Hang down your head

Knappster — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:15:17 -0800

Guitarist and banjo player Erik Darling died last Sunday at age 74. His arrangements of traditional songs played a significant role in the folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Darling's first group, the Folksay Trio, recorded an influential version of an old North Carolina folk song in 1951.

Standing in front of a microphone ... was not the same thing as playing and singing in Washington Square or in someone’s apartment with reckless abandon (which would have been better). I could not help but think that every nuance would count. The result was, I couldn’t sing and play the guitar at the same time on one of the songs. RECORDING SESSION 101: you cross the George Washington Bridge to a New Jersey basement and sing. Still, our syncopated version of “Tom Dooley” on this little record was the one from which the Kingston Trio got their version of the song (as the late Dave Guard has told us), and that song gave them the number one hit that began their career.

Darling found his first commercial success with The Tarriers, a trio that included future Oscar winner Alan Arkin. After backing up folk singer Vince Martin on his hit "Cindy, Oh Cindy," the group recorded a version of "The Banana Boat Song."*

Our version of the song was performed on the Hit Parade TV show for eight weeks. Without intending to, we had started the Calypso craze. We were not even singing Calypso--“The Banana Boat Song” was a Jamaican folk song and most of our material was North American folk music--but the music industry needed to label what we were doing. Every time we appeared on a TV show, the set was palm trees and bananas, or pilings, barrels and docks, or all five. We were covered by Capital Record’s version of the same song, “Day-O," by Harry Belafonte. With Capital’s power, as well as Belafonte’s ability to dramatize songs and perform, it is Belafonte’s version of the song that is remembered to this day.

Though their musical interests reached beyond the West Indies, The Tarriers' Darling-era YouTube offerings are limited: here's "Chaucoun," the trio's rendition of the 19th-century Haitian song "Choucoune." Darling was chosen to succeed Pete Seeger in The Weavers in 1958, and quit The Tarriers a year later (his replacement was Eric Weissberg of "Dueling Banjos" fame). In 1962 he left The Weavers and soon after formed The Rooftop Singers with Lynne Taylor and Bill Svanoe. They hit pay dirt with a cover of Gus Cannon's "Walk Right In" (original version; Darling's bluesy version from 2000). The song, with its dual twelve-string guitars, hit No. 1 in the US in January 1963.

I thought that if the three of us recorded “Walk Right In” as Leadbelly would have, with the sound of a twelve-string guitar, but in our case with two twelve-string guitars playing exactly the same notes in unison, we’d have a hit. The only problem was that there were no twelve-string guitars being made at the time. We waited six months for the Gibson Company to build us two of them.

They followed up with "Tom Cat," a cover of Cliff Carlisle's "Tom Cat Blues." Some prudish radio programmers refused to play the somewhat risqué tune. When invited to appear on Hootenanny, The Rooftop Singers played it safe. Darling never again found success on the Billboard charts, but he found contentment in his musical projects, in his painting, and in "writing and emailing old and new friends all over the world."

I discovered that a writer and folk music enthusiast in Japan, Jeffrey Yamada, had bought my original 12-string (from the Mandolin Brothers) that was used on the "Walk Right In" single. He strummed it for me over the phone. "You know what this is?" he said. I never dreamed. Such is the way of the world.

*The clip is from the 1957 low-budget musical Calypso Heat Wave—Alan Arkin's earliest IMDb credit. He talks about his stint with The Tarriers in this interview, starting at about 6:20.

Luther Vandross: RIP

trip and a half — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 19:31:50 -0800

Luther Vandross is gone. The great R&B balladeer died today, apparently due to complications from a stroke he suffered two years ago. Believers in an afterlife can hope he's enjoying a dance with his father. After all, he did believe in the "Power of Love". RIP.

Who's Who In Musicals

MiguelCardoso — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 11:50:22 -0800

A Pretty URL Is Like A Melody: By a waterfall, I'm calling Who's Who In Musicals, diligently compiled by John Kenrick, a wonderful little resource.

MiguelCardoso — Sun, 17 Feb 2002 18:06:24 -0800

I Nominate Richie Havens As The Most Criminally Unappreciated Recording Artist Ever: In this recent Guardian article, John Aizlewood asked "How on earth did this man miss the boat?" Indeed! His voice is deep and beautiful, his guitar-playing is exciting and innovative and, to my mind, he's the best and busiest no-nonsense live performer around. On his website he generously shows us how to play guitar in his own special way. He also comes across as an inspiring, wonderful human being. And yet, for all his Woodstock kudos, he's more well known for his voice-overs on commercials(McDonalds and Pepsi, for example) than for his music. His new record, Wishing Well, is just out. But nobody seems to care. He's a hero in Europe but negligently seen as a hippy in his native land. There are a lot of other unnaccountably underrated and unknown veteran artists around. Grrrr! Who's yours?

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Hang down your head

Luther Vandross: RIP

Who's Who In Musicals