#KeeperoftheDay: The Los Angeles Archivists Collective, bringing “the Los Angeles-area archives community together to discuss, collaborate, connect, and support each other.”
Issue 10 of their publication Acid Free Magazine was just released. Check it out!
The mission of the Rocky Mountain Land Library is to help connect people to nature and the land.
“The need for places of quiet thought, creative pursuits, and active community involvement will only grow as our population increases. The residential library we will establish will give everyone access not only to the books, but also to the surrounding lands — a learning landscape for generations to come.”
The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP by its Spanish acronym) revealed that it successfully digitalized a series of musical recordings made in the early 20th century.
A joint effort between the Musical Archive of the Puerto Rico General Archive (AGPR), the Music Unit of the ICP Musical Performing Arts Program and Ramón Vázquez Lamboy, a musician and researcher, led to the digitalization of more than 50 celluloid cylinders that contain music recorded between 1909 and 1913.
Read more at The Weekly Journal.
Today is National Voter Registration Day. Find out how and where to register to vote here.
Photo from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law NAACP of Baltimore Voting Rights Campaigns collection.
It’s Banned Books Week! Here are some ways you can celebrate. And here’s a reading list from PEN America.
#KeeperoftheDay – John Cohen, 1932-2019. Folk musician, photographer, filmmaker, field recordist, musicologist, seeker, keeper…
Listen to our podcast collaboration with the Goethe Institut’s Big Pond series, The Passion of Chris Strachwitz, about the founder of Arhoolie Records and Keeper extraordinaire, Chris Strachwitz (“El Fanatico” Ry Cooder calls him). Featuring Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt and many more.
#KeeperoftheDay – StoryCenter
“We create spaces for transforming lives and communities, through the acts of listening to and sharing stories. Our public program enables people to register individually for storytelling workshops. Our custom program collaborates with organizations around the world, on workshops in story facilitation, digital storytelling, and other forms of participatory media production.”
Chris Strachwitz is a man possessed. “El Fanatico,” Ry Cooder calls him. A song catcher, dedicated to recording the traditional, regional, down home music of America, his adopted home after his family left Germany at the close of WWII. Mance Lipscomb, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Big Mama Thornton, Clifton Chenier, Rose Maddox, Flaco Jimenez… the list is long and mighty.
Chris Strachwitz is a keeper. His vault is jam-packed with 78s, 33s, 45s, reel-to-reels, cassettes, videos, photographs — an archive of all manner of recordings. And an avalanche of lifetime achievement awards — from the Grammy’s, The Blues Hall of Fame, The National Endowment for the Arts – for some 60 years of recording and preserving the musical cultural heritage of this nation through his label, Arhoolie Records.
For The Big Pond, The Kitchen Sisters Present… the never-ending Passion of Chris Strachwitz.
Featuring interviews with Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt.
Most of the music in this podcast is from the Arhoolie Records catalog now housed at The Smithsonian Institution and available from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and at record stores (including Down Home Music) and all online platforms.
Special thanks: Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Adam Machado & The Arhoolie Foundation, Arhoolie Records, Maureen Gosling & Chris Simon, Janet Stark, John Boylan, Annie Heller-Gutwillig, Brooke Wentz & Sharath Jana, KPFA-FM At Smithsonian Folkways: Huib Schippers, William Griffin & Jonathan Wiliger. At The Big Pond / Goethe Institut: Verena Hutter, Savanah Beck, Dario Radisic & William Gilcher And to Chris Strachwitz, who lights the path.
The Passion of Chris Strachwitz was produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) with Nathan Dalton & Brandi Howell and mixed by Jim McKee for The Big Pond and The Kitchen Sisters Present…
Photo of Linda Ronstadt, circa 1970, by Henry Diltz
Photo of Bonnie Raitt and Mississippi Fred McDowell, 1970, Courtesy of Estate of David Gahr
Photo of Chris Strachwitz & the Treme Brass Band, 2011 by Mike Melnyk, courtesy The Arhoolie Foundation
