Jack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation Radio

Latest Episodes:

Tyler D. Parry Ep2 - The History of Slave Hounds & The Blues People Nov 29, 2019

Show notes

This episode of Jack Dappa Blues Radio is part two of my discussion with scholar Tyler D. Parry, Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies Program and Book Review Editor: Black Perspectives, about his co-authored journal and the upcoming book titled ' Slavehounds and Abolition". Dr. Parry gives great detail of the role of the bloodhound before, during, and after slavery. He delves into the origins of the purpose this hybrid animal was created, where they were trained and how it's been utilized for centuries as a weapon against the freedoms and lives of the "Blues People" on America.

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noncommercial use of Robert Johnson's 'Hellhounds on My Trail"

"I’ve got to keep moving, I’ve got to keep moving, blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail . . . And the days keeps on ’minding me, there’s a hellhound on my trail"

Artist
Robert Johnson
Album
Robert Johnson: Cross Road Blues
Writers
Robert Johnson
Licensed to YouTube by
Kontor New Media Music, SME (on behalf of 24 Blue Music); AMRA, LatinAutor, LatinAutor - PeerMusic, CMRRA, Concord Music Publishing, and 7 Music Rights Societies

Dr. Tyler D Parry Part One Oct 11, 2019

Show notes

On this episode, I speak to Dr. Tyler D. Parry, professor of African American and African Diaspora studies at UNLV, about his latest project "Jumping The Broom: A Multicultural History" based on his Zora Neale Hurston Prize award-winning paper, "Married in Slavery Time" in the Journal of Southern History. He's also written"The Holy Land of Matrimony," in American Studies (both available on my academia.edu webpage) should provide enough content for an interviewer.

Professor Parry also is a Book Review Editor: Black Perspectives, and Editor of H-Afro-Am.

Follow Tyler @ProfTDParry

Henry Thomas Texas Blues Legend pt 2 F/Dom Flemons Sep 23, 2019

Show notes

This is part one of the Jack Dappa Blues Podcast Series in affiliation with Lonestar Blues & Heritage Festival about Henry Thomas, also known as Henry Ragtime Texas Thomas featuring our recurring guest The American Songster Dom Flemons.
On this episode, we delve into the evolution of African American Traditions Music from the theater to records. How it became popular to record records that spoke directly to the audience listening in their homes. We also speak of how the change in consciousness of African American musicians, composers and the like, sparked by an article in the Indianapolis Freedman Newspaper, reached across the nation even inspiring Henry Thomas to make revolutionary changes in lyrics that once used derogatory lyrics to describe African Americans and the Black Experience.

A dynamic songster of the early years Having the Quill wrapped and hung around his neck, as he picks the guitar, HenryThomas' songs represent the oldest traditions of American black music ever recorded. Along with Blues and Ragtime, he played early minstrel songs, black spirituals, square dance tunes, hillbilly reels, waltzes, coon song, story songs, work calls, stomps and hollers and pop songs of the day. Henry Thomas was one of the oldest black musicians whoever recorded 23 cuts on Vocalion Records between the years of 1927 - 1929. his music is a great opportunity to hear what African American Traditional music sounded like near the end of the 19th century.

Michael L Jones Share Kentucky's Musical History Sep 18, 2019

Show notes

On this episode of the Jack Dappa Blues Podcast, I speak to Kentucky Music Historian Michael L Jones about The Jugband Jubilee Festival and his exhibit of Kentucky Music history. We also discuss the rise of jug band music, the inception of Kentucky. Michael shares how Kentucky is a riverboat location which culminated in the creation of music legends. Michael shares rarely heard facts about Kentucky history.

Michael is an author and journalist who's research and writing reclaims the African American Traditions and music started popularized in Kentucky and traveled the world.

Links of Michael's work.

Celebrating the Sounds of Kentucky: https://fraziermuseum.org/exhibits/kentucky-music

Interview with Michael L Jones: https://www.wdrb.com/wdrb-in-the-morning/keith-kaiser-out-and-about/keith-tries-his-hand-at-jug-band-music/video_3daca768-b0c5-58c0-8f3f-fbfa9d3f4a36.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

National Jug Band Jubilee: http://www.jugbandjubilee.com/

Wall Street Journal article about the Jubilee: http://www.jugbandjubilee.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/08022018074353-0001.pdf

Louisville Jug Music: https://www.amazon.com/Louisville-Jug-Music-McDonald-National-ebook/dp/B00XRSH6HC/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=louisville+jug+music&qid=1568752043&s=gateway&sr=8-1

article about me winning history award: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/south/2015/03/02/louisville-jug-music-book-earns-author-award/24271195/

Here is an article I wrote for the Oxford-American on the black roots of "Happy Birthday to You," which also comes from Louisville: https://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1348-a-peculiar-composition

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Henry Thomas Texas Blues Legend pt1 W/ Dom Flemons Sep 12, 2019

Show notes

On this episode we delve into the unique and wide musical range of Henry Thomas whos songs represent the oldest of the African American Traditional music. He also played a traditional African American instrument called the "Quill". The history and role of the A&R. Early recording industry methods, and the fact that Henry, as well as other early African American Songsters, played songs of the plantation. Henry Thomas was one of the oldest black musicians whoever recorded 23 cuts on Vocalion Records between the years of 1927 - 1929. his music is a great opportunity to hear what African American Traditional music sounded like near the end of the 19th century. And in this era, they are just introducing the world to folk music through records/Vinyl.

Jorge Arévalo Mateus, Exec Director Of Association For Cultural Equity Jul 20, 2019

Show notes

on this archive episode, I speak with Jorge Arèvalo Mateus about the Association For Cultural Equity, The Folklorist convention and the work of ethnomusicologists and folklorists!

Jorge Arevalo Mateus, Ph.D.
Executive Director

The Association for Cultural Equity (ACE) was founded by Alan Lomax to explore and preserve the world's expressive traditions with humanistic commitment and scientific engagement. ACE was registered as a charitable organization in the State of New York in 1983, and is housed at New York City's Hunter College.

http://www.culturalequity.org/

Billy Jones Bluez - The Politics, Segregation and Business of The Blues May 11, 2019

Show notes

If you enjoyed and learned something from my recent article in Blues Festival Guide Magazine titled “Beyond The Green Book,” and Enjoyed the Robert Johnson Documentary on Netflix, then you’re in for a treat! Billy Jones Bluez, who I referenced in my article, in this rebroadcast of my WFDU Radio Program, gives his first hand account of blues people, traveling while black, his upbringing in a juke joint, the services his grandfather provided while running the bar, and his very own journey as a bluesman from Arkansas. He gives great detail of the boarding rooms his family rented out to Black folk, and the real focal point of any venue or bar. He also debunks the myth of Robert Johnson and many other stereotypes bluesman encounter. He also, in the middle of our conversation, pulls out his guitar and begins playing some real blues! With all of that, Billy shares the conditions of today’s blues scene, industry, political climate and how it’s different for black blues practitioners in comparison to white musicians who play the blues.

We find that in today’s world, and music industry, there is still segregation.

Billy Jones Bluez

This blues bandleader, who sings and plays guitar and calls his music "bluez," began releasing his own compact discs in 2001. When Billy Jones substituted a "z" for an "s," he was not trying to make the name of his beloved genre closer to the way a drunken bar patron might pronounce it at the end of the night. Rather, "bluez" is all about being independent from the big-time music business, a stance more often taken by indie rockers. While in reality even the biggest blues labels are nothing but small independents, these firms still represent too big a clique for Jones, who prefers issuing material on his own Cyborg-Blue imprint.

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Tony Thomas - The 'Real' Origins of the Banjo Apr 28, 2019

Show notes

The Banjo is a very popular instrument, and it's popularity is currently growing rapidly. However, there's a convoluted and misconstrued history of this instrument. On today's episode of Jack Dappa Blues Podcast, I speak with Tony Thomas, African American Banjo Scholar, about the history, origins and commercial explosion of the Banjo.

Along with Sule Greg Wilson and Cece Conway, Tony Thomas organized the 2005 Black Banjo Gathering that launched the contemporary Black Banjo revival.

In 2013, “Why African Americans Put the Banjo Down,” Thomas’s contribution to Duke University Press’s Hidden in the Mix: The African American Presence in Country Music became the first scholarly essay on the banjo by an African America to be published. In 2018 his chapter, "Gus Cannon--'The Colored Champion Banjo Pugilist of the World' and the Big World of the Banjo," appeared in Banjo Roots and Branches, published by Duke University Press, the first scholarly anthology on the banjo.

Tony Thomas’s “The Banjo and African American Musical Culture", published online in 2014 by African American National Biography, a joint project of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and Oxford University Press. It follows Thomas’s earlier contributions to African American National Biography on African American fiddler Joe Thompson and on the legend of the 19th century banjo figure Picayune Butler.

Thomas was one of the advisors to the Marc Fields PBS Film Give Me the Banjo in which he appears. He was also an adviser to and appears in Jim Carrier’s film The Librarian and the Banjo.

Tony Thomas has presented many times at the Banjo Collectors Gathering, the central banjo history event, and at banjo camps, and at other old-time music, folk, and blues events the United States and Europe. He has also performed as a vocalist, banjoist, and guitarist as a solo artist for many years and with New York’s Ebony Hillbillies.

Tony Thomas was born in New York City in 1947, lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree from Florida International University.

Here are links to his writing and presentations -

Why Black Banjo:
The Black Banjo List Serve

Tony Thomas presentation to the Banjo Collectors Gathering 2015

US Slave: About the Banjo

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Dom Flemons - Understanding Blackface, Minstrelsy and Early Black Entertainment Apr 02, 2019

Show notes

On this episode of Jack Dappa Blues I speak with the American Songster Dom Flemons about how Blackface, Minstrelsy and African American Traditional Music morphed into America's top entertainment industry. In our discussion the true context of what became a stain on the image of Black folk is unpacked.

Dom Flemons is known as “The American Songster” since his repertoire of music covers nearly 100 years of American folklore, ballads, and tunes. Flemons is a music scholar, historian, record collector and a multi-instrumentalist. He was recently nominated for a Grammy from his current album "The Black Cowboy" with Smithsonian Folkways.

The tile for this program may be offensive, but it's from a Minstrel written and composed by Ernest Hogan, the first African-American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show

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Black Spirituals, Field Hollers and Slave Seculars

The African American Folklorist ep1 - Charlotte Forten Grimke pt 1 Mar 10, 2019

Show notes

The African American Folklorist Podcast Series -

Charlotte Forten Grimke -

The First series of the African American Folklorist will be covering the works, journals, and lineage of Charlotte Forten Grimke. Documented as the first person to record Black Spirituals on her excursion to Sea Island in 1864, Charlotte, a teacher, anti-slavery activist, and poet comes from four generations of successful, free abolitionists African Americans. The series will raise awareness and discuss the people and experiences she's had during a turbulent time in America for Black people that shaped her views and propelled her to achieve many feats. Not taking away from her story, we delve into the achievements and mindset of her elder relatives that not only molded Charlotte but formulated the way free blacks and abolitionists attacked slavery with ferocity. From funding abolitionist publications to being major participants in the Underground Railroad system, The Forten family and their in-laws were trailblazers in the contributions to African American history, liberation and freedom. From what can be considered the home base of abolition, Philadelphia.

This is the description of the pilot episode.

This episode, Episode one, focus on the beginning of Charlotte's legacy, and the places and experiences that lead her grandfather, James Forten, to begin work and plant a seed that would harvest in Charlotte and the rest of the Forten family, and extended family.

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Black Spirituals, Field Hollers and Slave Seculars