Jack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation Radio Folgen

on this archive episode, I speak with Jorge Arèvalo Mateus about the Association For Cultural Equity, The Folklorist convention and the work of ethnomusicologists and folklorists!  Jorge Arevalo Mateus, Ph.D. Executive Director The Association for Cultural Equity (ACE) was founded by Alan Lomax to explore and preserve the world's expressive traditions with humanistic commitment and scientific engagement. ACE was registered as a charitable organization in the State of New York in 1983, and is housed at New York City's Hunter College. http://www.culturalequity.org/

If you enjoyed and learned something from my recent article in Blues Festival Guide Magazine titled “Beyond The Green Book,” and Enjoyed the Robert Johnson Documentary on Netflix, then you’re in for a treat! Billy Jones Bluez, who I referenced in my article, in this rebroadcast of my WFDU Radio Program, gives his first hand account of blues people, traveling while black, his upbringing in a juke joint, the services his grandfather provided while running the bar, and his very own journey as a bluesman from Arkansas. He gives great detail of the boarding rooms his family rented out to Black folk, and the real focal point of any venue or bar. He also debunks the myth of Robert Johnson and many other stereotypes bluesman encounter. He also, in the middle of our conversation, pulls out his guitar and begins playing some real blues! With all of that, Billy shares the conditions of today’s blues scene, industry, political climate and how it’s different for black blues practitioners in comparison to white musicians who play the blues. We find that in today’s world, and music industry, there is still segregation.  Billy Jones Bluez This blues bandleader, who sings and plays guitar and calls his music "bluez," began releasing his own compact discs in 2001. When Billy Jones substituted a "z" for an "s," he was not trying to make the name of his beloved genre closer to the way a drunken bar patron might pronounce it at the end of the night. Rather, "bluez" is all about being independent from the big-time music business, a stance more often taken by indie rockers. While in reality even the biggest blues labels are nothing but small independents, these firms still represent too big a clique for Jones, who prefers issuing material on his own Cyborg-Blue imprint. Read More Remember to Subscribe, Rate, Share and become a supporting member!! WE ARE PUBLIC MEDIA!

The Banjo is a very popular instrument, and it's popularity is currently growing rapidly. However, there's a convoluted and misconstrued history of this instrument. On today's episode of Jack Dappa Blues Podcast, I speak with Tony Thomas,  African American Banjo Scholar, about the history, origins and commercial explosion of the Banjo. Along with Sule Greg Wilson and Cece Conway, Tony Thomas organized the 2005 Black Banjo Gathering that launched the contemporary Black Banjo revival.   In 2013, “Why African Americans Put the Banjo Down,” Thomas’s contribution to Duke University Press’s Hidden in the Mix: The African American Presence in Country Music became the first scholarly essay on the banjo by an African America to be published.  In 2018 his chapter, "Gus Cannon--'The Colored Champion Banjo Pugilist of the World' and the Big World of the Banjo," appeared in Banjo Roots and Branches, published by Duke University Press, the first scholarly anthology on the banjo.  Tony Thomas’s “The Banjo and African American Musical Culture", published online in 2014 by African American National Biography, a joint project of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and Oxford University Press. It follows Thomas’s earlier contributions to African American National Biography on African American fiddler Joe Thompson and on the legend of the 19th century banjo figure Picayune Butler.  Thomas was one of the advisors to the Marc Fields PBS Film Give Me the Banjo in which he appears. He was also an adviser to and appears in Jim Carrier’s film The Librarian and the Banjo. Tony Thomas has presented many times at the Banjo Collectors Gathering, the central banjo history event, and at banjo camps, and at other old-time music, folk, and blues events the United States and Europe.  He has also performed as a vocalist, banjoist, and guitarist as a solo artist for many years and with New York’s Ebony Hillbillies. Tony Thomas was born in New York City in 1947, lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree from Florida International University.   Here are links to his writing and presentations -  Why Black Banjo: The Black Banjo List Serve  Tony Thomas presentation to the Banjo Collectors Gathering 2015  US Slave: About the Banjo Remember to Like, subscribe, share and DONATE! FACEBOOK GROUP PAGE FACEBOOK LIKE PAGE JACK DAPPA BLUES HERITAGE PRESERVATION FOUNDATION PAGE BLACK SPIRITUALS, SLAVE SECULARS & FIELD HOLLERS PAGE