This week’s sonic offering is from the Lost in Transmission series. It’s heavily influenced by renowned Durham, NC banjo/fiddle performer and singe Joseph Decosimo and his new album While You Were Slumbering on Sleepy Cat Records—a collection of reimagined ballads and instrumentals gleaned from field recordings and visits with elder musicians from Joseph’s native Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. It includes collaborations with trad legend Alice Gerrard (Hazel and Alice), members of Elephant Micah, and other young luminaries in the US trad scene, offering fresh, experimental settings of archaic ballads & banjo/fiddle pieces with pump organ, Hardangerer d’amore, bass clarinet, and percussion. Included are three tracks from the album, which you can order here – https://josephdecosimo.bandcamp.com/album/while-you-were-slumbering.
I wanted the mix to have a kind of road trip feel, that drifting feel of escape. Mark Orton‘s (co-founder of Tin Hat) soundtrack to Nebraska aided in this and also gets three visits alongside a sonic desert vista, courtesy of Ry Cooder. Anna & Elizabeth, Andrew Tuttle, Nathan Bowles and Yasmin Williams also added to the whole feel of the journey with plenty of banjo stop-offs along the way, including one in Scotland, courtesy of Sam Shackleton‘s Scottish Folk Ballads of Freedom EP (Bandcamp), Nora Brown‘s latest Long Time To Be Gone (Bandcamp), a classic from Clarence Ashley & Doc Watson, Sam Barrett‘s Where The White Roses Grow (Bandcamp), Phil Tyler & Sarah Hill‘s recent What We Thought Was A Lake Was A Field Of Flax (Bandcamp) and The Baird Sisters – Until You Find Your Green (Bandcamp).
Along the way, there’s some vibrant energy added from Sam Amidon, Blind Boy Paxton, Cinder Well and Frank Fairfield.
The final mention goes to a gorgeous cosmic folk/country track from John Fizer, and his never heard before 1970 album Treasure Man which is being reissued on Scissor Tail Records (Bandcamp). The album was recorded in 1977 and presumed lost. John Fizer has been “living rough” for the last 30 years couch surfing, sleeping in play structures, friends’ backyards, and more recently, his old Volvo station wagon. John is currently residing in a nursing facility in Northern California.
James Johnson tells how the album came to be…
“I used to walk my daughter to school and passed the original Peet’s coffee every day. Across the street was Berkeley’s beloved John “Treasure Man” Fizer playing chess, doing crosswords and waiting next to the treasure tree which he had filled with gemstones and various magical trinkets. To this day any child passing by is welcome to choose a treasure. John is beloved by our community.
Over many stops with my daughter I got to know John, a fountain of love, intelligence and humor and as quirky and feisty as can be. We became friends. Eventually, he showed me a few old cassettes of cassettes of cassettes in poor condition of him performing and asked if I could make them sound better. I agreed to take a listen.
Such amazing songs!
So I proceeded to remaster the cassettes while continuing to ask John at least 4 times over several months if he had the original master studio recordings. The answer was always no.
About the time I finally had his cassette-sourced recordings sounding as good as they could be and he popped up with a 15 inches per second 1/4’ half-track, state-of-the-art analog master reel-to-reel recorded at the legendary Mountain Ears recording studio in 1977 with some very fine studio musicians including Ray Bonneville, Brad “Honeyboy” Hayes, Erik “Bobo” Johnson and Brian “Sluggo” Brown.
It had been residing for decades in the bowels of John’s old 1980 Volvo station wagon, which also serves as his home, and was covered in strangely beautiful mold but that was the day I knew the world would hear John’s music the way it was meant to be be.. big, fat, analog. The next few years were spent cleaning and remastering the album with some of the worlds finest restoration specialists. All John has ever really wanted in life, beside making a lot of children happy, is for his songs to be released on vinyl.” – James Johnson
Music Played
Joseph Decosimo – Man of Constant Sorrow
Mark Orton – Their Pie
Frank Fairfield – But That’s Alright
Nathan Bowles – Gadarene Fugue
Anna & Elizabeth – Virginia Rambler
Sam Amidon – My Old Friend
Nora Brown – Po Black Sheep
Blind Boy Paxton – Candy Man
Sam Shackleton – Tramps and Hawkers
Mark Orton – The Ambush
Joseph Decosimo – Apple Brandy (feat. Alice Gerrard)
John Fizer – Lady Lying Lovely
Clarence Ashley & Doc Watson – Coo Coo Bird
Ry Cooder – Nothing Out There
Jake Blount – Tangle Eye Blues
Andrew Tuttle – Correlation
Mark Orton – Guitar Twenty Eight
Cinder Well – The Hyde Mansion
Serious Sam Barrett – Bramhope Tunnel Monument
The Baird Sisters – A Soldier Being Tired
Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood (ft. Amadou Kouyate)
Phil Tyler & Sarah Hill – Heathery Hills Of Yarrow
Joseph Decosimo – Wild Goose Chase
Nathan Bowles – The Road Reversed