The University of Illinois Press has been busy recently with the publication, in a short of space of time, of two books that focus on the American folk music scene.

The first of these is The Never-Ending Revival: Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance by Michael F. Scully, in which the author capitalizes on the recent upsurge in interest in “roots music” and “world music.” He examines the roles of Rounder Records and the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance, both organizations that have sought to make folk music widely available, while simultaneously respecting its defining traditions and unique community atmosphere.

In the late 1950s through the 1960s, the folk music revival pervaded the mainstream music industry, with artists such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez singing historically or politically informed ballads based on musical forms from Appalachia and the South. Subsequently, it became commercialized and the basic thrust of this book is Scully’s examination of the ongoing controversy surrounding the profitability of folk music. He explores the lively debates about the difficulty of making commercially accessible music, honoring tradition, and remaining artistically relevant, all without “selling out.”

The author, an attorney by profession and holder of a PhD. in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, combines interviews of music executives and practicing folk musicians with his own personal experiences to reveal how this American subculture remains in a “never-ending revival” based on fluid definitions of folk and folk music.

Scully speaks of his intent in one concise paragraph in his introduction …

“This book does not examine every manifestation of post boom revival activity. My approach is thematic and focuses on ongoing intellectual and commercial issues common to revivalism as a whole. For the most part, I examine such issues through the vehicle of the Folk Alliance and Rounder Records. As an umbrella organisation that annually brings together roughly two thousand folk entrepreneurs of varying stripes, the Alliance is a living laboratory that illustrates the revival’s continuing concerns. Rounder, in the words of the New York Times, is ‘folk music’s big small label.’ Begun as an ‘antiprofit collective’ by three left-leaning students who romanticized the folk, it has grown into one of the world’s largest independent record companies. That growth helps illuminate commercial revivalism’s development in the postboom years, a period that encompassed the countercultural movements of the late sixties, the music industry upheavals of the 1990s, and the digital revolution of the twenty-first century.”

The Never-Ending Revival (259 pages, ISBN:0252033337) was published on April 14 and is available from the University of Illinois Press and all good book stores.

The second of the two University of Illinois Press books to which I alluded above is Sing It Pretty – Bess Lomax Hawes: A Memoir. Bess, a folklorist and musicologist herself, was daughter to John Lomax and sister to Alan Lomax. I will turn my attention to that book shortly.

Rounder Records has announced details of the debut release by Danny Paisley and the Southern Grass. The CD entitled The Room Over Mine (#0589) is scheduled for release on June 24. It is the band’s first release since signing with Rounder Records in August 2005.

Recorded during three separate sessions at Bias Studios, Springfield, Virginia, the material featured on the album comes from the classic country music period, a more recent country song, old band favourites, two instrumentals and a couple of newly written songs.

Of the newer songs, there is one penned by Chris Stuart and Ivan Rosenberg, Don’t Throw Mamma’s Flowers Away, and a Stan Keach song that is tailor-made for the Southern Grass treatment, The Drowning Sailor.

Other tracks include Raising Cain In Texas, a song that singer Gene Watson recorded and was a Top Twenty hit on the Billboard country chart for him in 1980, which Danny arranged Jimmy Martin-style and a few older country songs: The Convict And The Rose, written by Betty Chapin and Robert A. King and recorded by Marty Robbins and Charlie Moore among others; At the End of a Long Lonely Day, a song that Danny’s father recorded, but now done in a different way and with different lyrics; I Thought I Heard You Calling My Name, done in a honky-tonk style with walking bass; A Memory of You, another song that Bob Paisley sang and that was previously recorded by Jim and Jesse; I’m Coming Back But I Don’t Know When, a song Danny first heard done by Charlie Monroe and Another Bridge to Burn, a song that A&R man Ken Irwin sent Danny’s way. Donnie Eldreth Jr. does a great job singing this song from the repertoires of Little Jimmy Dickens and Ray Price.

The band do a reprise of the popular The Room Over Mine, recorded a few years ago for one of Bob Paisley’s Brandywine CDs, and Leaving Detroit, a Charlie Moore song that Danny did for Rounder [Rounder 0142, 1981], along with a couple of old instrumentals, Sweet Potato Rag and Mountain Sally Ann, the latter of which finds Bobby Lundy using a special banjo tuning to get an old-time sound. (more…)

Hot on the heals of the success of Rounder recording artists at The Grammy award show on Sunday comes news of an award for the label itself.

The North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance (Folk Alliance) will honor Rounder Records as a recipient of the 2008 Elaine Weissman Lifetime Achievement Awards (LAAwards) at the Folk Awards Show Wednesday, February 20, 2008, in Memphis, Tennessee.

The awards, a highlight of the Folk Alliance’s annual conference, are given to those who have inspired others, achieved definitive leadership in their field and contributed to the advancement of folk music and/or dance. Each year the LAAwards honor two performers, one living and one legacy, and a person or institution involved in the business or academic side of the folk world, who have devoted their life’s work and talent to the advancement of the performing folk arts. Mavis Staples and the late Tommy Jarrell take the award in the living and legacy categories, respectively.

The Rounder story is well-known, indeed we have recently posted a link to a press article in a Massachusetts newspaper. However, here’s what the Rounder press release says about themselves.

In 1970, with only their passionate enthusiasm for American roots music lighting the way, three Cambridge, Massachusetts college students, Bill Nowlin, Ken Irwin, and Marian Leighton Levy, cast their lot into the perilous music industry. The tenacious trio went the distance: from humble beginnings to what is now America’s premier independent record label. From its early interest in rural American music (via fiddle, stringband, blues, and bluegrass recordings) to an expansive catalogue of more than 2,500 titles running the gamut from folk to world, soul to socas, jazz to juju, Cajun to Celtic, and beyond, Rounder has emerged as the pre-eminent source for vital, uncompromised music of all genres.

Rounder’s award comes in the Business/Industry Lifetime Achievement Award category.

I asked Marian Leighton Levy for her reaction to this news

“It’s wonderful to be honored with Folk Alliance’s Lifetime Achievement Award. It came as a complete surprise and is the kind of recognition of Rounder artists, the label’s history and catalogue, that makes us both pleased as punch and very proud. While it’s always nice to have Rounder recognized within the industry, it’s particularly meaningful when it comes from an organization so devoted to the music and make up of fellow-music lovers like ourselves.”

Two Rounder artists, The SteelDrivers and Vienna Teng, will be performing at conference showcases throughout the week.

The 2008 International Folk Alliance Conference runs from Wednesday, February 20 until Sunday, February 24. The full schedule is available on their web site.

The Folk Alliance was founded in 1989 and seeks to create new and better opportunities for all those involved in the performance folk arts. With thousands of attendees annually, their conference offers a complete view of the business world of traditional and contemporary folk music and dance through showcases, educational seminars, films, and a networking-rich trade show.

As we ponder the results of the 2008 Grammies – and breathe a sigh of relief that Cherryholmes didn’t have to worry about being photographed with Amy Winehouse – there are yet a few more stories that bear mentioning.

On Saturday, February 9, Earl Scruggs was the recipient of a 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award at a separate Grammy ceremony in Los Angeles. Here is how he was described…

Earl Scruggs revolutionized and popularized the banjo and developed what is now known worldwide as the “Scruggs Style Picking.” His style of picking is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. For more than 20 years, Scruggs performed with vocalist and guitarist Lester Flatt forming the most famous band in bluegrass history. But Scruggs parted with Flatt and in 1969 formed Earl Scruggs Revue with his three sons. In 2003, Scruggs received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in that same year he and Flatt were ranked No. 24 on “CMT’s 40 Greatest Men of Country Music.”

Using The Grammies as the hook, The Daily News in Newburyport, MA ran a feature over the weekend on Rounder Records. The piece by correspondent Jessica Benson looks at the humble beginnings of the company which is now among the more successful independent music labels in the United States.

“We were simply people who were music fans,” said Leighton Levy, who was an undergrad at Clark University in Worcester at the time. “There’s really no way we could have anticipated how the company was going to grow.”

It started in 1970, when Irwin was hitchhiking home to Cambridge after enjoying a fiddler’s convention down south. He was picked up by a guy who, with no formal training, had started his own record company.

Read the full article, which traces Rounder from their start to the present, online.

And one more comment regarding Merle Haggard having been refused consideration in the Best Bluegrass Album category in the Grammy voting…

This year’s winner, Jim Lauderdale, like Haggard is a country artist who made a decision to release a bluegrass project in 2007, both of which included the word “bluegrass” in its title.

This is not in any way to suggest that Jim’s award is undeserved. Bluegrass Diaries was produced and recorded by Randy Kohrs – a noted bluegrass artist, writer and producer – and aggressively promoted to bluegrass radio and media. Jim was also an active participant in last year’s IBMA convention in Nashville, and was personally involved in asking the bluegrass world to embrace his latest effort.

In the end, bluegrass purists may find fault with either Lauderdale or Haggard being considered for such an award – and we have heard from them – but does it seem odd that one is fair game while the other was labeled as “country?” My own guess is that the decision was based more on Merle Haggard’s long association as a country artist than on the actual recording itself.