Topic: Mance Lipscomb photo

[banjochris]

Thought you all might enjoy this photo of Mance I found in our archives today (I work at a newspaper).
Chris

[GhostRider]

Chris:

What the heck is he doing in this photo? Onstage hookah?

Alex

[uncle bud]

Just lighting up a smoke.

Thanks for the photo, Chris!

[Rivers]

ppphhhssshhhttt.....

What I really want to know is what is that flash of light going 45 degrees from the match down to lower left of frame. I thought it might have been the match's flame path captured on a slow shutter or refraction but that doesn't really add up. Small UFO?

[banjochris]

I can look again at the photo tomorrow at work somewhat larger, but I think it's either something in the person's hand with the match (drum stick, perhaps, although it seems pointy for that) or a huge gouge across the face of the picture; the picture has lots of fine vertical scratches on it which are moderately obvious at this small size but pretty bad at a larger size. We recently had our photo archives scanned in, and many of the pictures weren't in ideal condition; they've been stored for decades in manila envelopes crammed in with a bunch of other pics -- there were 10 or 11 in the "Lipscomb" envelope, for instance. Lots of pics had information taped to the back of them, and that tape can take off parts of the front of other photos, and of course sometimes you get crop marks and even felt-tip pen and white out painted on top of photos.
Chris

[banjochris]

By the way here's another photo from work -- this one isn't strictly blues per se, but it is one of my favorite photos and I figure any pic with a six-string banjo in it qualifies. This one I have the real photo, not just a scanned version -- I need to get it framed one of these days. In case you need IDs, from left are Johnny St. Cyr, Louis Armstrong (obviously) and Kid Ory. Picture was taken in September 1961 on Disneyland's Mark Twain, and there is film footage available from Disney of them playing at this event.
Chris

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

Very cool, thanks!

Have you any idea where or when it was taken?

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

Very cool, thanks!

Have you any idea where or when it was taken?

(Talkin' 'bout the Mance photograph.)

[banjochris]

There was no info attached to or written on the back of the picture -- all too common in our archives, I'm afraid. But I don't think it's a wire service picture -- it would have been taken somewhere in the Long Beach, CA area. Sometime this week we're having the digital copies of our microfilm installed, and I'll be able to search his name and see if it popped up in the paper; maybe then I can narrow it down.
Chris

[banjochris]

I looked again in our digital archive file at the Mance Lipscomb photo and discovered that there is some very intriguing information written on the back of it -- I had been looking in the wrong place before.

The photo is dated Jan. 25, 1974 (which is the day it was filed -- obviously it was taken before Jan. 13, as will become apparent). On the back is a press release from KNXT-TV (now KCBS), the CBS affiliate here in L.A. It says:

BLUES GREAT -- Mance Lipscomb, 78-year-old singer-guitarist out of Texas, talks about his lengthy career and sings his versions of "Shine On Harvest Moon," "So Different Blues" and "Sugar Babe" on KNXT's "Guitar Workshop" on Sunday, January 13 (4:30 to 5:00 PM) on Channel 2. Bob Baxter is host.

I highly doubt whether the station would have kept the videotape from a locally produced show like this, but you never know. I'll see if I can find out or maybe I'll pass the info along to Stefan Grossman, who might know the answer to this already, since he's spent a long time looking for stuff like this.
Chris

[Mr.Natural]

Chris, a couple of weeks ago I dug up the following info on Bob Baxter (who wrote the first fingerstyle tuition book on Ragtime & Blues that I bought, way back in 1972. it contained the first published version of Police dog blues that I know of):

"Baxter hosted his own television show, "Guitar Workshop" on CBS for 16 episodes, back in 1975, in which he talked and jammed with guest guitarists. A half-hour interview and music variety show with a live audience, his guests included Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder, Mason Williams, Fred Gerlach, Clarence White, Byron Berline and his dear friend and teacher Mance Lipscomb, among others. The Baxters lived out in a nifty house in Topanga Canyon. Bob was quite a force in the Southern California folk music scene. He hung out with the very young Ry Cooder a lot, and Ry spent a lot of time at Baxter's Topanga Canyon (so. Calif)?. Baxter also produced several big-time Bluegrass Banjo Contests, including giant, all-day shows at Japanese Village, Devonshire Downs and two killer events at Santa Anita Racetrack in Sierra Madre. "

I know the episode with Clarence White has surfaced on DVD, maybe the others still exist too.
I'll cross my fingers

Ed

[banjochris]

Thanks for the info, Ed. If it was a network show, the odds are much better that it exists, and CBS was by far the best of the three networks at maintaining copies of things in its archives.
Chris

[banjochris]

An update -- I got an e-mail back from Stefan Grossman who said that he knew about these shows but that most of the tapes have either been lost or destroyed.

Oh well, although you never know what could be found misfiled sometimes -- CBS in New York once found three whole years of "The Joker's Wild" in a storeroom.
Chris

[MTJ3]

I saw most if not all of the shows.  Those I saw were, I felt, of high quality, even though I wasn't particularly interested in some of them.  For some reason, I recall that the Ry Cooder show featured at least two Blind Blake songs ("Rope Stretching Blues" and "Black Dog Blues") and a Spence tune.  My erratic memory has the shows being broadcast before 1975 (and some of the information in this thread indicated an early 1974 taping date), on Saturday afternoons and one of the odd numbered (i.e., local independent) stations rather than one of the local network stations (I think KNXT was channel 2).  I'm undoubtedly wrong on all counts.

As to the whereabouts of Bob Baxter, the person most likely to have copies of the program tapes on hand, a couple of years ago, I heard that he had moved to Arizona and was playing in a rock band there. 

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

I looked again in our digital archive file at the Mance Lipscomb photo and discovered that there is some very intriguing information written on the back of it -- I had been looking in the wrong place before.

The photo is dated Jan. 25, 1974 (which is the day it was filed -- obviously it was taken before Jan. 13, as will become apparent). On the back is a press release from KNXT-TV (now KCBS), the CBS affiliate here in L.A. It says:

BLUES GREAT -- Mance Lipscomb, 78-year-old singer-guitarist out of Texas, talks about his lengthy career and sings his versions of "Shine On Harvest Moon," "So Different Blues" and "Sugar Babe" on KNXT's "Guitar Workshop" on Sunday, January 13 (4:30 to 5:00 PM) on Channel 2. Bob Baxter is host.

I highly doubt whether the station would have kept the videotape from a locally produced show like this, but you never know. I'll see if I can find out or maybe I'll pass the info along to Stefan Grossman, who might know the answer to this already, since he's spent a long time looking for stuff like this.
Chris

Hey that's wild, thanks for the info!!

[Mr.Natural]

Chris, I don't think Bob Baxter has the tapes. I got an email from him stating that he didn't even have a copy of his own Kicking Mule album. He's the current editor in chief of a tattoo magazine, SKIN & INK, in Portland, Oregon. He can be reached through   skinandink@hotmail.com
Bob has a new album out after a long hiatus: http://cdbaby.com/cd/bobbaxter (check out the album cover. Skin & ink it is...)
Ed