Monday Music: “Black is the Color,” Nina Simone, 1969

It’s a wonderful day for Nina Simone.  But then again, every day is a wonderful day for Nina Simone.

Here’s an amazing live version of “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.”

Friday Video: Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story.

From PBS.

While in Memphis for the Folklorists in the South retreat we visited the amazing Stax Museum and heard a little bit about working behind the scenes at the museum from Levon Williams, curator of collections.  The visit to Stax was inspiring, and an excellent example of the power of music to work toward change.  So this week’s Friday Video is a trailer from PBS’s 2007 Great Performances presentation, Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story. 

Stax was amazing for many reasons, especially its integrated approach to music in the same town where sanitation workers were paid less-than-human wages, leading to the Sanitation Worker’s Strike which was linked to MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign.   In addition to the genre-altering and community-building music, they also produced documentaries like the Wattstax concert and documentary in Los Angeles,  a film, according to PBS POV, that “captures a heady moment in mid-1970s, “black-is-beautiful” African-American culture, when Los Angeles’s black community came together just seven years after the Watts riots to celebrate its survival and a renewed hope in its future.” To enable everyone a chance to attend, tickets were sold for only a dollar each.  On many levels Stax was a movement a gave birth to a new form of music, soul music,  a raw and transcendent blend of gospel, blues, country, and jazz.

Here’s what PBS says about Stax and this film:

The legacy of Stax Records is a unique one that spans more than half a century. Stax Records is critical in American music history as it’s one of the most popular soul music record labels of all time – second only to Motown in sales and influence, but first in gritty, raw, stripped-down soul music. In 15 years, Stax placed more than 167 hit songs in the Top 100 on the pop charts, and a staggering 243 hits in the Top 100 R&B charts. It launched the careers of such legendary artists as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam & Dave, Rufus & Carla Thomas, Booker T, & the MGs, and numerous others. Among the many artists who recorded on the various Stax Records labels were the Staple Singers, Luther Ingram, Wilson Pickett, Albert King, Big Star, Jesse Jackson, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, the Rance Allen Group, and Moms Mabley.

But Stax Records was more than just a label. It was a culture. While segregation was fervently supported in the South during Stax’s formative years in the 1960s, Stax was one of the most successfully integrated companies in the country – from top management and administration to its artists. With more than 200 employees, it was the fifth-largest African-American owned business in the United States during its time.

Teachers should take note that this film comes with a lesson plan including assignments that help students to both identify genres of music and the role Stax played in the community.  Check out the lesson plans by clicking here. 

For more information on the film and viewing options click here.  

Persistent Story: Celebrating the West Kentucky African American Heritage Museum

Michael Morrow with students from Russellville High School, Russellville, Kentucky.

We’ve been sprucing things up around here and reorganizing files.

You can now watch the film Persistent Story: Celebrating the West Kentucky African American Heritage Museum at our Boiled Down Juice Vimeo Page. This film was made in 2008 in the Folk Studies graduate program at Western Kentucky University in partnership with Michael Morrow and the West Kentucky African American Heritage Museum in Russellville, Kentucky.  The film is used today by the center for educational and promotional purposes. Disclaimer: The film was made over the course of one semester and was my first film making experience.  Therefore, it’s not without its share of imperfections in audio, editing, and the like.  I’m sharing it here because I hope the message of the film outweighs the technical mistakes.

The Center is an excellent example of  community-based grassroots organizing, the power of oral history to unite a community, and the role of intergenerational research in planning for the future.  Working with Morrow and the center was life-changing for me and informs much of my work today.  If you haven’t been already, I highly recommend you visit the center! It’s an amazing place doing amazing work!  Once we’re finished sprucing up the files we’ll have more photos and information to post.  Thanks to Dr. Kristin Dowell for help in the production of this film.

Here’s a great article about Morrow from the Amplifier. 

Persistent Story from Boiled Down Juice on Vimeo.

Michael Vinson Williams and Gale Zucker at the Arkansas Literary Festival

The Arkansas Literary Festival is in full swing now, and if you’ve had a chance to look at the schedule you know that’s it jammed packed with options.  We won’t even begin to touch on all the offerings, but make sure you check out the Arkansas Times this week and read, “Arkansas Liteary Festival slate piles it on,” by Leslie Newell Peacock.  She helps break down the dizzying array of options.

We’re super excited about the opportunity to interview two of this years participants whose work touches on many of the themes covered in this blog.  Stay tuned for upcoming posts and radio interviews with these two great authors.  Better yet, check them out in person tomorrow.  Do you have a question you’d like to ask Dr. Williams or Gale Zucker?  Leave a comment below or send an email and I’ll try and include it!

From the Arkansas Literary Festival.

According to the Arkansas Literary Festival, “Michael Vinson Williams earned his PhD in history from the University of Mississippi. His research focuses on sociopolitical resistance movements, black intellectual radicalism, and Civil Rights struggles. He is currently an Assistant Professor of History and African American studies at Mississippi State University and the author of Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr.”  He’ll be speaking at 1:00 at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center at 1:00.

Gale Zucker, a photographer and co-author of the book  Craft Activism: People, Ideas, and Projects from the New Community of Handmade and How you Can Join In, will be speaking tomorrow at 11:00 in the Main Library, third floor.  After that she’ll be hosting a yarnbombing in downtown Little Rock at noon. Regardless of your skill level, this should be an amazing event!

According the the Festival’s information, “Zucker is also the photographer/co-author of Shear Spirit: Ten Farms, Twenty Projects and a dozen other books, including a series of children’s picture books about manufacturing in America,Made in the USA.”  You can visit the Craft Activism blog here.  

“The Many Variations of the Arkansas Tattoo” in the Arkansas Times

Tesuansey Link. Photo by Brian Chilson of the Arkansas Times. Read the article to see more photos.

An article about the Us Tattooed Kids:  Arkansas Project came out in the Arkansas Times today.  Below you’ll find the first few paragraphs. Follow the “read more” link to read the entire article via the Arkansas Times site.

The next step in this project will be working toward a radio piece and a hardback book….and possibly more projects.

You can help us move the project forward by submitting your Arkansas tattoo photo and story and joining the conversation at the project’s facebook page here.

For at least a decade now, Arkansans — both native-born and transplants — have been choosing to mark their bodies with representations of the Natural State. Razorback tattoos have long been popular, but these Arkansas tattoos are more topographical, a marker of geography and a symbol of home. They range from simple outlines with a star or heart marking a hometown to ornate designs involving a birdhouse, a cotton plant or an area code.

For Cheyenne Matthews, co-host of the “Shoog Radio” show on 88.3 FM KABF, it’s the state Capitol, surrounded by stylized clouds and the word “Arkansas” inside a ribbon at the building’s base. The design, which graces her forearm, is part of a series of images created by Caleb Pritchett of Electric Heart Tattoos in Little Rock to help raise money for the show. “Everything we play and do is Arkansas-based,” Matthews said. “It’s a grassroots movement towards Arkansas stuff in general, events and music.”

Anthony Buckaloo and artist, Scott Diffee, the Parlor in Rose City. Photo by Brian Chilson.

Continue reading the story at the Arkansas Times here:

Click here to continue reading at the Arkansas Times site.   

The Seed and the Story: Learning From Students and Folkstreams films

The Landis family. From the film, A Singing Stream. Image from Davenport Films.

The Seed and the Story is a weekly column exploring folklife, sustainability, oral history, human rights,and community in Yell County, Arkansas.   The column is published in the Post Dispatch and is syndicated in the Courier.  Please remember to support your local paper and independent media!  The Seed and the Story column is just of many features you can find on the Boiled Down Juice.  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  If you enjoy our posts, please tell a friend. And thanks for reading!

I’ve had two exiting developments recently. I recently found out this column will be running every week rather than every other week! Thanks so much for your support.  I’m looking forward to more opportunities to learn from readers about this area’s history and its present day, and I’ll be working toward making this column more interactive, featuring more voices from our diverse and culturally rich community.

Secondly, this past week I began teaching an online class at Arkansas Tech entitled “Folklife and Oral History.”  I’m thoroughly impressed with my students and their level of engagement.  I’m a firm believer that the best part of teaching isn’t sharing your own knowledge but rather learning from the students themselves.  Their questions require me to think more deeply about the readings, and their observations are opening my eyes to new ways of conceptualizing the importance of traditions, music, and the role of tradition bearers (a phrase folklorists use for people who carry on traditions) in a community.  Plus, they’re teaching me about their own family and community traditions, which I find endlessly fascinating.

This past week I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to teach a subject like folklife and oral history—a subject that dwells heavily on the past and its role in the present day—in such a modern, online format. I’ll be the first to say that I deeply appreciate the lines of communication the Internet provides.  It can be a tool for greater democracy and a way to reestablish connections lost over the miles or years.  Yet I feel strongly that younger generations could use more exposure to a life a bit more unplugged.  Funny how online resources can actually introduce students to traditions that are decades, even centuries, old. So last week I had the students watch a few films via Folkstreams, an Internet site housing hundreds of folklife films.

To give them an introduction to traditional singing styles I chose two films: A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle produced by Tom Davenport and Alemda Riddle:  Let’s Talk About Singing produced by George West. The first film explores traditional African American gospel music as it is passed down in the Landis family from rural North Carolina.  The film highlights how music plays a key role in the family’s fight for civil rights and provides an example of how a study of traditional music opens a window into family, political, and community histories.  This musical link to the past provides a source of strength to fight for a more just future.

The second film profiles Ozark ballad singer Alemda Riddle, a woman who lived her entire life near Greers Ferry, Arkansas.  The well-known ballad Hunter, John Quincy Wolfe, met her in 1952, and began recording her songs, some which dated back to the 16^th century.  Riddle became a hero of the folk revival and recorded and traveled extensively.  The songs she was singing may have been hundreds of years old, but her role as a widow traveling the country made her quite a radical figure in her day and age.

Many of the students noted how this traditional music, centuries old, can provide a source of strength for the present day and how the music was a tie linking family members across generations and miles. As I watched the two films together, I began to notice how each individual, in their own unique way, held on to the past with one hand while reaching out for the future with the other. And ultimately that’s what a healthy tradition is about: a link to the past that builds a bridge to a better future.  You can watch these, and countless other folklife films, at www.folkstreams.net.  I love hearing stories and traditions from readers.   Or send me a letter with your stories.  I especially love those.

Monday Music: Sister Clara Hudmon “Stand by Me.”

Today is a good day for Sister Clara Hudmon.  This song, which is one of my favorites of all time, can be heard on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume 4.

Hope everyone is having a great Monday!

Yes! Magazine’s Breakthrough Fifteen: The Power of Storytelling, Vulnerability, and Community Action.

Henry Red Cloud, Yes! Magazine. Photo by Dan Bihn.

If you’re a frequent reader of the Boiled Down Juice, you know that Yes! Magazine is one of our favorite publications.  With the tag line  “powerful ideas, practical actions,” Yes! showcases and explores the concepts and people on the front lines of democracy, social innovation, and community action.  Back in November they issued their winter publication, The Breakthrough 15: The justice warriors, eco-innovators, happiness architects, and change artists who are shattering our sense of powerlessness.  

I recently picked up a copy (a little late, I know) of this special issue dedicated “to the power of the 99 percent—and to a group of people who aren’t looking for leadership from those with entrenched wealth and influence.”  The main goal of this special publication, Yes! claims, is to profile “a group of people who are shattering our sense of powerlessness.”

I especially love that the introductory essay, written by Madeline Ostrander, highlights the power of storytelling, noting that “personal stories remind us that others face the same difficulties and vulnerabilities we do. We discover our own power when we realize we aren’t alone.”  It’s this focus on difficulties and vulnerabilities I find particularly important.  Too often the media portrays activists as larger than life, endless whirlwinds of ideas and energy, when in reality they’re fragile humans who experience frustration and confusion just like anyone else.  Most importantly, their ideas and strategies have been forged within these frustrations and confusions.  We need more stories that illuminate this gray area between observation and action.

Ranging from the stories of Henry Red Cloud, the director of Lakota Solar Enterprises which provides renewable energy to poor Native American communities, to Lily Yeh, the founder of Barefoot Artists, an organization using the power of art to transform neighborhoods, the magazine is diverse collection of portraits of people recognizing and utilizing their skills in their own communities.

For the rest of the week we’ll be taking a closer look at some of the people featured and the work they’re doing.  Some of the people we’ve discussed before, such as the amazing work of Grace Lee Boggs, but some were new to us.

You can read all the profiles here on Yes!   Tell us if you’ve read this issue and what you enjoyed.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Friday Video: Alice Walker

From AALBC.

We’re back up and running with a Friday Video after a few weeks without a dependable computer.

This week’s video features poet, novelist, and activist, Alice Walker.  She’s most well known as the author of the novel The Color Purple and the person who saved Zora Neale Hurston from historical obscurity.  The name of this blog is drawn from a Zora Neale Hurston quote, and no doubt I’d never come across her work if it weren’t for the diligence of Walker, who revived her legacy and place a tombstone at her burial site.

A few years ago when working full time for public radio I had the opportunity to interview author Evelyn White about her then recent book, Alice Walker: A Life.   I’d loved Alice Walker for years—poured over Once during college and underlined 3/4 of the story “Everyday Use.”  But it wasn’t until I read her official biography that I began to fully comprehend the layers of Walker’s influence as author, social radical and freedom fighter. Walker is both loved and hated, lauded and discredited.  Her work brings out strong emotions, asking people to wrestle with questions of race, peace, environment, and self.  Her biography remains one of my favorite books of all time.

Yesterday ColorLines magazine posted this video, in honor of Walker’s 68th birthday.  It was originally released in 2010 by Google, but I’d never seen it until yesterday.  It’s full of timeless concepts, so it’s not dated.  It’s a long one, and I have not had a chance to get through the whole thing yet.  But what I’ve watched so far discusses her work in Gaza regarding International Women’s Day, her belief in the power and democracy of new media, and the importance of imagination in empathy and action.  She also talks about her “literary formothers,” including Hurston, her own mother, and others.

You can visit Walker’s blog here. 

If you have’t read it already, I highly reccomend her biography written by Evelyn White. 

Friday Video: Color Outisde the Lines: A Tattoo Documentary.

Filmmaker Artemus Jenkins. From Kickstarter.

Don’t forget, you can follow the Boiled Down Juice on Facebook and Twitter.  If you enjoy our posts, please tell a friend.  And thanks for reading!

This week’s Friday video is somewhat related to our ongoing Arkansas Tattoo Project research.  (If you want to know more about this project, go here to see all the recent posts.  You can also follow the project on Facebook and Twitter)

In researching various tattoo styles and forms of expression, I came across this Kickstarter video for an upcoming documentary.  Produced by Artemus Jenkins, Color Outside the Lines:  A Tattoo Documentary explores the work, culture, and styles the African American tattoo artists and their clients. It looks like it will also address the need for more black tattoo artists and some of the problems within the industry, including the prevalence of shops owned by white supremacists.

It looks really interesting.  Have you heard about it?   What are some of the tattoo documentaries you’ve seen and which ones would you recommend?