Voices of Lynchburg

Herb Fanning - Voices of Lynchburg

I found a copy of this LP in a Goodwill store sometime ago. I think it's great that there is still worthwhile stuff to be found at Goodwill. Anyway, the tracks on the record are a collection of interviews with the citizens of Lynchburg, Tennessee conducted by someone named Herb Fanning who is also the narrator on this record. Lynchburg happens to be the location of the distillery of the world famous whiskey, Jack Daniels. Other than that, Lynchburg is a very small town with a very small population.

The people on this record talk about their favorite subjects including fishing, whittlin', and making whiskey, both legal and otherwise. What the heck is whittlin', you're probably wondering. You'll have to listen for yourself and find out or just do it the boring way and look it up on Google. The Lynchburg folks also talk a little bit about the history of the town and their ancestors who were among the town's first inhabitants. The last track is an interview with a country baker who was 91 years old at the time of the interview.

The interviews were recorded in the kitchens, porches and parlors of the folks interviewed along with park benches and the town square. The material on the LP was chosen from more than thirty hours of recorded conversations.


This is going to be the last post of 2008 so I wish everyone out there a happy 2009.

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. Around the Square {5:01}

2. Moonshine-and Other Natural Phenomena {5:45}

3. Goin' Fishing {6:27}

Side Two

1. Whittlin' {4:06}

2. Country Banker {10:40}

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Cascando

Charles Dodge - Cascando

Realization of Samuel Beckett's Radio Play by Charles Dodge

Realization made at the computer centers of Columbia University and the City University of New York and the Center for Computer Music at Brooklyn College.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Opener - John Nesci
Voice - Computer synthesis based on a reading by Steven Gilborn
Music - Computer synthesis based on Voice

Excerpted from the liner notes:

CASCANDO is Charles Dodge's realization of Samuel Beckett's radio play of 1963. Like Beckett's "Words and Music", CASCANDO has three characters: Opener ("Dry as dust"), Voice ("low, panting"), and Music. "Music" is not characterized by Beckett, but he indicates very precisely in the published play (with rows of dots) where it is to "speak" alone, sound together with Voice, or be overlaid with a comment from Opener. Thus, as Vivian Mercer has remarked in her "Beckett/Beckett", CASCANDO, but could be described as a kind of libretto, and it and "Words and Music" "inaugurate a new genre - invisible opera."

This "libretto" attracted Dodge when, finishing his "Speech Songs" in 1972, he began looking for other material for his "pitched speech" composition. At first the Beckett play seemed too long for the purpose, but Dodge ended up using it entirely, word for word, (plus, of course, music for Music). He worked at it, off and on, for more than five years. Beckett gave Dodge permission to "musicalize" CASCANDO, but initially withheld rights to public presentation. However, on receiving a copy of the finished tape in the spring of 1978, he wrote, "Dear Mr. Dodge: Thank you for your letter of April with the tape of your CASCANDO. Okay for public performance." (Dodge finds the "your" flattering, and we shall see presently how accurate it is.)

There are about as many interpretations of the meaning of Beckett's drama as there have been interpreters of it. Perhaps the narrative Voice is that of Opener himself, the former trying desperately to tell the very last story - to "finish it...then sleep... no more stories... no more words" - while the latter (austere, confident, presiding) opens and closes the bits of story and music, aware (as Hugh Kenner says in "A Reader's Guide to Samuel Beckett") that he is "incomprehensible to censorious folk called 'they'":

They say, That is not his life, he does not live on that. They
don't see me, they don't see what my life is, they don't
see what I live on, and they say, That is not his life, he
does not live on that.
Pause.
I have lived on it... pretty long.

The story that Voice tries to tell is about a man called Woburn, going out at night on a familiar search ("same old coat... same old stick"), who keeps falling (=cascando) "...on purpose or not...can't see...he's down...that's what counts," in mud, in sand, in stones, finally in the bilge of an oarless, tillerless boat "heading out...vast deep...no more land." Voice breathlessly follows Woburn, dying to end his story ("...to see him...say him"), hoping that "this time...it's the right one." Music is with Voice in this quest; Opener comments, perhaps with wonderment, "From one world to another, it's as though they drew together." But, at the close, although Woburn clings on (to the boat? to the narrating Voice which cries "come on...come on" together with Music?), there is only extinction. (The last word of the play, a direction, is "Silence.")

The well-known internet repository of knowledge, Wikipedia has more information about Cascando.

Tracklisting:

1. Cascando {32:03}

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2001: A Space Odyssey read by Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke - 2001: A Space Odyssey

When I was transferring posts to this new version of this blog on the new Blogger engine, this one somehow got lost in the shuffle and never made it here until now. I forgot about this LP on the old version of this blog originally posted on October 12, 2006.
This particular release contains the final chapters of 2001 read by Arthur C. Clarke himself and a snippet of the memorable Richard Strauss piece, Also sprach Zarathustra, used as the film version's theme music. No need for me to explain the plot as I'm sure most people are familiar with it, but just in case this Wikipedia site explains everything. There is an audiobook of the complete novel on tape and CD, but I am not aware of any other release having a reading of this work by Clarke.

Tracklisting:

SIDE A

1. The Moons of Saturn {14;17}

Experiment --- The Sentinel --- Into the Eye --- Exit

2. Through the Star Gate {12:16}

Grand Central --- The Alien Sky (beginning)

SIDE B

1. Through the Star Gate {28:53}

The Alien Sky (conclusion) --- Inferno --- Reception --- Recapitulation --- Transformation--- Star-Child

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The Nude Paper Sermon

Eric Salzman - The Nude Paper Sermon

* originally posted on November 16, 2006

Write-up by muse1453: A few weeks ago, I shopped for records and books here at the annual friends of the library sale. I was there on a Friday evening which was restricted to those who had paid membership dues to the friends of the library organization. The sale opened to the public on the following Saturday morning. I'm not a member, but luckily I have a friend who is and she let me accompany her since her husband was working that evening. The staff thought I was part of her family as she paid for a family membership. This worked out well for me since I got first dibs on the selections available. I think I did pretty well by buying 20 records that evening. The records cost a dollar each, and I managed to spend all 20 dollars I had at the moment. I had to wait until the next day to withdraw more money and buy some books. Anyway, I scored quite a few records including this one posted. There will be a few more records from the bundle in future posts.

Billed as tropes for actor, renaissance consort, chorus, and electronics, The Nude Paper Sermon is a conceptual audio theatre piece commissioned by Nonesuch Records in 1968. It features Stacy Keach, an actor known mainly by his starring role as Mike Hammer in the TV series of the same name. The piece revolves around texts from John Ashbery's "Three Madrigals" and "The Nude Paper Sermon" written by Steven Wade. According to the liner notes, "The Nude Paper Sermon is about the end of the Renaissance - the end of an era and the beginning of another. Therefore, it is about old and new means of communication, about verbal and non-verbal sound, about the familiar and the unknown, about human activity and the new technologies. It is not a 'neo-classic' work nor is it a collage; rather it is 'post-modern music, post-modern art, post-style,' a multi-layer sound drama that is itself an example of the kinds of experience which it interprets and expresses: the transformation of values and tradition through the impact of the new technologies."

The liner notes claim that The Nude Paper Sermon is "the first 'total' work to be shaped on, by, and through the medium of modern recording; the record is not a reproduction of anything at all but is the work itself. Like a print or film, it has been created to be duplicated in multiple copies."

The entire liner notes explain this interesting recording in more detail and are included in the file.

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. The Nude Paper Sermon [part 1] {20:56}

Side Two

1. The Nude Paper Sermon [part 2] {22:39}

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