suffered a heart attack in September 1977, but seemingly recovered. At that time, he began to tape many of his own unrecorded compositions for preservation. This proved to be a wise move because he suffered a fatal heart attack the following May and died during a service at his church.

His daughter assembled an album and a sermon from these home recordings and they were released on Dennis Hensley’s Jordan label in 1979. Several latter-day Appalachian Gospel singers trace varying influences to Brother Claude and his music, including Robert Akers, Tommy Crank, Joe Freeman and J.D. Jarvis.

Interest in his music persists and in 1993, the British label Ace released a compact disc containing his entire 1953 and 1954 sessions, including the talking, sermonettes and unreleased cuts, as well as a few of his numbers from 1962." ~ Ivan M. Tribe

perch merch

dunno what it is about recordings from appalachia, but immediately upon hearing these fervent tunes, my pupils seem to dilate & i feel like i drank a dram of the most potent moonshine. dip yer finger in the water, dear children, & bear witness as this compelling sequence of sanctified sermons & holiness hollers psycho-activate the naturally occurring chemicals yer meristem. surely this is the white man's krunk & definitely receives my highest imaginable recommendation. on a related note, the divine revelators at dust-to-digital hath recently unfurled a promising page-turner penned by bro claude's nephew, macel ely 2 [hisself an ordained minister], that comes correct with an accompanying polycarb coaster of mysterious recordings. methinks they should really float us a copy fer review :)

Alvin Curran ~ Canti Illuminati [Fore, 1982/ Fringes, 2004]

A1. Canti Illuminati [For Voice, Synthesizer, Tape] 26:50

B1. Canti Illuminati [For Choir, Synthesizer, Piano And Tape] 24:10

Chorus - Alessandro Bruno , Antonella Talamonti , Antonio Cesareni , David Thorner , Elisabetta Bordes-Page , Giorgio Caruano , Luca Miti , Manuela Garroni , Nicola Bernadini , P.Luigi Castellano , Sista Carandini

Voice, Synthesizer, Tape, Piano, Liner Notes -Alvin Curran
Recorded By - Kicko Fusco , Nicola Bernadini

Recorded February / March 1982 at the author's studio and at Mammuth Studios, Roma.
Reissue produced by Fringes and Mapidar. Edition of 1000 copies with two 6-page booklets. Originally issued by Fore in 1982, with original cover and liner notes, plus an updated presentation written by the composer



'Long out of print, this is an overdue reissue of American composer Alvin Curran's third record. Following his involvement in the live electronics performance group Musica Elettronica Viva, Curran embarked on a more personal pursuit utilizing his own voice and a patchwork of minimal synthesizer and field recordings. The two parts of Canti Illuminati show clear affinities to the vocal style of Pandit Pran Nath and Poppy No Good era Terry Riley, while also coming off like a denser version of Takehisa Kosugi's Catch Wave. Curran has had a lifelong affinity to the resonances of foghorns and their sonorities seem to serve as the general underlying drone and pulse of the first section. Curran's vocals, however, are what give the piece its rhythmic push. His tapestry of tape work and synthesizer delays matches the vocal intensity of his delivery; Canti Illuminati pt. 1 ends up most resembling the shimmering dronescapes of late-era Boredoms.

For the beginning section of the second half of Canti Illuminati, Curran brought in a choir; this is probably the least successful section of the disc. That may just be a matter of taste as I generally find chorus' of extended vocal technique to be somewhat corny. However, at about the 10-minute mark of the 24-minute piece the chorus fades away to an exquisitely beautiful extended passage comprised only of Curran's wordless vocals and lyrically minimal piano phrasing. Memorably haunting stuff that devolves at the final two minutes to a little bit of piano improvisation that seems to have been taken from the Great American Songbook. AWESOME!' ~ source

canti illuminati is love at first listen. for this drop i generously offer the option of FLAC, however kindly note that the 'cue' aspect was corrupted & i hastily deleted it, but the tracks are still separated, so deal. utterly essential listening; that brief snippet is hardly representative of the epic grandeur. some heady bidness. thx & praise to thee originilluminator. further more hither & thither