This week’s Monday Morning Brew playlist is free to all; you can find the listening links towards the end of this article. In 2023, Chris Strachwitz, the founder of Arhoolie Records, passed away (July 1, 1931–May 5, 2023). Chris founded the label in 1960, a ‘one-man operation that would eventually produce more than four hundred albums during more than forty years in operation, exploring the far corners of American vernacular music: blues, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, hillbilly, Texas-Mexican norteno music, and more.’ Those archives are now in the capable hands of Smithsonian Folkways.
Soon after his death, ‘Arhoolie Records Down Home Music’ was published, a visual storytelling celebration of American roots music through unseen and newly scanned photographs by Chris. In celebration of that, I put together a playlist that I’ve since revisited and expanded to a 4-hour offering covering album releases on Arhoolie, Smithsonian Folkways, Dust-to-Digital and more.
While most of the playlist features music from beyond the last 50 years, there are some exceptions. The most recent featured is Los Angeles-based Frank Fairfield. Between 2009 and 2014, he released four albums under his own name, including studio records via Tompkins Square Records, a compilation curation, and limited-run releases.
Sadly, in 2015, he quit the “music racket”.
Of course, many of those featured in the playlist are no longer with us. You can hear the wonderful voice and guitar playing of the American country blues, gospel, and folk singer and guitarist Precious Bryant, who passed away in 2013. Here’s a clip of Bryant performing in Neil Rosenbaum’s film documentary “Sing My Troubles By”.
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For those wondering where the term ‘Arhoolie’ came from, it’s a term used to describe a ‘field holler’, and was suggested to Chris by Mack McCormick, whose own field recordings were highlighted in the new Smithsonian Folkways release Playing for the Man at the Door – Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958–1971, which we covered in a recent “Listening Post” feature, to mark it’s three year Anniversary:
In their 2013 documentary, This Ain’t No Mouse, Maureen Gosling and Chris Simon showed Chris at work capturing music for Arhoolie Records. In that film, he says, “My stuff isn’t produced; I just catch it as it is.” Chris wasn’t interested in commercialising music, “I didn’t want to record stuff I didn’t like”.
However, Chris wasn’t just recording sound; he also took many photographs. The photobook Arhoolie Records Down Home Music – The Stories and Photographs of Chris Strachwitz (published via Chronicle Books) features 150 of them. Many of the images had never been seen before, each accompanied by captions by Strachwitz and award-winning music journalist Joel Selvin, along with a substantial 20,000-word essay by Selvin about Arhoolie, Strachwitz, and the music.
Celebrated Scottish folk singer and songwriter, Siobhan Miller, returns to Kings Place (Thursday, 5th Nov) with her six-piece band and a new studio album. Come and experience the excitement of their infamous festival shows in an intimate indoor venue, bringing new songs to the stage alongside favourites from Siobhan’s five previous studio albums.
This post remains free for two weeks only, so save the playlist if you feel free to save it if you want to listen later or return to it.
Listen via Spotify | Apple Music | Tidal | Qobuz | YouTube
More soon
