Topic: Give Me the Banjo -- On PBS

[lindy]

If you can't see it on your TV, you can watch it online at

http://video.pbs.org/video/2164506461

(For our friends on the other side of the pond, sometimes they pull these video feeds after a week or so.)

Lindy

[Stuart]

Saw it last night. Gus Cannon and Charlie Poole in the first half hour--in prime time, no less.

[uncle bud]

I just watched this via the stream from the PBS website last night. I really enjoyed it and was quite surprised at how much time they spent on Gus Cannon. It was not simply play 10 seconds of a Jug Stompers tune, flash a photo and move along. There was a whole segment on Gus, with quite a few still photos, some I'd never seen (no film footage though). Dom Flemons spoke about him and played some as well. In conjunction with the segment on Cannon, there was also much more time spent on the minstrel period and blackface than I would have expected in polite prime time as well.

The gaping hole that would take away at least one star in any review, IMO, was the absence of Uncle Dave Macon. Ain't right. I know the filmmakers had shot enormous amounts of footage and were originally trying to pitch PBS a longer multi-part documentary I believe. You can't fit everything into an 80-minute documentary of course. And I appreciated how they actually spent some time on the historical players they did cover, like Cannon or Charlie Poole, rather than breezing through as many as you could mention. Still lots of players pop up though, including Roscoe Holcomb, Dock Boggs, Earl Scruggs, Mike Seeger and the NLCR, a long segment on Pete Seeger, appearances by Jerron Paxton, Dom Flemons and the rest of the Chocolate Drops, Bela Fleck, Tony Trischka (also the musical director of the film). The plans as far as I know are to include a lot more, including a segment on Uncle Dave, for the DVD release in 2012, as well as possibly on a website. There are already some extras on the PBS site, including Ralph Stanley, Taj Mahal and others. Hopefully there would also be additional material dealing with players recorded during the folk revival (where's Wade Ward).

Anyway, as would be the case for a hypothetical 80-minute documentary on blues guitar, you could go on and on about who was missing (and who you would have left out). Still totally worth watching. Narrated with honest affection and no hint of silliness by Steve Martin, who also appears briefly with his band.

[pkeane]

I've not yet seen it, but my wife and 5yo son did.  He's asked me a number of times since if we could listen to Gus Cannon and Charlie Poole (I've made a compilation CD of cuts from both that we listen to on the way to school -- he's always happy to point out which is which).  As a bonus even my wife has spoken w/ some interest & approval about Charlie Poole, which before now was unthinkable! I look forward to seeing it, but I obviously already consider it a huge success! :-).

--Peter

[Stuart]

Hi Andrew:

I was struck by the omission of Uncle Dave as well. As you say, there's only room for so much, but still...

Nevertheless, the exposure to a wider audience cannot hurt. Hopefully, the program will generate interest and people will follow up via the website.

[Gumbo]

Great stuff !

One question: who are the 'European Americans' mentioned early on?

[Richard]

PK sounds like you've done a good job there in training your boy to appreciate the finer things in life   I did a similar thing with one of my daughters, start 'em early!

[dj]

Thanks for the review, uncle bud.  It got me to finally sit down and watch the film.  I have to agree with you about the absence of Uncle Dave Macon, and also wish there had been a bit more on ragtime banjo - maybe a few minutes on Vess Ossman (my preference) or Fred Van Eps.  But the film makers did a good job with the amount of time they had available.  I can't wait for extra material on the DVD.

I did want to shout at Pete Seeger for the statement that the crowning achievement of his life was his banjo instruction book.  I guess it was a good line for a banjo documentary, but the way I see it, nothing Pete did in his life was more important than his being the public face and focus of the effort to clean up the Hudson River in the 1960s and early 70s.  I'm probably prejudiced because I spend 95% of my life within a mile of the river.  But it does seem like back then you couldn't go anywhere in the Hudson Valley without hearing somebody singing Sailing Down My Dirty Stream, and Pete's spirit is still felt every time the sloops Clearwater or Woody Guthrie dock at a river port.  Sorry to ramble off-topic there.  I get a bit passionate about the river, and Pete is one of the people who taught me to feel that way.          

[uncle bud]

Yes, ragtime and classic banjo got short shrift. There were moments of it in there, though, no? I recall some music as well as photos and the mention of Van Eps' name at least, or perhaps I am conflating with some other banjo memory.

Re. Pete. Yes, well he's being Pete. I hadn't known myself that the terms hammer-on and pull off had originated with that banjo instruction book. As for the river, and to continue the digression, I assume you have seen the documentary The Power of Song? A fair amount in there about Pete's efforts to clean up the Hudson, as I recall. I gotta say, I wasn't expecting a whole lot when I casually started watching that doc, but it is a tremendous portrait and very moving.

[dj]

Yes, they mentioned Van Eps and had a quick photo.  I imagine if they'd had twice the time there would have been more.  The film was interesting enough that I do wish they'd had twice the time.   

I also wish they'd mentioned the effect recording had on the banjo's popularity in the 1890s.  Banjos were favored by early recording engineers because they recorded so well on the primitive equipment available at the time - loud, sharp attack, quick sound decay. 

Yeah, The Power Of Song.  "A tremendous portrait and very moving" is a good way to describe it.  Hey, O'Muck, if you haven't seen this, do it today!   

[tmylet]

I happened to see Give Me The Banjo at the Banjo Collectors Gathering the same night it was shown on PBS. I was with not only a bunch of banjo collectors and players but the film maker as well. He spoke before the film was shown. Evidently, this is only a small part of what he had hoped to show and in order to have it shown on PBS had to expand the sections on Pete Seeger and Earl Scruggs and cut it down quite a bit.

I believe the ideas is to have a much different version available at some point in the future.

Tom Mylet

[jaycee]

i finally got around to watching this today on my computer throughly enjoyable, looking forward to the dvd coming out.

[uncle bud]

I watched this again on the DVD and the filmmakers do indeed atone for the omission of Uncle Dave Macon with a 12-minute extra segment on Uncle Dave that includes among other things some brief film footage (without audio) of him and a man who looks like his son Dorris at a fairground or some such with banners touting stars of the Opry as I recall.

[bnemerov]

Unca Bud--

glad Uncle Dave got some time in the film's "extra" section (though his variety of techniques should put him in the main body of the documentary....Charles Wolfe & John Hartford, years ago, listened through all the recordings and came up with over a dozen distinctly different right-hand techniques; quite amazing, really).

Anyway, the footage you see is from UDM's only filmed performance, a B movie from 1940 "Grand Ol' Opry" starring Roy Acuff. Dave and Dorris do one complete performance of "Take Me Back."
The whole movie (all 75, or so, minutes) is included in the Bear Family UDM box set....along with a wonderful book by Charles Wolfe.
I think the movie clip is on youtube, if you want to hear it as well as see it.
best,
bruce 

[uncle bud]

Hi Bruce - Yes, I'd seen the footage from the Grand Ole Opry movie before, and they open the segment with that footage of Uncle Dave and Dorris playing Take Me Back.

The footage I'm referring to is different. Uncle Dave and Dorris are playing in front of a mic on an outdoor stage decorated with Purina logos and what looks like bags of Hog Chow. The film quality is much more amateur or newsreel than a pro movie. After showing Uncle Dave and Dorris a couple times, the film pans to an overhead banner that says WSN Grand Ole Opry, Radio and Movie Stars in Person. It's all very brief and is presented in the documentary without any original audio, if any existed, instead cutting back and forth between the old footage and contemporary footage of someone playing Old Dan Tucker and doing Uncle Dave antics at Clifftop.

There is actually another very brief bit of footage of Uncle Dave outdoors included as well, in front of a car and a barn or warehouse with a sign on it that says National Live Stock Show, flipping his plug hat onto his head a couple times while grinning into the camera with his pipe clamped in his mouth.

Anyway, not having seen the entire Acuff Opry film, I don't know if all of this is taken from it as well, but it really doesn't look like the same film and is much grainier quality.