Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Harry Smith - One Kind Favor Tribute Concert May 18th



All please sound!


  A concert to serve the greater good of sound!



 Held in conjunction with the the Harry Smith PDX 

at the Hollywood Theatre on May 16 2013 

Starring:
M.C: Miz Kitty

Ural Thomas
Richard Cranium & the Phoreheads
Joe McMurrian & Woodbrain
James Low
MidLo
Mark Lemhouse
Anne Weiss
Whiskey Puppy
Lauren Sheehan
W.C Beck & PDX Underground
Darka Dusty
Thad Beckman
Tevis Hodge Jr.
Kenzel & Hyde
Otis Heat
Tin Pan Alley cats
Jacob Miller
Portland Shape Note Singers
The Locust Ridge Saints Whirligig Orchestra

3 White Horses in a Line

and a box of surprises!




A multi-act show featuring original interpretations of material from Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. This concert will be held in Harry’s place of birth, Portland Oregon and will serve as a proper tribute to one of the most important creative minds in history.


Produced by Joe McMurrian and One Kind Favor Productions






The "Anthology of American Folk Music" was put together by Harry Smith for Folkways music was originally issued in 1952 in three volumes of 2 LPs each, with a total of 84 tracks collected from old records. It is said that this collection played a seminal role in the folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, influencing and inspiring the generation of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Smith stated that he wanted to create a cultural change with music, and he did. His vision represented not a limited traditionalist point of view based on maintaining the status quo and retaining songs the way they were then. Smith believed in the eternal progression and morphing of the songs them selves. The songs were archetype forms to build upon, not hold up behind bars in a museum. 

It is like looking back in time, sort of like the Hubble telescope, only we are looking at images from our own human heritage, and perhaps ourselves.

a "genetic code" for modern music

Harry Everett Smith was born in Portland, Oregon on May 29, 1923.
Harry Smith was also a self taught experimental filmmaker. He grew up in Washington State, in Anacortes and Bellingham. His father worked in canneries and his mother taught on the Lummi Reservation.

Harry Smith received the Chairman’s Merit Award at the 1991 Grammy Awards ceremony in recognition of his impact on American culture.  His thank you speech was simple. He said, “I’m glad to say my dreams came true. I saw America changed by music.”
He died later that year, at the Chelsea Hotel, NYC, on November 27, 1991.




Links:

Harry Smith PDX at the Hollywood Theatre on May 16 2013 in conjunction with the Portland Animation Festival


Harry Smith Archives:


Song clips and downloadable liner notes:


Some Crazy Magic: Meeting Harry Smith


Lifetime achievement award soon before his death


Info on Smith’s NW time:






Harry recording NW indians while only a teenager. 
This recording machine has been refurbished and will be on view at the show! and recording!






































SONG LIST FOR THE EVENING:

Henry Lee  - WC Beck and PCU
Fatal flower garden 
The house carpenter - Darka Dusty
Drunkard's special
Old lady and the devil  - James Low
The butcher's boy - Darka Dusty
The wagoner's lad  -Lauren Sheehan 
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o 
Old shoes and leggins
Willie Moore
A lazy farmer boy
Peg and awl   -Whiskey Puppy
Ommie Wise     - lewi Longmire
My name is John Johanna
Bandit Cole Younger
Charles Giteau
John Hardy was a desperate little man - Whiskey Puppy
Gonna die with my hammer in my hand (John Henry) - Tony Furtado
Stackalee (Stagger Lee)   -     Richard Cranium& the Phoreheads
White House blues
Frankie - Jacob Miller
When that great ship went down (The Titanic)    - Midlo
Engine 143
Kassie Jones, Parts 1 and 2 - Tevis Hodge
Down on Penny's Farm     - James Low
Mississippi Boweavil (Boll Weevil) Blues
Got the farm land blues  
Sail away lady
The wild wagoner
Wake up Jacob
La danseuse
Georgia stomp
Brilliancy medley
Indian war whoop   - David Lipkind, Joe McMurrian & the Locust Ridge Saints all star band 
Old country stomp      
Old dog blue           -  Joe McMurrian
Saut Crapaud
Acadian One-Step - Kenzel and Hyde
Home Sweet Home
The Newport Blues 
Moonshiner's Dance Part One
Must Be Born Again
Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting
Rocky Road - Portland Shape Note Singers
Present Joys -Portland Shape Note Singers
This Song of Love
Judgement - Darka Dusty
He Got Better Things For You
Since I Laid My Burden Down - Kenzel & Hyde w/ Joe McMurrian & Ural Thomas
John the Baptist - Ural Thomas
Dry Bones - Whiskey Puppy
John the Revelator   - Ural Thomas
Little Moses
Shine on Me     - Ural Thomas
Fifty Miles of Elbow Room    - Ural Thomas
I'm In the Battlefield for My Lord
The Coo Coo Bird   - Joe McMurrian
East Virginia     -Joe McMurrian
Minglewood Blues   - Joe McMurrian
I Woke Up One Morning In May
James Alley Blues - Thad Beckman    
Sugar BabyLauren Sheehan
I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground   - Mark lemhouse
The Mountaineer's Courtship - Midlo
The Spanish Merchant's Daughter (No, Sir No)
Bob Lee Junior Blues
Single Girl, Married Girl - Whiskey Puppy
Le Vieux Soulard et Sa Femme (The Drunkard and His Wife)(bon viuex mari)
Rabbit Foot Blues
Expressman Blues
Poor Boy Blues  - Anne weiss
Feather Bed - Tin Pan Alley Cats
Country Blues 
99 Year Blues- Richard Cranium & the Phoreheads
Prison Cell Blues
See That My Grave Is Kept Clean   - Joe McMurrian
C'est Si Triste Sans Lui
Way Down the Old Plank Road  -Mark Lemhouse
Buddy Won't You Roll Down the Line  - Whiskey Puppy
Spike Driver Blues  - Thad Beckman
K.C. Moan      -Tin Pan Alley cats
Train on the Island  
The Lone Star Trail   -WC Beck/PCU
Fishing Blues -  Tevis Hodge

Song clips and downloadable liner notes:










Other Smith events this week!

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May 16th :

Harry Smith In The Pacific Northwest @ Hollywood Theatre
Thurs, May 16, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Free



On May 16,  2013,  Oregon Cartoon Institute presents the first ever Harry Smith Seance,  in partnership with Northwest Animation Festival and Hollywood Theatre.
Rani Singh, the director of the Harry Smith Archives at the Getty Institute will introduce films by Harry Smith, projected in 16mm.  Panel discussion after the films with Sheldon Renan, Darrin Daniel, and Rani Singh, followed by Q & A.





May 19th:


          Harry Smith Free For All @ The Cleaners, May 19, 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM

tumblr_lb7mvdG1XB1qz8kcuo1_500A series of short, accessible, interactive presentations about the life and work of  Oregon born genius Harry Everett Smith (1923 – 1991)
Free.
Hosted by Oregon Cartoon Institute’s artist in residence, Leo Daedalus, of The Late Now.
11:00 AM Kaveh Askari screens his new 7 minute experimental documentary about Harry Smith’s Bellingham years, and takes questions.
11:30 AM Doug Stewart demonstrates the recording technology Harry Smith used as a teenager when he recorded Lummi Indian rituals.
12:00 PM Recreation of selected String Figures from Harry Smith’s collection
12:30 PM Anne Richardson places Harry Smith within a timeline of Oregon film history
1:00 PM Joe McMurrian discusses Harry Smith’s curation of his 1952 Anthology Of American Folk Music
1:30 PM Demonstration of Harry Smith’s performance art approach to projection of his 16mm films: a talk by Dennis Nyback
2:00 PM Andrew Ritchey discusses sound as an element in avant garde film
2:30 PM Leo Daedalus of The Late Now takes on Harry Smith’s unpredictable relationship to the concept of “truth” .
3:00 The Harry Smith Paper Airplane Invitational, an Indoor Air Show in honor of Harry Smith’s world class paper airplane collection.
3:30 Sacred Harp Singers perform traditional shaped note singing, one of Harry Smith’s obsessions, and invite the audience to sing along




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PRESS RELEASE:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“HARRY SMITH’S ONE KIND FAVOR” –
A 90TH BIRTHDAY HOMETOWN TRIBUTE SHOW

Portland Celebrates Harry Smith With Two Nights of Film, Music, Dance, Curious Demonstrations and a Séance – May 16 & 18 - Hollywood Theatre & Mission Theater

Portland, OR – April 16, 2013 – Genius.  Eccentric.  Archivist.  Mystic.  Filmmaker.  And native Portlander.  Harry Everett Smith (1923 – 1991) is best known for inspiring a generation of musicians and changing the course of American music with his touchstone collection of classic blues and jazz records, “The Anthology of American Folk Music” (Folkways Records).  Released in 1952, the compilation of 82 songs originally recorded between 1927 and 1932 introduced performers like Mississippi John Hurt and Blind Lemon Jefferson to the exploding Greenwich Village folk scene (Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, etc.).  But “collector” was just one of the odd hats that Harry Smith wore.  He was also an experimental filmmaker, ethnomusicologist, anthropologist, painter and an occultist who claimed to have received shamanic initiation at an early age.  To commemorate his 90th birthday, Portlanders will have two quirky nights to explore them all.  

One kind favor I ask of you
That you see that my grave is kept clean
(Blind Lemon Jefferson)

The climactic event will be at the Mission Theater on May 18th (1624 NW Glisan St / 7pm / $20 adv / $25 door) with “One Kind Favor” - a huge gathering of over 20 Portland musicians who will perform their own versions of  songs from “The Anthology of American Folk Music”.  As a youth, Smith recorded many NW Native American singers, so the event will open with a rare demonstration of his original paper disc recording machine and an Indian dance troupe.



Blues musician and producer of “One Kind Favor”, Joe McMurrian, said, “The real power behind the Anthology was the way it drew our attention to those eight years [1927-1932] before there were any categories and labels to music.  Harry Smith taught Dylan and all those other guys who were so influenced by the Anthology that there had once been such wild and exotic music in America.  And then they went and made their own wild new music.”

Artists include: Ural Thomas / Richard Cranium & the Phoreheads / Alice Stuart / Joe McMurrian / James Low / Midlo / Mark Lemhouse / Anne Weiss / Whiskey Puppy / Lauren Sheehan / Tony Furtado / W.C. Beck & PCU / Darka Dusty / Rootjack / Otis Heat / Thad Beckman / Kenzel & Hyde / Michael Tevis Hodge Band / Tin Pan Alley Cats / Lewi Longmire / Steve Kerin / MC Miz Kitty

More info: http://deadpanfolk.blogspot.com/

Leading up to the concert, the Hollywood Theater (4122 NE Sandy Blvd) will host two events both on May 16.  At 3pm, a free event featuring lectures and panel discussions will explore Harry Smith’s Northwest roots and in particular his deep populism, DIY aesthetic, and permanent outsider status.  At 7pm ($10), in partnership with the Oregon Cartoon Institute, there will be viewings of some of Harry Smith’s animated films along with a presentation by Rani Singh, the director of the Harry Smith Archives at the Getty Institute, who was with Smith when he died at the Chelsea Hotel in NYC.  In a nod to Smith’s devotion to the occult, a séance will be held in the hopes of communicating with him somewhere beyond this mortal plane.  

More info: http://harrysmithpdx.wordpress.com/


 Press contact:
Contact:
Matt Kalinowski
Noctilucent Arts
(503) 333-2049 / noctilucent@q.com

or Joe McMurrian @ joemcmurrian@yahoo.com 


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