Red Clay Rambler Artist Page / Free Sheet Music Download: NC State Toast

p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- The a2f2a (artists-to-fans-to-artists) site is coming along nicely.

It’s now pretty well set up and going through the tweaking process. With luck, it’ll be online by Wednesday.

A joint venture between artist-activist Billy Bragg and p2pnet’s Jon Newton, the idea is to bring artists and fans together, instead of keeping them apart,  which is corporate music policy.

Chris Ovenden is doing all the hard work customising the blog.

The slogan is Start your own revolution, cut out the middleman from Billy’s  ‘Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards’.

Meanwile, I just had a quick word with Billy. He’s in Basque country in Spain, as part of his current tour, and while we were talking, he mentioned his pet project — Jail Guitar Doors to, “provide instruments to those who are using music as a means of achieving the rehabilitation of prison inmates.”

It takes its name from the b-side of the Clash’s 1978 single ‘Clash City Rockers’.

This  is the kind of thing you never hear about from the major labels.

Another example is Bill Hudson’s Feel Good Music Network created to recycle and distribute musical instruments and healing with live concerts  in the storm ravaged Gulf Coast area.

You’ll read about these and other initiatives in a2f2a, showing how artists and fans can together make online music work for everyone, instead of a few venal vested-interest companies whose only interest  is in making their shareholders even richer than they are already.

Stay tuned.

Cheers!

Jon Newton – p2pnet

Ready for a September 29th release, Malcolm is offering a free preview to efolkMusic visitors- click here for full length preview of "A Bigger Plan", and go to Malcolm's efolkMusic page for more previews and info about the album. Great work, Malcolm!

Old-time rural music remains at the center of my life. It's a tactile, emotional, aural pleasure — the words are my Shakespeare and my mysteries, the music is my Bach, my pastime, and it makes me want to dance...Classic, timeless qualities in this music endure. For me, there ain't no way out but nature, and I'll make the most of it. -Mike Seeger (from the liner notes to the 1997 albumThere Ain't No Way Out by The New Lost City Ramblers)

 Mike Seeger, who devoted his life to documenting, teaching, keeping alive, and carrying forth the sounds of traditional music of the American South, died from cancer August 7th, 2009 at the age of 75.

 Almost more than any other individual in the last sixty years, Mike Seeger (1933–2009) was a crusader for documenting, teaching, keeping alive, and carrying forth the sounds of traditional music of the American South. A singer and proficient instrumentalist, Seeger learned to play banjo, fiddle, guitar, Jew's harp, harmonica, quills, dulcimer, mandolin, and autoharp. As a musician he recorded extensively, with a rich discography on Folkways Records and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings as a solo artist and also as a member of the folk revival ensemble The New Lost City Ramblers. As a collector he captured the sounds of such seminal artists as Elizabeth Cotten and Dock Boggs, and he edited and compiled collections of material by many others, both obscure and well known. And finally, as a historian and preservationist of the music he called "old time," Mike Seeger told the stories behind the music that is an essential part of American culture.  more...

Go to tribute page >> info on new Smithsonian release of the New Lost City Ramblers, featuring Mike.

Collectively known as the New Lost City Ramblers, Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley were pioneers in the revival of Southern mountain music during the folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. They brought the sounds of genuine old-time string band music and early bluegrass to eager city and college audiences who had grown disillusioned with the commercial pap of the folk boom.

This set features two previously released CDs of the Ramblers classic Folkways recordings: The Early Years, 1958-1962 with the original trio, and Out Standing in Their Field: Volume II, 1963-1973, with Tracy Schwarz replacing Tom Paley. A newly compiled third disc, Where Do You Come From? Where Do You Go? celebrates the band’s 50th anniversary in 2009, presenting more choice Ramblers selections along with their field recordings of the traditional Southern musicians who inspired them including: Dock Boggs, Roscoe Holcomb, Tom Ashley, Maybelle Carter, Elizabeth Cotten, Eck Robertson, Cousin Emmy, Reverend Gary Davis, Kilby Snow, Dillard Chandler, Dellie Norton, and the Balfa Brothers. 81 tracks, over 3 ½ hours of music, 88-page booklet liner notes over 3 CDs. Disc #3 includes 6 previously unreleased songs.

The mission of the band is to enhance knowledge about gynecologic cancers and bring hope through rhythm for women undergoing treatment. The doctors strongly believe music heals. In fact, more than 250 journal articles report findings investigating the beneficial effects of music on pain, anxiety or depression. In a recent study at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, investigators found that patients who received music therapy while undergoing chemotherapy reported 37% less mood disturbance than other patients and 28% less anxiety. Other studies have shown that music can assist patients in coping with difficult illnesses. N.E.D. is focused on using music to convey this comfort.

With original music influenced by U2, Foo Fighters, Rush, and Weezer, N.E.D. hopes to bring a fresh and encouraging, yet sympathetic approach to what can often be a very dark time.

New York-based Motéma Music will be releasing the CD on September 8, 2009 to coincide with Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month. Proceeds from the sale of the CD and live performances will be donated to the N.E.D. Cancer Foundation, supported by the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation (GCF) whose mission is to educate the public about gynecologic cancers and support promising research. Specifically, funding donated to GCF by N.E.D. will support the new Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Movement (GCAM) to be launched in November 2009 in Washington, DC with the Inaugural GCAM Half Marathon on November 8, 2009.

More info:  www.motema.com/artists/NED

You can listen to the interview here: sierraclub.typepad.com/sierra_club_radio/2009/06/sierra-club-radio-june-6-2009.html Or click here to subscribe to the Sierra club podcast: www.sierraclub.org/radio/subscribe.asp

I saw Pete Seeger Sunday night, alive as you and me. They threw a birthday concert for him at Madison Square Garden. John Seeger, age 95, said from the stage that he expected his 90-year-old younger brother to make 100, which seems reasonable. Standing there, banjo off his shoulder, head thrown back, Pete looked eternal, in that pose so engraved in American memory it should be on a coin.

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