Topic: Patton Book?

[Bunker Hill]

Thanks for doing the scan and upload, Alan.

There's a used copy available via Amazon in France

I don't doubt that Ray Templeton, who wrote the review, will still have a copy. Next port of call will be to contact him on RBF via the dreaded FB and hope that he's up to scanning it.

[Stuart]

Hi Alan:

I didn't mean to suggest that you purchase the copy I posted the link to. It was meant for anyone interested. Sorry for the confusion. I've modified my post.

[uncle bud]

Wasn't the Evans essay from the Revenant set reproduced on the Paramountshome website?

Thanks for those jpgs, Bunker Hill!

[Stuart]

Wasn't the Evans essay from the Revenant set reproduced on the Paramountshome website?

http://paramountshome.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76:charley-patton-biography-part-1-dr-david-evans&catid=45:new-york-recording-laboratoriesartist&Itemid=54

http://paramountshome.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77:charley-patton-biography-part-2-dr-david-evans&catid=45:new-york-recording-laboratoriesartist&Itemid=54

http://paramountshome.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78:charley-patton-biography-part-3-dr-david-evans&catid=45:new-york-recording-laboratoriesartist&Itemid=54

[wreid75]

I wasn't sure if that was the same essay by david evans.  I have the local library trying to get me the whole thing from a local university.  keeping fingers crossed.  I seem to have the same irrational draw to Charley Patton that many other people have for Robert Johnson

[tinpanallygurl]

Hi boys.  I just found this book on amazon.  Charley Patton Unauthorized and Uncensored by R.B Grimm.  It is cheap but it doesn't say much about it either.  Anyone know about it?

[jpeters609]

Over on the Real Blues Forum, Robert Sacre (the editor of the Patton book), indicates that they are planning a new edition. He has been contacting the contributors. Whether this will be a re-print or an updated version is unclear.

[tinpanallygurl]

I so hope that these rewrites of previous research and manuscripts on Charley Patton are due to an increase in what is known with new or omitted research and information that hasn't been rehashed at length.  A new book with a different tone but same information seems pointless.  If there are only a few pages of new information it seems that is what an article if for, and with magazines, sites, blogs, and journals there seems no shortage of ways to get info out.  Here is to hoping that reissuing old books are done with more than dollar signs in mind 

[Stuart]

We'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully the contributors will revise and update their papers, and write for a wider market. ---And hopefully price and availability be among their considerations.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I don't think it makes much sense to fret over the possibility of authors or publishers of books on Charlie Patton raking in the big bucks.  For the authors, I think it is more of an issue of simply hoping to get some kind of adequate recompense to cover the time, labor, and effort involved in obtaining the material, (which in some instances took their entire adult lives to compile) and working it up into a readable format.  For the publishers, the question is whether enough books are going to sell to justify the investment of entering into a contract with the author and designing, editing and publishing the book.
I hope the authors and publishers of such books do make some kind of decent return for these books--for the authors enough money to justify the time they've already spent collecting information on the topic and putting it in some kind of coherent form, and enough on top of that to make them feel justified in continuing research into related topics.  For the publishers, I hope that they make enough money so that they don't reject the possibility of putting out any books on Country Blues topics in the future, assuming they'll be money-losing ventures. 
All best,
Johnm         

[tinpanallygurl]

JohnM, I couldn't agree more, as long as it has enough new information to warrant a new book.  The difference between Fahey's Patton book and Calt/Wardlows book was night and day, even with its caustic commentary.  I have made fun of Star Wars for changing less than three minuets of a movie and having to watch the entire movie to see the deleted scenes.  Its not a new movie, its the same old movie with three new minuets that were originally cut out.  A rewrite of an old book with very little new information seems like the perfect opportunity to make a great article with that info, instead of a book that is 99.8675309 % the same as the one on my shelf with 2 1/2 pages of newish information.  I hope there is so much new info that we are flabbergasted with unknown data and facts that it will make our head spin making us reevaluate everything we thought we knew about Charley Patton.  I would do a naked happy dance down times square to get that kind of book!  With my grandma watching!

[Stuart]

It's common for the support for a conference to include funding publication of the papers presented at the conference. Usually they are revised based on the feedback from the attendees. So publication considerations are different from shopping a manuscript around for commercial publication.

I have no insider info about this project, but as I said I'm hopeful that the papers can be revised to include new info and published for a wider readership. --Or at a minimum make the original volume available as a "book on demand" at a reasonable price.

[hardtimekillingfloor]

For the authors, I think it is more of an issue of simply hoping to get some kind of adequate recompense to cover the time, labor, and effort involved in obtaining the material, (which in some instances took their entire adult lives to compile) and working it up into a readable format.

I am all for paying good money for a book that has lots of information I don't already know.  I have a few copies of the same books with different translations, which changes the story in some cases, sometimes drastically.  If the reissuing of a book is done with just a few pages of new info I will keep the old one, check out the new one, xerox off the new info and cram it in the old book.  If there are lots of revision, corrections, and new discoveries in a new book on Patton it would be well worth my hard earned money. 

I'm afraid most of us will die with the biographical information of our dearly loved musicians rotting in a cabinet or on a bookshelf somewhere.  I would like to think that the next generation cares as much about this stuff and will do the hard work to get the information out there.  Sad thing is, no one will give a damn when people come to the realization that "their life's work" isn't the moneymaker they (or their families) think it is.  Those of us who really care are getting old or older quickly.  Many have already died, others are sick, and some slowly fading.  It would be nice if those of us who have this emotional attachment to all this information could see it before we enter the great beyond.  Some we will, most we won't.  Its sad really.  Someone in 2088 will finally dust off a box  that has hand written notes about somebody known as the devils son in law or some dude name Son.  They will publish it somewhere, and a few people will read it.  The emotions, of the few of us that remain who care more than about the music, these raw emotions will be long gone, dust in the wind, without even a fading memory of the people who actually met some of them and loved even more.

[wreid75]

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Hardtime!  That is one depressing post.  You might want to watch the movie As Good As It Gets.  Jack Nicholson goes back on his meds mid way through the movie.  There are some of us that have lots of tread still left, and some of our hi mileage brethren may be getting older but still have lots of drive.  I don't think it is time to start digging graves just yet and all hope is not lost..............yet. 

You are somewhat right on your topic.  I am in my 30s and I expect to learn the bulk of the info you are discussing when I am in my 70s.  I think it will be that long before the grandchildren or great grandchildren of researchers who have lots of historic loot will finally donate it to libraries or share them online through sites and blogs.  Even by then there will still be those few of us in our 20s and 30s alive and kicking to be passionate about whatever revelations bestowed upon us, but not the same kind of passionate.

[wreid75]

I say different kind of passionate because my age group didn't get to know these people in person, we didn't find the artist like our 60s era forefathers.  I am sure that researchers that pounded the turf for L.V. and Geechee with empty results felt a different sense of euphoria than those of us who only read your books and liner notes.  If someone finds old notes that reveals the bio of Kid Bailey I can't imagine anyone being more thrilled than GDW.