Musical Holdouts Transcription
Musical Holdouts Transcript
Edited by Annamarie O’Brien Morel
[Opening Credits]
MUSICAL HOLDOUTS © 1975 JOHN COHEN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
[White Text over Green Background]:
Throughout America there are isolated groups who have maintained their separate identities. These can be heard in their music. The melting pot idea has not come true, and a homogeneous America does not exist for them. However, the mass media, Network TV and pop culture are an insistent challenge to the continued existence of these groups, for they present a daily reminder of their separation from mainstream America… For those who care, the preservation of their individual identity is of the only importance... that their worthiness might not disappear.
MUSICAL HOLDOUTS a film by John Cohen
[TIMESTAMP: 00:01:03:00]
(PART 1: Mrs. Janie Hunter and family on John's Island, South Carolina.)
[Close-up shot of two young children on porch singing and playing clapping game. Youth behind them sings along and taps with sticks.]
CHILDREN (singing 3-6-9 Goose Drank Wine):
♪ Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine ♪
♪ The monkey chew tobacco on the streetcar line ♪
♪ The line broke, the monkey got choked ♪
♪ And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat ♪
♪ Clap, clap, clap your hands ♪
♪ Sing a song ♪
♪ Sing a little song go ♪
♪ My mama told me if I was good-ee ♪
♪ And she would buy me a rubber dolly ♪
♪ But someone told her, I kissed a soldier ♪
♪ And she won't buy me a rubber dolly ♪
♪ Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine ♪
♪ The monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line ♪
♪ The line broke, the monkey got choked ♪
♪ And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat ♪
♪ Clap, pat your hands, sing a song ♪
♪ Sing a little song goes ♪
♪ My mama told me if I was good-ee ♪
♪ That she would buy me a rubber dolly ♪
♪ But someone told her I kissed a soldier ♪
♪ And she won't buy me a rubber dolly ♪
♪ Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine ♪
♪ The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line ♪
♪ The line broke, the monkey choked ♪
♪ And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat ♪
♪ Clap, pat your hands, sing a song ♪
♪ Sing a little song that go ♪
♪ My mama told me-- ♪
[Cut to white bird flying over field. Woman’s voice singing over. Shot of man walking passed billboard sign on a busy street corner advertising “Seabrook Island- A Private Oceanside Community.”]
[Text superimposed on shot of marshy wetlands. TEXT reads: John’s Island, South Carolina]
[Additional shots of street corner, close-up of magazine ads for Sea Brook Island, man hoeing and tilling field with a horse. Voice continues singing throughout]:
JANIE HUNTER (singing “I've Been Mistreated”):
♪ Have you ever been mistreated ♪
♪ And you know what I'm talking about ♪
♪ I worked five long years for one woman ♪
♪ She had the nerve to turn me out ♪
♪ Got a job at the steel mill ♪
♪ Driving trucks like a slave ♪
♪ Five long days--Every Friday ♪
♪ I come straight home like a child ♪
♪ I've been mistreated ♪
♪ And you know what I'm talking about ♪
♪ I worked five long years for one woman ♪
♪ She had the nerve to turn me out ♪
[Close-up of Mrs. Janie Hunter’s hands clapping, camera pans over to show children clapping along outside a home]
[Children singing in a circle and dancing outside. Other children watch, and Hunter stands in the doorway of home wearing a red dress and smoking a cigarette.]
CHILDREN (singing “Old Lady From Brewster”):
♪ Old lady comes from Brewster ♪
♪ She got two hens and a rooster ♪
♪ The rooster died, the old lady cried ♪
♪ She couldn't get the eggs like she used to ♪
♪ Oh, Ma, you look so ♪
♪ Oh, Pa, you look so ♪
♪ Who's been here since I been gone ♪
♪ Two little boys with their blue cap on ♪
♪ Hang them on the hickory stick ♪
♪ Ranky tanky down my shoe ♪
♪ Buffalo boy gonna buy me a bag ♪
♪ Pain in my head, ranky tanky, ♪
♪ Pain in my neck, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain in my shoulder, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain in my side, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain in my head, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain in my thighs, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain in my knees, ranky tanky, ♪
♪ Pain in my legs, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain in my foot, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain in my toes, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain all over me, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain all over me, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain all over me, ranky tanky ♪
♪ Pain all over me, ranky tanky ♪
[Child walking in yard]
CHILD: She's never going to do that.
[Four children singing and clapping. Older youth on the side keeps time with two wooden sticks]
CHILDREN (singing Oh-Ah-A Chi Ga):
♪ Oh-Ah-A Chi Ga ♪
♪ Oh-Ah-A Chi Ga ♪
♪ I know a lady, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ Her name was Sadie, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ I took her to the movie, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ She scratch her boogie, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ In the middle of the movie, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ Oh-Ah-A Chi Ga, Oh-Ah-A Chi Ga ♪
♪ I know a lady, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ Her name was Sadie, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ I took her to the movie, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ She scratch her boogie, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ In the middle of the movie, A Chi Ga ♪
♪ Oh-Ah-A Chi Ga, Oh-Ah-A Chi Ga ♪
[MRS. JANIE HUNTER speaks to the camera, wearing red dress while seated on the porch]
MRS. JANIE HUNTER: This young generation, the idea was, how we cope in our old age. Some of the games are new games and some of them are games that I taught my children, such as Old Lady Come from Brewster, Shoot Turkey Shoot, them is the old-time games that my father and mother taught to me, and I will like very much to keep them alive.
[Four children singing and clapping in yard.]
CHILDREN (singing “Mamma Lama-Cooma Lama”):
♪ Mama lama cooma lama coomala pizza ♪
♪ Mama lama cooma lama coomala pizza ♪
♪ O no no no no, la pizza ♪
♪ O no no no no, la pizza ♪
♪ Eenie meenie desapeenie ♪
♪ Ooh ah kambaleenie achie katchie coomalama xyz ♪
♪ Eenie meenie desapeenie ♪
♪ Ooh ah kambaleenie achie katchie coomalama xyz, ♪
♪ Mama lama cooma lama coomala pizza ♪
♪ Mama lama cooma lama coomala pizza ♪
♪ O no no no no, la pizza ♪
♪ O no no no no, la pizza ♪
♪ Eenie meenie desapeenie ♪
♪ Ooh ah kambaleenie achie katchie coomalama xyz ♪
♪ Eenie meenie desapeenie ♪
♪ Ooh ah kambaleenie achie katchie coomalama xyz ♪
♪ Mama lama kuma lama coomala pizza ♪
♪ Mama lama kuma lama coomala pizza ♪
♪ O no no no no, la pizza ♪
♪ O no no no no, la pizza ♪
♪ Eenie meenie desapeenie ♪
♪ Ooh ah kambaleenie achie katchie coomalama xyz ♪
♪ Eenie meenie desapeenie ♪
♪ Ooh ah kambaleenie achie katchie coomalama xyz ♪
♪ Mama lama kuma lama coomala pizza ♪
♪ Mama lama ♪
MRS. JANIE HUNTER: There's one thing about these old games I love so much, call them a family game, a get-together family game. A lot of children these days, they like Piccolo Jenkin or other place to-- these big movie places or places like that-- but my children actually would be home. And they have just as good time at home where the people, the rest of kids will go, in this Piccolo, and we hurt one another, fight and kill one another, but this is one big happy family. They stay together, play these games, start in peace and they end in peace. And that's why I always like them to participate what they have along with some other, like, some other who learn and keep them alive. I would not want these to die. And just what I know, most of my children just about know, just what I know. Old time songs, we used to sing.
MRS. JANIE HUNTER (singing “Way Bye an’ Bye”):
♪ Way bye an' bye ♪
♪ Way bye an' bye ♪
♪ We gon' have a good time ♪
♪ Way bye an' bye, ♪
♪ In this slavery land ♪
♪ In this slavery land ♪
♪ We expectin' to have a good time, ♪
♪ Way bye an' bye ♪
[Shots of fisherman in a river cutting through a wetland. Large white bird lands on marsh.]
MRS. JANIE HUNTER: My father was a fisherman. That's how come I make nets. Because my sister and I, We used to make all our father's nets. When he go to cast these fishnets, every time we cast our net, there's a song to it, Row, Michael, row.
MRS. JANIE HUNTER (singing “Row Michael Row”):
♪ Row, Michael, row ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
♪ Row, Michael, row♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
♪ Row the boat ashore ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
♪ Row the boat ashore ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
MRS. JANIE HUNTER: They take the net and they cast them and they cast the net and they sing
[Shots of net-making inside of the home with TV in the background.]
MRS. JANIE HUNTER (singing):
♪ Jump in the jolly boat ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
♪ Jump in the jolly boat ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
[Hands holding shuttle and net in front of black and white television]
[TV] Tell me about your evening. [TV] Lovely. [TV] Oh, I'm glad.
[Record plays on porch. Shots of children and adults on the porch dancing, playing, and grooming hair.]
[MAMA FEELGOOD BY LYN COLLINS] SONG:
♪ Be a love pleaser ♪
♪ Be a love pleaser ♪
♪ Forget about the others and all the rest ♪
♪ Whatever you be, got to be the best ♪
♪ It's time for everybody to get ahold of yourself ♪
♪ You see, life is too short and I'm afraid ♪
♪ We just don't have enough time left ♪
♪ 'Cause that's why they call me mama feel good, ♪
♪ 'Cause I do my thang ♪
♪ And I'm telling you it's about time ♪
♪ You started doing it too ♪
♪ I can make my lover reach for the stars ♪
♪ When the sun is out ♪
[Children dancing and singing in yard. Older youth taps sticks along with song]
CHILDREN (singing People Over Here- Tina and Priscilla Hunter © 1972):
♪ People over there, people over there ♪
♪ Gotta find a home, gotta find a place ♪
♪ Come on people, let's get together 'cause ♪
♪ People over there, people over there ♪
♪ People over there, people over there ♪
♪ People in the north, people in the south ♪
♪ People in the west, people in the east ♪
♪ Come on people, let's get together 'cause ♪
♪ People over there, people over there ♪
♪ People over there, people over there ♪
♪ Come on people, come on people ♪
♪ Come on people, come on now ♪
♪ Let's get together, help each other, 'cause ♪
♪ People over there, people over there ♪
♪ People over there, people over there ♪
[Children point and do synchronized dance with song]
[TIMESTAMP: 00:11:53:00]
(PART 2: Payne brothers in Jonesboro, Tennessee)
[Cut to black and white text. Birds chirp in background. TEXT: “…that their glory might not disappear”]
[Shot of vintage car with custom American flag paint job. Background includes a barn, farmlands, and woods on a hilly landscape. Sound of banjo tuning]
[Shot of older man wearing red plaid shirt tuning banjo on porch. Shot of horse peering through a rusted out car with flies on its snout.]
PAYNE BROTHERS (playing banjo)
[Cut back and forth to shots of farming on hillside with horse in background, and to shots of porch with banjo player, fiddle player, and flat-foot dancer. Other older adults are gathered in the background watching.]
PAYNE BROTHERS (playing banjo and fiddle):
[instrumental songs: Cumberland Gap, Cripple Creek]
BANJO PLAYER: Great!
[TIMESTAMP: 00:14:01:00]
(PART 3: Roscoe Holcomb in Daisy, Kentucky)
[Shot of hillside with field and trees]
[Cut to close-up of ROSCOE HOLCOMB playing banjo on porch swing. He wears a hat and glasses and striped grey shirt. Plants in tin cans line the porch railing]
[Shots of HOLCOMB singing, his hands playing banjo, and his foot tapping. Text superimposed: Roscoe Holcomb, Daisy, Kentucky]
ROSCOE HOLCOMB (singing Old Smokey):
♪ On top of old smokey♪
♪ All covered with snow ♪
♪ I lost my true lover ♪
♪ by courting too slow ♪
♪ The grave will decay you ♪
♪ And turn you to dust ♪
♪ Not one girl in a hundred ♪
♪ That a poor boy can trust ♪
[TIMESTAMP: 00:15:43:00]
(PART 4: Ralph Stanley in McClure, VA)
[Shot of horses in a field, sign by gate reads “Ralph Stanley’s Memorial Park”]
[Cut to RALPH STANLEY wearing a white cowboy hat and blue shirt. Text superimposed: Ralph Stanley, McClure Virginia]
RALPH STANLEY (speaking and motioning at the yard behind him): Uh, this place here that you can see, we took a bulldozer and bulldozed all this out and smoothed it up and up in the field here, I don't know whether you can see up through there or not but I've hoed corn up there. And I decided to move in this here and started me this festival.
[Cut to shots of stage near wooded area. STANLEY and others shown at work sawing and nailing wood to construct stage.]
RALPH STANLEY: Here's the stage that we built when I started the festival about three year ago. And it was hard to get down to the stage, 'specially when it rained. It got muddy and we used to maybe have to slide in, anyway you could. And I don't guess there's anybody wants to go on the stage with their pants, which is muddy. Bluegrass music is not played too much on the radio. There's a few Disc Jockeys that plays it. Other means I guess is mostly through the Bluegrass festivals. They come in by the thousands to the Bluegrass festivals from all over the country. And I'd say that's the way that I guess where most of the audience is now.
[Cut to shots of Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys playing “Pretty Polly” and “Nobody's Love is Like Mine” (© Ralph Stanley). Large audience shown seated in the grass in front of the stage.]
RALPH STANLEY (singing on stage and playing banjo, accompanied by the Clinch Mountain Boys):
♪ Polly, Pretty Polly, would you think me unkind ♪
♪ When I sit beside you and tell you my mind ♪
♪ Well my mind is to marry and never to part ♪
♪ My mind is to marry and never to part ♪
♪ The first time I saw you it wounded my heart ♪
♪ Says Willie, Little Willie, I'm afraid of your ways ♪
♪ Willie, Little Willie, I'm afraid of your ways ♪
♪ The way you've been rambling you'll lead me astray ♪
♪ Now Polly, Pretty Polly, you're just about right ♪
♪ Polly, Pretty Polly, you're just about right ♪
♪ I dug on your grave the biggest part of last night ♪
♪ Oh she knelt down before him a pleading for her life ♪
♪ She knelt down before him a pleading for her life ♪
♪ Let me be a single girl if I can't be your wife ♪
♪ He went down to the jailhouse and what did he say ♪
♪ He went to the jailhouse and what did he say ♪
♪ I've killed Pretty Polly and trying to get away ♪
[Shots of Blue Grass Music Festival audience, tents and cars parked in large field. ]
RALPH: Thank you. As I think the kind of music that I play is, you might call it an old time Bluegrass, old time Mountain Bluegrass maybe. The Bluegrass music, I think, it's getting more popular with every year and I think it's a long ways from reaching its peak yet. I think, it's just a lot more purer and a lot more better music than rock 'n roll. And I think it's something that people likes today and they'll like years to come. They liked it years ago.
[RALPH STANLEY and parking lot musicians playing “Going Down The Road Feeling Bad”]
RALPH STANLEY:
♪ I'm going down this road feeling bad ♪
♪ I'm going down this road feeling bad ♪
♪ I'm going down this road feeling bad, lord, lord ♪
♪ And I ain't gonna be treated this way ♪
RALPH: Even when they are having it on the stage, why they're still out in here. The ground stage is--people comes here-- comes to play, you know.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Oh, they have a good time.
RALPH: Yeah. It's their type music
[Shots of Blue Grass Music Festival audience, tents and cars parked in large field. RALPH STANLEY taking photos with attendees ]
RALPH:
♪ Nobody's love is like mine ♪
♪ No one so faithful and kind ♪
♪ Love that is true as the ocean ♪
♪ Nobody's love is like mine ♪
♪ They tell me that you've found another ♪
♪ And now you'll be going far away ♪
♪ Why have you left me little darling ♪
♪ I love you both night and day ♪
♪ Nobody's love is like mine ♪
♪ No one so faithful and kind ♪
♪ Love that is true as the ocean is blue ♪
♪ Nobody's love is like mine ♪
[Shot of living room with bright red carpet and red furniture and drapes. Shots of woman cooking in kitchen.]
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Mustard greens and cornbread and pinto beans or brown beans, or whatever you want to call 'em, and home cooking, the old home cooking foods what I like.
[Shots of house in a rural setting. PAUL MULLINS and RALPH STANLEY sit on patio furniture outside]
RALPH: There's one fellow that I know that has got a radio show in Middletown, Ohio, and he loves this type of music. And maybe we can talk to him, Paul Mullins. Paul, how you're doing?
PAUL: I was all right, but I got overdressed.
RALPH Did you? Good to have you with us here.
PAUL: Yes sir, it's good to be here.
RALPH: You spin some of the Bluegrass records up around Middletown, don't you?
PAUL: Yeah, 'bout uh, 'bout every third record I play is a Bluegrass record.
RALPH: Yeah.
PAUL: Well, it used to be, that about all the Bluegrass musician had was his talent and his pride. And now they got money.
INTERVIEWER (from off-screen): What do you say to that, Ralph?
RALPH: Well, I'll agree with him, I'll have to say "amen." There's a lot of difference money-wise than there was years ago. And like Paul said, he used to, you really had to have that pride.
PAUL: That's what kept it alive and kept it going.
RALPH: But it was hard to live on that pride.
PAUL: That's the truth.
RALPH: Yeah, sure it was.
[TIMESTAMP: 00:22:01:00]
(PART 5: Glenn Orhlin, Mountain View Arkansas)
[Black & white text: “…The question is no longer whether these groups will survive”]
[Cut to shot of small town street with cars and pedestrians. Superimposed text reads: Mountain View, Arkansas.]
[Shots of GLEN ORHLIN wearing cowboy hat and painting horse on a store window.]
GLENN ORHLIN: Well, I've been cowboying all my life. For about 30 years or more, I'm on the road, you know, working out for other people, and I've had my own ranch for 20 years. It's the only thing I really care anything about so, and it's interesting to me, I learn stuff all the time. I never have learned it all and I just enjoy it an awful lot and everything about it. Has its own music, art, literature, everything as well as the work, you see? I'm Glenn Orhlin and I live here in Arkansas in the Ozarks, near Mountain View, and we're going down on the road to what I call it Neff pasture.
[Shots of ORHLIN riding a horse down a trail and rounding up cattle in a pasture.]
GLENN ORHLIN: It's place I've leased for about 18 years out of the 20 I've lived here. I run cattle there in the summer time and I lease it from an old fellow named Mister Neff who came here from Texas years ago. And there is a 120 acres, it looks like maybe now it's gonna be sold, divided up for homes, but probably in small acreages, five, 10 acres, so on like that, and I'll have to find another summer pasture somewhere. I rodeoed for 23 years, riding broncs, but I quit several years ago, 'cause it's about as--real hard to make a living on the road and pay your expenses and everything like that. It's a tough go, you know.
[Cut to shot of ORHLIN playing guitar and singing. He’s seated by an old door that appears to be attached to the foundation of an old house in a field.]
GLENN ORHLIN sings “Marlboro Cowboy” by G. Ohrlin © 1973)
GLENN ORHLIN (singing and playing guitar):
♪ Well, there's some things I'm quittin' ♪
♪ And some of them include ♪
♪ Breakin' my neck in some bronc-ridin' wreck ♪
♪ Or wrangelin' greenhorn dudes ♪
♪ I ain't fighting no droughts or blizzards ♪
♪ On that old home ranch of mine ♪
♪ Boys, I'm tellin' you true ♪
♪ I'm one up on you ♪
♪ I found a deal that's fine. ♪
♪ I want to be a Marlboro cowboy ♪
♪ I just want to rope and ride ♪
♪ With an advertising agency following me ♪
♪ Across the ranges wide ♪
♪ I want to have my picture taken ♪
♪ On the best ranches in the west ♪
♪ I want to be a Marlboro cowboy ♪
♪ That's the job that pays the best. ♪
[TIMESTAMP: 00:25:26:00]
(PART 6: Radio Station in Anadarko, Oklahoma
[Cut to close-up shot of EDWIN HORSE CHIEF singing. Text superimposed reads: Anadarko, Oklahoma]
[Camera zooms out and pans to show 4 men seated in a circle around a large drum in a radio studio. They are all singing and playing the drum with beaters.]
[After the men complete the song, the RADIO DJ speaks into a microphone from his desk].
RADIO DJ: Thank you, boys, for wonderful singing. Just wanna make a comment here. Edwin Horse Chief was gonna be the head singer at this powwow at Oklahoma City, he's Kiowa and Pawnee, and Leroy Miller is a Wichita. Holly Steward is a Kiowa and Sana Peowa is a Comanche, and it's kinda funny that we have five different tribes represented here today. I wish that other people in the country would cooperate like these drummers do and all sing together and have a good time. We won't to try to disturb you anymore.
[Shot of woman operating controls at radio station. Upbeat pop music begins playing along with the men’s singing.]
[TIMESTAMP: 00:28:07:06]
(PART 7: Daniel Black Owl & Archie Black Owl in )
[Cut to various shots of street corner, oil fields, grain elevators, big commercial signs for Shell, McDonalds, & K-Mart, farm fields]
[Shot of DANIEL BLACK OWL standing on the side of the road with a suitcase. He is hitchhiking and a truck drives past him. Superimposed text reads: “Daniel Black Owl returns home”]
[Close-up on DANIEL BLACK OWL singing “I come from Oklahoma” on the side of the road in a flat rural landscape. He has long hair and wears a tank top.]
DANIEL BLACK OWL:
♪ I come from Oklahoma, got no one for my own ♪
♪ So I come here looking for you Hiya ♪
♪ When I find you, will you be my honey ♪
♪ I will be your sugar pie-yah ♪
[Cut to DANIEL BLACK HAWK greeting a few people outside of a home. He opens the suitcase and takes out traditional Native American costume pieces.]
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: What's the price money?
UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: I don't know, check.
DANIEL: 215?
[Cut to shot of boy in yard throwing stones. ARCHIE BLACK OWL begins speaking in the background.]
ARCHIE BLACK OWL: I'm here where my grand folk settled, where I was reared as a boy
[Cut to shots of ARCHIE BLACK OWL and DANIEL BLACK OWL in the middle of a field. Superimposed text reads: Archie Black Owl, a Cheyenne.]
ARCHIE BLACK OWL: And it is a custom that the grand folks take their oldest son, they rear him, teach him and tell him the things that are essential in the young manhood and the manhood of the Cheyenne Tribe. My grandfather at leisure times would lay, of an evening relaxation and he would sing war songs or tribal songs or a clan songs. But this one song in particular caught my attention. I told him, I wanted to learn it. And then he told me this, I composed. He said, It means so much to me, it's from in here, my heart, I think of the things, what my son went through as a warrior, came back and all others. He said, during that time, when I couldn't sleep, when I worried about my son, I composed this song.
[ARCHIE BLACK OWL sings Cheyenne Anthem while DANIEL BLACK OWL joins in]
[TIMESTAMP: 00:32:20:00]
(PART 8: Comanche Homecoming Dances)
[Cut to shots of Comanche gathering. DANIEL carries a bucket of water around with ladle and people in traditional costume drink from it. Superimposed text reads: Comanche Homecoming, Walters, Oklahoma]
[Shots of men and children dancing in a large circle before audience. Sounds of drums and rattles and singing throughout. Gourd Dance is performed]
[Shots of tents for outdoor festival, woman cooking, and people preparing their costumes. A man ties on bells to his legs and applies paint to his face while looking in a mirror]
[Cut to night scene with men in full costume dancing in the center. Social Dance and War Dance are performed. Sounds of fast-paced singing and drumming. Crowd applauds and cheers at the end.]
[TIMESTAMP: 00:36:21:00]
(PART 9: Busking Folk Musicians, Berkeley, California)
[Cut to black and white text which reads: “...For those who care, the preservation of their individual identity is of the only importance–”]
[Shot of pedestrians walking down the street. Young people sit on the sidewalk against a building. A young man plays a fiddle, busking with his instrument case open for donations]
[BRIAN HUBBARD plays “Last Of Callahan”]
HUBBARD: That's the only way that we could keep it together-- play enough regularly to still support ourselves with-- to play on the streets. And we used to beg on, like Berkeley Campus, and Telegraph Avenue and Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
[Cut to shot of JANE VOSS & WILL SPIRES playing music on steps of UC Berkeley Campus. JANE VOSS plays guitar and WILL SPIRES plays fiddle. They are accompanied by a woman on dulcimer as they play “Old Mother Flannagen.” As they finish the crowd claps.]
WILL SPIRES: Good morning. Welcome to the rainiest July in recorded history. Yeah, what are you getting--?
JANE VOSS: Ah, G
[Shots of WILL SPIRES addressing the crowd and going around with a hat to accept donations from the crowd]
WILL SPIRES: Those of you who don't have time to wait for the commercial, can anticipate the collection, immediately. Oops!
JANE VOSS: Hey, hey! All right.
WILL SPIRES: Those of you have not done so and would like to do so, please do so. Lot, sir. If you want to applaud in a little bit of jingling change, we'd sure appreciate it. A good day is 15 or 20 bucks apiece. That's a good day. And a great day is 25 or 30 bucks apiece. And the record around Christmas time for one band that I was in, we knocked down among three people $200, you know.
[JANE VOSS & WILL SPIRES play “Storms on the Ocean”]
JANE VOSS & WILL SPIRES (singing):
♪ I'm goin' away to leave you, love, ♪
♪ I'm goin' away for a while. ♪
♪ But I'll return to you sometime ♪
♪ If I go ten thousand miles ♪
♪ The storms are on the ocean ♪
♪ The heavens may cease ♪
[TIMESTAMP: 00:39:58:07]
(PART 10: Highwood String Band, Sweet’s Mill, Auberry, California)
[Cut to FRANNY LEOPOLD playing irish flute. Shots of young people at a makeshift campsite. People are eating, grooming, and washing dishes outside. Franny is seated on a rug playing flute in shorts. Shots of people swimming and sitting on rafts, and of musicians walking with their instruments.]
[Cut to shot of FRANNY LEOPOLD being interviewed while seated on the ground.]
FRANNY LEOPOLD: We've got a network going for musicians on the West Coast. And it runs from Southern California up to Seattle. And we're all welcome at each others' houses wherever we go, and tunes travel that way up and down the coast. And you might say Sweet's Mill is like a home ground for all that, you know, that's where you get a shot in the arm and then you go back to your own hermit life, or whatever kind of life you lead, whether it's traveling around or living in the woods or living in the cities and playing in bars. You come back to Sweet's Mill, and there are all your friends and you've gone your separate ways, and you've gotten your tunes and you come together and you get to exchange them. You know, it's a real warm feeling.
[Cut to shots of band playing upbeat songs with young people dancing in the background. Shot of a young child walking to lay down with a woman beneath a tree.]
[THE ARKANSAS SHEIKS play “Gold Rush” by Byron Berline, and “Kitchen Girls” by Henry Reed.]
[Shots of people dancing and musicians playing banjos, guitars, fiddles, dulcimer, autoharp, and spoons. Shots of outdoor kitchen and signs selling food.]
[Cut to interview with WILL SPIRES in the woods. He is wearing a hat and a blue shirt.]
INTERVIEWER (from off-screen): Willy, where're you working these days and where is your home?
WILL SPIRES: Right now, I'm working here and this is my home until the day after tomorrow. Then I'm going to stay on the West Coast for about three weeks and head east. I've cut loose my apartment and sold my truck and I'm working completely in music now. I'm going through festivals and coffee houses and college campuses and just trying to find enough work playing music to get me one place to the next, and this allows me to meet musicians and play music all over the country. If I want to go see Louisiana, I can get a job at a folk festival in Arkansas, and if I want to go up to Nova Scotia, I can get a job in Toronto and go on from there.
INTERVIEWER: How do you find these jobs?
WILL SPIRES: I write for 'em, I send out a sort of an advertisement. It's kind of crass actually, you know, I like to try and convince people that you're a visiting eminence and they should cut loose some of their money, so you can go there, but--
INTERVIEW: If someone wanted to contact you, how will they do it?
WILL SPIRES: They'd have to find out someone who knew me, so they'd know where I was. I receive mail on the West Coast and in New York about a month in arrears.
[Cut to HIGHWOODS STRING BAND playing upbeat blue grass music on stage. Musicians are playing banjo, guitar, fiddle. HIGHWOODS STRING BAND plays “Rye Straw.” As they finish the crowd applauds and cheers. “Evening Shade”]
[Cut to Red. Credits appear in white text. Highwoods String Band’s “Evening Shade” plays in the background.]
[TIMESTAMP: 00:47:44:11]
[CLOSING MUSICAL CREDITS]
Janie Hunter & Family
3-6-9 Goose Drank Wine
I've Been Mistreated
Oh-Ah-A Chi Ga
Old Lady From Brewster
Mamma Lama-Cooma Lama
Row Michael Row
People Over Here- Tina and Priscilla Hunter © 1972
Payne Brothers -banjo and fiddle
Cumberland Gap
Cripple Creek
Roscoe Holcomb
Old Smokey
Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys
Pretty Polly
Nobody's Love is Like Mine © Ralph Stanley
Going Down The Road Feeling Bad
Glen Orhlin
Marlboro Cowboy-by G. Ohrlin © 1973
Daniel Black Owl-49 song
I Come From Oklahoma
Archie Black Owl
Cheyenne Anthem
Comanche Homecoming
Gourd Dance
Social Dance
War Dance
Brian Hubbard
Last Of Callahan
Jane Voss & Will Spires
Old Mother Flannagen
Storms on the Ocean
Franny Leopold
Irish Flute
The Arkansas Sheiks
Gold Rush-by Byron Berline
Kitchen Girls-Henry Reed
Highwoods Stringband
Rye Straw
Evening Shade
[FILM CREDITS]
Camera: John Cohen
Editors: John Cohen, Paul Justman
Sound: Thomas Ahrens, Chris Strachwitz
Produced with a grant from the
National Endowment For The Arts.
Thanks to the Friends of Old Time Music, Joe Zysman, and to I. E. Cohen.
To Helen Levitt
