Andy Kershaw’s Appalachian Journey

September 5, 2016 2:43 AM

Earlier this year, BBC radio’s Andy Kershaw recreated Cecil Sharp’s 1916 song-collecting trip through Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee. Kershaw interviewed local musicians and made field recordings of their performances as he went along – just as Sharp had done 100 years before. You can hear the full programme here and extended sessions/interviews with Gillian Welch, Sheila Kay Adams and Elizabeth LaPrelle here. And don’t forget his web-only discussion of Sharp with Brian Peters and Martin Carthy here.

The Gillian Welch session is particularly worth hearing for a performance of The Cruel Mother (a song she's never recorded or even played on stage before) and the Sheila Kay Adams one for her very funny family memories about Sharps's 1916 visit. I think there may be more extended interviews/sessions to come from Kershaw's Appalachia trip, so keep an eye on the page.

posted by Paul Slade (14 comments total)

Yay, it has Dom Flemons too!
posted by scruss at 6:13 AM on September 5, 2016

That was neat. Thanks!
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:40 AM on September 5, 2016

Thank you for sharing this!
posted by nightrecordings at 9:26 AM on September 5, 2016

Just read my post again and realised I wasn't quite clear. Sharp's 1916 "field recordings" , of course, were made on paper, as he jotted down the musical notes and his assistant Maude Karpeles transcribed the lyrics. He didn't have the equipment for audio recordings.
posted by Paul Slade at 9:30 AM on September 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is it something you can only hear in the UK? If so, I wasn't aware of it.

(The first three comments, I note, come from people whose profiles give their locations as "Toronto, Ontario", "Midwest USA" and "US" respectively.)
posted by Paul Slade at 12:14 PM on September 5, 2016

Both the full program and the web-only stuff worked fine for me, and I'm smack dab in the middle of the US. I've noticed that music stuff often gets a lot of favorites and not a lot of comments, which is probably what's going on here.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:38 PM on September 5, 2016

Odd it didn't work for this Minnesotan, wonder why
posted by wheelieman at 12:45 PM on September 5, 2016

It is supposed to be UK-only. While this page has links that say "Download MP3", the individual episode pages such as say "Download MP3 (UK Only)".

I'm on a mainstream U.S. ISP (Comcast) & get 403 "notukerroz" for the .mp3 URLs on Safari & Chrome, even private/incognito. The Flash movies report errors.. Perhaps some ISPs don't geolocate properly (lucky!).
posted by morganw at 12:59 PM on September 5, 2016

Huh. I clicked on the "you can hear the full programme here link, and then I pressed the little play button and was able to stream it. Is it possible that the podcast is UK only, but the link in the OP goes to a Sunday Feature streaming site that is international?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:10 PM on September 5, 2016

Oh, this was great! (I had a mixed bag of access in Virginia - I could listen to the show and the clips on the first link but could not download mp3s or listen to individual sessions.)

Single Girl, Married Girl remains my favorite of the songs AP Carter collected and his family sang. The Welch/Rawlings version here is lovely. Also, I'm now obsessed with the song The Cruel Mother.
posted by julen at 1:18 PM on September 5, 2016

Ok, final report: first and third links in the OP work for me. Second one, with the extended sessions and interviews, doesn't.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:21 PM on September 5, 2016

I've just found a second BBC page with the full Gillian Welch session on it. Any better?
posted by Paul Slade at 2:43 PM on September 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yes! That second BBC link works. Awesome.
posted by julen at 3:28 PM on September 5, 2016

NOW we're getting somewhere. Here's the same alternative BBC pages for Sheila Kay Adams (extracts only, I'm afraid) and Elizabeth LaPrelle (full session).
posted by Paul Slade at 10:42 PM on September 5, 2016