I think almost anyone who's not a senior, senior citizen came to this music second-hand or
third-hand. I came to love old blues records in a very similar way to your friend's son -- via rock
music. The Rolling Stones, Cream and Led Zeppelin, among others, were never shy about quoting the
old blues in their heyday output (I stopped paying attention to all of them in their geezer years,
the old blues guys were much more dignified senior citizens!). The Robert Johnson material was
always in print throughout my life, and every time it was reissued it would get coverage in
youth-oriented rock music magazines. But the deeper stuff, the "Friends of Robert Johnson" and more
obscure material, was dug up and reissued by the maniacal guys described in the SDAMO books. I got
to the older blues via the second-generation electric blues, mainly Chess records. When I was a
teen, Chess was owned by Sugar Hill Records, and they put out some good reissues. One anthology,
"Wizards of the South Side," caught my ear via a friend, and the rest is history.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Old blues, hot jazz and turkey. A Beethoven symphony for desert.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "carlstephen koto" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 4:46 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] HIGHLY recommended - "The Return of The Stuff That Dreams Are ...
Thanks for the SoundCloud link.
I enjoyed the first SDAMO enough that I gave several away as Xmas gifts. Much to my surprise, the
son of one of the recipients (in his early 30's), loved it enough that he's begun to collect cd's of
similar recordings and claims to love the scratchy sound on them.
When I asked him what interested him about these kinds of recordings, he said that Jeff Tweedy (the
front man for the band Wilco) sang songs from early musicians and pointed to these kinds of old
recordings as a continuing source of inspiration.
Now it seems that his other Wilco lovin' buddies can't get enough of these either.
Steve Koto
On Nov 21, 2012, at 4:50 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
> By the way, here's a good interview with Richard Nevins on NPR about the first "Stuff Dreams Are
> Made Of" album. As you can hear from the album excerpts, some of the transfers are very good. As
> I've said before, I don't mind surface noise as much as I mind gated/pumping noise "reduction,"
> which makes the noise and distortion more audible to my ears. I love Nevins' tongue-in-cheek
> fun-poking at collectors, most of all himself.
>
> http://soundcloud.com/1888media/all-things-considered-yazoo-records
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 7:37 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] HIGHLY recommended - "The Return of The Stuff That Dreams Are ...
>
>
>> I thought Nevins did the mastering for first one. The problem there is that some of these sides
>> are audible to fanatics only, some of the Son House and Charlie (Charley) Patton Paramounts, also
>> some of the super-rare hillbilly sides. It is what it is -- there are one or few copies around
>> and none of them are in good shape. I didn't feel ripped off having the barely-audible tracks on
>> the CDs, but I certainly don't think they are collectable for their audio. It's the rare-artifact
>> thing. The same reason all the record-auction guys make sure to print pleasing color photographs
>> of labels on their auction listing books. Both of the "Stuff Dreams Are Made Of" booklets get
>> into this in great detail.
>>
>> I have to say that of all the great text in those books, my favorite is "An Early Collecting
>> Trip" in the new album, by R. Anthony "Flea" Lee, describing a road trip to the Mississippi Delta
>> in 1961 with John Fahey and Dick Spottswood. Lee, a non-collector buddy of the two maniacal
>> collectors, presents a very funny, jaded view of the whole enterprise. I think my wife found the
>> funniest part of both books to be the fact that producer Nevins felt it necessary to include an
>> illustrated sidebar on the Collyer Brothers in the first album. For those who haven't accumulated
>> enough stuff to have been compared to the Collyer Brothers yet, see:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers
>> and
>> http://unclutterer.com/2007/04/26/the-collyer-brothers-a-study-in-compulsive-hoarding/
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> PS -- my admittedly lame attempt at a rejoiner to Collyer Brothers comparisons is the correct
>> statement that I can actually find whatever needle in my haystack I want to listen to at any
>> given time. Also, after a period of being not so organized, when I did get my CD library in
>> order, I was thrilled to find only two instances where I stupidly bought the same CD twice.
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Levinson" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 6:53 AM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] HIGHLY recommended - "The Return of The Stuff That Dreams Are ...
>>
>>
>> That is good to hear because while I enjoyed the music I felt the remastering was frankly not
>> great at all. Glad to know that they took another shot at it.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Nov 20, 2012, at 11:33 PM, Steve Ramm <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Tom: I was told by the folks at Shanachie that the sides on the FIRST
>>> volume have been remastered by Rich Nevins and sound even better than on
>>> original issue. Just got my copy of "Return" but haven't listed yet. On tap for
>>> the weekend.
>>>
>>> Steve Ramm
>>>
>>>
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