Preserving Country Blues through Education, Performance and Technology.
Weeniepedia!
Written by WeenieCampbell
Weenie Campbell is proud to announce . . . Weeniepedia!
With respect to the loyal contributors to Weenie Campbell Country Blues Forum, and in response to specific advocacy from some members, Weenie Campbell is today proud to launch a new feature to which everyone can contribute and use: Weeniepedia.
For some time we had been aware that masses of great extra-forum content had been accumulating in the database and was not being accessed. The challenge was to provide a way to get to it easily. A related open question was how to better harness the collective knowledge of everyone concerned with a minimum of admin to allow the site to keep growing unrestrictedly and organically to its full potential.
The new Weeniepedia area is a wiki-based system. So you might ask "why not just contribute to the country blues content on Wikipedia?" The consensus we reached was that while Weeniepedia will have much in common with Wikipedia in look and feel we needed to achieve and preserve some strength and quality of content. The specialist nature of weeniecampbell.com and its well-established tone of civility and respect for the music makes us believe we may be well placed to do this. Another consideration was accommodating the very slightly warped nature of Weenie Campbell. We like to pursue our own little side-tracks from time to time, fascinating for country blues fans but likely to be incomprehensible to the general public.
Country blues will always be a sub-sub-sub-topic on Wikipedia. On Weeniepedia it will be the entire focus. We have elements of longevity, expertise and continuity within the Weenie Campbell community to be able to maintain a strong focus on "The Real Country Blues, according to Weenie", whatever we collectively perceive that to be. Another advantage of taking it 'in-house' is that we are free to create our own hierarchical structure to suit the content and are not constrained by Wikipedia's somewhat 'flat web' organization. Naturally, in the spirit of all things wiki, we would expect and be delighted when some Weeniepedia content ends up on Wikipedia, and vice versa.
Over the last few years we have documented a huge amount of material. This is not just 'any' material, it's stuff to which people who care passionately about this art form gravitate. We're not obscurantists for the sake of it and the content reflects this. There are many pages concerned with the work of more well-known artists, and many more covering people with whom the average casual listener would be unfamiliar. The common factor is they are great artists, how well-known they might be is irrelevant.
Weeniepedia Wants You! All registered users on WeenieCampbell.com are automatically Weenie Wiki Editors which we are sure will soon command high social status among Wiki Editors the world over. To minimize risk and protect the content there is a reasonable requirement that Wiki editors are registed forum users with a few posts under their belt. The software is very cool; if you've never edited a Wiki before it is easy but there is a small learning curve. We have set up a new board on the WC forum titled 'Weeniepedia' to help new editors interested in helping build the resource.
Several people have worked together to progressively install, configure and personalize the Wiki software to create Weeniepedia, Version 1.0. We've migrated across literally dozens of articles buried in the current content management system. To get some idea of the depth of content please feel free to visit the newly-minted Weeniepedia and please post your comments in the forum topic . Be sure to check out the sortable tables. So for example in a list of songs on a CD with key positions and tunings you can now click on a column heading and group together songs by tuning/position, sort by track#, song title.
Whatever your country blues affiliations this is a resource that is open to all to read and registered weenies to develop. We hope you will feel motivated to contribute to and enjoy exploring Weeniepedia.
As always, thanks for reading and contributing to Weenie Campbell and welcome to the brave new world of Weeniepedia!
Weenie Juke Is Off the Air
Written by Weenie Campbell
Thanks to Sound Exchange, the RIAA and the Copyright Royalty Board of the Library of Congress, the Weenie Juke has been forced to shut down.
Were we to stay on the air, we could be forced to pay unfair performance royalty rates that equal approximately 100% of our total revenue, and which would equal more than twice that as rates increased each year until 2010. We are not against paying royalties and fully believe in supporting artists who make music, even though most of the artists we play have long been dead and gone. We also believe in paying for music and have encouraged listeners to purchase CDs from the labels that put out the country blues music we love.
We are, however, against extortionate rates determined by those who care nothing about music and musicians -- only about cash. Not cash in the hands of artists, but in the pockets of executives, corporate lawyers and shareholders. Should Sound Exchange’s rates stand, hobby webcasters, medium-sized webcasters and even large webcasting companies will be forced to stop broadcasting, as no individual or company will be able to afford the fees.
The current “reprieve” proposed by Sound Exchange is purposefully vague, and it is unclear what we would be legally bound to pay were we to stay on the air, since their existing rates and policies still stand as of July 15, 2007, until newer, more sensible rates have been negotiated or Congress passes the Internet Radio Equality Act. The statement by Sound Exchange that they will not enforce the royalty rates yet applies only to those large companies that went before the Copyright Royalty Board. It is unclear what the position is on small webcasting operations like the Weenie Juke.
This is why we encourage U.S. listeners to continue calling your representatives in Congress and the Senate. Visit the SaveNetRadio website at www.savenetradio.org to see how to voice your opposition to the Sound Exchange rates and get stations like the Weenie Juke back on the air. Ask them to support H.R. 2060 in the House and S. 1353 in the Senate – the Internet Radio Equality Act. The Internet Radio Equality Act recommends that webcasters be subject to a percentage-based royalty system similar to the 7.5-percent-of-revenue fee structure paid by satellite and cable radio broadcasters.
Don’t let Sound Exchange, the RIAA and big business tell you what music you can listen to, or determine where and how you can hear it. This is not about getting royalties for actual performing artists, whom Sound Exchange claim to represent. It is an attempt to preserve the hold on the music industry by a few large record corporations who have not been farsighted enough to change their business model to cope with the new market created by the Internet. It is about corporate bullying, and if it stands, it will hurt, not help, independent artists and musicians everywhere.
Send a message today.
For all of our supporters and our listeners around the world, we are sad that we have to shut down the Juke and hope to be back on the air when a reasonable model for performance royalties has been negotiated.
Cordially yours, Weenie Campbell
National Day of Silence!
Written by Weenie Campbell
The future of Internet radio -- and of the Weenie Juke -- is in immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). To protest these rates and encourage the millions of net radio listeners to take action and contact their Congressional representatives, a national Day of Silence will be held June 26. Webcasters across the country will observe this day of silence in a number of ways, including dedicating entire programs to the campaign to save Internet Radio and broadcasting complete silence. Weenie Juke Radio plans on participating in this National day of Silence.
H.R. 2060, The Internet Radio Equality Act (PDF) was introduced by Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Donald Manzullo (R-IL ) to save the Internet Radio Industry. Please call your congressperson to ask them to co-sponsor H.R. 2060 by clicking below.
We are asking all members and listeners to please call their congressperson to support this bill. Our survival depends upon the success of this bill and every phone call will count toward the goal of enacting this legislation. We appreciate your help in saving Net Radio from extinction and in helping our site and broadcast continue the dream of bringing Country Blues to the world.
Port Townsend Country Blues Workshop
Written by Weenie Campbell
Lemon says, "Come to Port Townsend!" Sign up for the best country blues workshop on the planet. Centrum's Port Townsend Country Blues Workshop lets you study for a week with masters and legends of country blues in the historic town of Port Townsend on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. This year's edition takes place from July 29 to August 4. There's still time to register, so pack up your matchbox and catch that Number Nine. All are welcome, from beginners to juke joint pros!
See details at the Centrum Port Townsend Country Blues Workshop website. You'll find more information on how to register, costs (cheap!), artist bios, workshop descriptions and incriminating photos from last year. Ask about the workshop on the Weenie Campbell Forum's Port Townsend board. Grizzled veterans abound and can answer almost any question you can throw at them.
This year's faculty make for an embarrassment of riches, from Mississippi hill country to Piedmont to boogie to buck dancing (!). If you can't learn something from these masters of the blues tradition, you may be dead. Come and see:
Keys to the Highway is a new resources section containing tips and tools for the country blues player, as well as lyrics that have been worked out collectively on WeenieCampbell.com. The files in Keys to the Highway have mainly been drawn from forum posts, with some additional explanatory notes being added on occasion. For lyrics, we’ve started with those that are complete or near complete and are generally viewed as being somewhere in the realm of "accurate." Our thanks to the many members who have contributed.
You’ll notice a new menu link in the Main Menu on the left of your screen: this is what you click to access the new section. If you have any questions about using the section, you can post in the Site Announcements, Tips and Trouble Reports board on the Weenie Campbell forum. If you have questions about a particular subject in one of the files, go to the original forum thread via the link provided at the bottom of each file and fire away.
We’ll be adding to Keys to the Highway on a regular basis and hope it proves useful.
New Weenie Juke Additions!
Written by Slack
Greetings Weenies, Diplomats and Other Dignitaries,
I'm pleased to announce four additional exclusive interviews by Bob West of Arcola Records. Bob attended the Port Townsend Country Blues Workshop this past August and was able to interview Robert Belfour, Roy Book Binder, Terry Bean and Eric Freeman. We will inject these new interviews into our ongoing monthly schedule starting with Robert Belfour in December! We have also trimmed the length of all interviews down to about an hour and a half - 30 minutes of the artists' better known tracks followed by the interview. Bob tells us he plans to continue recording artist interviews and will make them available to Weenie Campbell as they are completed - thanks a ton Bob!
We've also added 25 high quality AACPlus radio slots to Weenie Juke. In addition we have converted our low quality 24k MP3 stream into a high quality AACPlus stream (the 48K MP3 stream remains unchanged). The new slots employ the latest format in streaming radio, known as AACPlus. This is the next iteration of the MP3 format that most everyone is familiar with. The new format provides a near CD quality stream at very low bandwidths. The format has not yet been adopted by all media players. However, there is an AACPlus plugin available for Windows Media Player from Orban (orban.com/plugin), an AACPlus player called VLC (videolan.org/vlc) is available for the Mac and recent versions of Winamp (winamp.com) have AACPlus capability already built in. More information onthe new format is available on the forum. We think the quality is worth installing a plugin or switching players - Weenie Juke has never sounded so good!
TEXAS FIELD RECORDINGS (1934/1939), DOCD-5231
Written by John Miller
This CD presents recordings made by John Lomax on two collecting trips he made, the first with his son Alan in 1934, and the second with his wife, Ruby, in 1939. The music was being collected for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. The music in the CD is spectacular and excitingly varied. In addition to including Blues and religious numbers, there are a number of folk songs that are widespread in both the black and white folk music traditions in the United States. Rather than paraphrasing material covered in detail in the CD’s liner notes, written by David Evans, I’ll just recommend that interested parties get the CD and read the liner notes for themselves.
What of the music on the CD? The program opens with thirteen cuts played and sung by Pete Harris, of Richmond, Texas. Harris, who was approximately 34-years-old when he was recorded in 1934, is the only musician on the CD who was not a prison inmate at the time he was recorded. He is described as a life-long resident of the farm of John Moore, though his role there is not made clear--share-cropper, hired hand? In any event, Harris was really a versatile musician. He opens with “Square Dance Calls”, beautifully played with a thumb lead in Spanish at B flat, in a style somewhat reminiscent of Jim Jackson’s “Old Blue”. (Harris most often sounded around a minor third higher than the pitch his positions would normally sound in.) He follows with a truncated version of “He Rambled”, played in a one-chord, boom-chang fashion out of Vestapol at F (many of the performances on the CD end with fades--once John Lomax documented a performance to his own satisfaction, he had no compunction about stopping the recording mid-stream). “The Buffalo Skinners”, in a brutally excised version, is played in G standard, sounding at A flat. “Blind Lemon’s Song” turns out to be a superb version of “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean”, played with a slide out of Vestapol at F. “The Red Cross Store” is played out of G standard at A flat, and has many verses in common with Leadbelly’s song of the same title. Harris’s version of “Alabama Bound” is one of the best I’ve ever heard, played with a smoothly flowing thumb lead in Vestapol, and containing verses singing of Elder Green, a la Charlie Patton. “Is You Mad At Me?” is another Vestapol slide song sounding in F. “Thirty Days In Jail” is played in E standard. “Carrie”, played with a slide in Spanish tuning at B flat, shares its melody with Furry Lewis’s “Perlee”. Harris does two different versions of Texas’s unofficial slide guitar anthem, “Jack O’Diamonds”, the first of which uses a line used by John Hurt in “Payday”,
Thanks to Sound Exchange, the RIAA and the Copyright Royalty Board of the Library of Congress, the Weenie Juke has been forced to shut down. 
Lemon says, "Come to Port Townsend!" Sign up for the best country blues workshop on the planet. Centrum's Port Townsend Country Blues Workshop lets you study for a week with masters and legends of country blues in the historic town of Port Townsend on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. This year's edition takes place from July 29 to August 4. There's still time to register, so pack up your matchbox and catch that Number Nine. All are welcome, from beginners to juke joint pros! 
This CD presents recordings made by John Lomax on two collecting trips he made, the first with his son Alan in 1934, and the second with his wife, Ruby, in 1939. The music was being collected for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. The music in the CD is spectacular and excitingly varied. In addition to including Blues and religious numbers, there are a number of folk songs that are widespread in both the black and white folk music traditions in the United States. Rather than paraphrasing material covered in detail in the CD’s liner notes, written by David Evans, I’ll just recommend that interested parties get the CD and read the liner notes for themselves.