A guest post from Koen - last heard of with a dose of Covid. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery!
In hindsight, the first form of sampling I probably heard was Buchanan & Goodman’s wonderful “The Flying Saucer” (1956), which still is worth hearing.
Many, many years
later I was a regular buyer of UNCUT magazine with their Unconditionally
Guaranteed CDs, a great way to keep in touch with new and old music.
The June 1999 edition featured a Moby track that sounded very different from anything he did before.
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Moby’s dance music had no appeal to me at all, but ‘Natural Blues’ certainly did!
A little later I found that he had sampled Vera Hall’s Trouble So Hard, from a 1937 recording by American folklorist Alan Lomax. Apparently, Moby first came across this song on the Lomax collection Alabama: From Lullabies to Blues.
However, the way Moby ‘discovered’ that Lomax collection is another intriguing story This track sort of introduced me to Alan Lomax and his enormous archive of field recordings.
One year later, UNCUT’s June 2000 edition featured St Germain’s Sure Thing on its CD.
Having
John Lee Hooker’s Harry's Philosophy (from The Hot Spot Soundtrack,
1990) being part of it turned it into a great track imho. Plus as a bonus, it also had that Vera Hall song!
By now the possibilities of sampling began to look interesting.
Break In Services
During
an annual Netherlands visit, I stumbled upon a cheap Rounder sampler:
Presenting the Alan Lomax Collection which (surprise, surprise) got
added to my goodies to take back home. Besides 12 fascinating recordings from the past, the cover mentioned that these were the originals from the Tangle Eye remix…
Tangle what? Never heard of it, but a quick Google search revealed Alan Lomax's Southern Journey Remixed (on Zoë Records, part of Rounder!), with some positive reviews as well.
I found one track as an mp3 somewhere, really liked what I heard, and requested assistance from a musical friend.
The
postal services didn’t let me down (in this part of the world it
happens from time to time) but nicely delivered the CD in question to
our home address.
Very listenable indeed, the emphasis is more on the
original vocal tracks than anything else, combined with present-day
musicians (incl. Meters bassist George Porter, Jr., bluesman Corey
Harris, banjo player Tony Trischka, guitarist Jeff Raines, and
trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis) doing the backing tracks, produced by
Scott Billington and Steve Reynolds.
This stayed a one-off project as far as I know.
What is your opinion about combining the past and the present in this way?
Do you have any favorites?
Looking forward to hearing from you all again!
Rewards: Right out of the oven rips of both above-mentioned CDs!
the past is for inspiration and warning. sampling is just.....
ReplyDeleteno matter how skilled the artist, it always sounds wrong. improving perfection is just..... stupid.
i know as humans it is difficult for us to believe we can't add some magic.
THE FUCKING REASON WE JUMP ON THESE OLD TUNES IS BECAUSE THEY ARE TRULY GREAT!
WE CAN'T DO BETTER!!!
i look forward to hearing the cds strictly out of curiosity.
Agreed.
DeleteI agree that a lot of sampling is utter crap, but occasionally there are exceptions!
DeleteI like sampling. I like hip hop. I also like cover songs. There's enough music out there for each of us to enjoy!
DeleteI don't think the artists involved are necessarily trying to improve or better the original songs. Everyone borrows from the past.
Yep, lots of exceptions.
DeleteI like sampling and hip hop too. Sampling, when done right, is cool by me. 'Paul's Boutique', anyone?
As for covers, I like covers that sound like the covering artist wrote them.
Joe Cockers' A Little Help From My Friends comes to mind, as a really great cover.
Delete@ DEPRAVOS DE LA MOUR
DeleteThe Lomax CD has the original recordings, so you can compare these with the remixes. In the bonus interview Billington explains the reasons behind this project and how they worked. I think it was executed in a very respectful way.
It all depends how respectfully it's done and how much of the original is used. You can end up with true horrorshows like Keith Leblanc's "Chessmoves" or delights like Little Axe's "The Wolf that House Built".
ReplyDeleteOn the whole, little of this urge to combine past and present has ever appealed to me, although I'm open to persuasion!.
I've just noticed that "Chessmoves" features Skip McDonald of Little Axe...
DeleteAnd that Leblanc was in Little Axe.
DeleteWhat went wrong?
I was going to mention Little Axe if you hadn't, Steve.
DeleteIt's a shame that Chess Moves didn't live up to its promise. Keith, Skip and Doug Wimbish (all members of Little Axe and Tackhead) participated -- but producer Adrian Sherwood did not. Maybe that's what went wrong?
I bought Chessmoves unheard after reading a promotion blurb and was left seriously disappointed... Now Little Axe is a whole different story!
DeleteI quite liked Moby’s ‘Natural Blues’, but in the uk it was played to death on the radio at work, so I soon tired of it. Also Beautiful People - 'If 60s Was 90s', I thought rather good using Hendrix material, but a whole album of it was way more than I could take, and I think may not have aged very well, see you tube below:-
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOrnbw9cVmA
Before anyone thinks I've lost the plot completely re: 'If 60's was 90's', when I first heard it I was at The Glastonbury Festival, in the mid 90's possibly in a very 'refreshed' state!
ReplyDeleteI've just remembered another use of past music, in 1988 I saw Zappa live twice, at both gigs he did Beatles covers and at one he did Stairway to Heaven, the gig I saw in Brighton was wonderful, but I wasn't sure why he did these covers they seemed a bit pointless to me, Whipping Post may have also been played.
are we bunching covers with sampled songs here? i may be confused.
DeleteNo. My fault, I just remembered the Zappa gig, and what I considered unnecessary cover versions.
DeleteI believe Stairway was played so the horns could play Page's guitar solo - a bit of a dig at Page.
DeleteThe Beatles covers made up the Texas Motel Medley, which was part of Zappa's attack on the US Christian Right.
I find most covers to be pointless, especially covers of classic Blues songs by Muddy, Elmore, John Lee, Otis etc. etc.
DeleteI couldn't agree more with DEPRAVOS DE LA MOUR's post above.
The idea of covering Whipping Post dates back to a 1974 Helsinki gig...Zappa really cracks me up on this.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnEiZ2ESOOY
"Must be a John Cage composition"
Delete"Moby’s dance music had no appeal to me at all, but ‘Natural Blues’ certainly did! A little later I found that he had sampled Vera Hall’s Trouble So Hard, from a 1937 recording by American folklorist Alan Lomax. Apparently, Moby first came across this song on the Lomax collection Alabama: From Lullabies to Blues."
ReplyDeleteVera Hall is a National Treasure!
Koen - I would have bet money, that Vera Hall’s 'Trouble So Hard' was on the Lomax collection 'Alabama: From Lullabies to Blues' but it's actually on 'Sounds Of The South / Blue Ridge Mountain Music' along with 'Boll Weevil Holler'
Here's a link to it
https://workupload.com/file/VBH9GqGuvjJ
Also, here's a link to 'Lomax collection Alabama: From Lullabies to Blues' which has five more tracks from Vera (credited as Vera Hall Ward), plus three tracks of Vera with Dock Reed,
https://workupload.com/file/bc53UJxhaVV
Wikipedia says that Moby got his samples for the Play album from the 1993 box set "Sounds of the South: A Musical Journey from the Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta".
DeleteI'm quite sure you're right Babs! And thanks for the Lomax albums.
DeleteHope you're feeling better, Koen!
DeleteThanks Steve, I finally tested negative this morning and went out into town, it felt great!
DeleteGlad to hear you are well, Koen.
DeleteThank you, Babs. Luckily I had no problems with taste/smell/etc.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFYI - Tanglewood was a one off. Rounder was a great label for several decades, and was instrumental in preserving several genres of music, including the '80s rnb stars of New Orleans. Billington has a book that was released about a year ago, that dives into many of the projects that Rounder undertook - entitled Making Tracks. Also, here's a link to a great website that has Lomax's audio and video works preserved: https://archive.culturalequity.org/collections
ReplyDeleteThank you for mentioning that book, I didn't know about it.
ReplyDeleteAs for Rounder, another eclectic label, which could easily have a post here!
Just noticed the posts re your bout with Covid - glad you are recovering. Be careful though - I had my 3rd bout about 5 weeks ago, and 2 weeks later developed a symptom called Covid toes which is stull with me (and a huge PITA).
DeleteThank you. My sister has long covid and that's nasty to say the least...
DeleteI have a friend with long covid and it's very debilitating indeed. His lungs are basically wrecked. Glad you're better, Koen.
DeleteThanks again Steve!
DeleteSome nice interaction on this topic, thanks everyone!
ReplyDeleteHere you are, full rips of both CDs, incl. scans & a NPR interview with Scott Billington as a bonus track!
https://mega.nz/file/eME3ARJD#GYNCOAp8CNHqV5dySPj3txjt-aoA6zazqkVrTdvoNFw