Don Borchelt - Posted - 12/26/2009:  09:56:10

Tamarack wrote in the Tune of the Week thread: "The person who posted Turkey in the Straw, who goes by "madocseren" has posted lots of old footage from the 1920s and 1930s, including "Bun Wright's Fiddle Band" playing Soldier's Joy for Franklin D. Roosevelt."

Here is the Bun Wright YouTube URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2zJU-d5Seg

I have always found this clip extremely fascinating. It appears to have been taken from a Yazoo DVD entitled "Times Ain't Like They used to Be-Early Rural and Popular Music from Rare Original Film Masters." (http://www.yazoorecords.com/512.htm) You'll notice that when to film begins, the banjo player to the right of FDR asks "Governor, is there a special piece you want us to play?" He doesn't call him "Mr. President." That's because the film was made on January 26, 1933. Roosevelt had already been elected to his first term in November, but it would be five more weeks before his inauguration in early March, when he would deliver his famous line, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." At this time, however, he was still the Governor of New York state, probably taking a much needed break after a very hard fought presidential election. Herbert Hoover was still officially in the White House, though yesterday's news. This would be the last time a president would be inaugurated in March. The Twentieth Amendment was to be ratified later in 1933, which moved up the date to January 20th.

The film was made at the Roosevelt's retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia, near Pine Mountain, just south of Atlanta. While he had been coming to Warm Springs since 1924, where the naturally warm spring waters gave him some improvement for his polio, the building which came to be known as the "Little White House" had just been constructed the previous year, during the election campaign. It looks like they set up two cameras for the Soldier's Joy shoot, and you can see the house portico, and the second camera, very clearly in the long shot:


Bun Wright's Fiddle Band playing Soldiers Joy


The Little White House, at Warm Springs

The character to the left of Roosevelt is playing on a Gibson harp guitar. In the limited close up shots which include this musician, you never see him tickle the extra strings. I wonder if they were just supposed to ring in sympathy, or if there was an established technique for incorporating them into a piece.



The film's editor took some liberties when putting the piece together. At .20, the woman in the striped shirt and cap standing behind FDR is not yet in the picture.



One second later, she shows up. The image from .25 shows her looking directly at the camera.



The young woman is Anna Roosevelt, FDR's only daughter, then 26. Twelve years later, when her husband was away at war, she moved into the White House to take over her mother's roll as hostess, due to Eleanor's frequent travels. Alarmed about both the severe emotional and physical toll which his presidential responsibilities were taking on her father, the devoted Anna was to help arrange a number of clandestine reunions between FDR and an old mistress, Lucy Mercer Rutherford, in order to bring him comfort. Rutherford was with the President at the Little White House when he died in April, 1945, but was spirited away before the press arrived, to avoid scandal. Eleanor immediately learned of Rutherford's reemergence in her husband's life, and her daughter's role as enabler, which led to an estrangement between the two that continued for many years. Anna died in 1975, at the age of 69.

The day before he died, FDR spoke to his daughter by telephone. Some local friends, he told her, including the Mayor of Warm Springs, Frank Allcorn, had planned a barbeque for him the next day. They were going to cook him up some Brunswick Stew. There was going to be some music, he said, by his favorite fiddler, Bun Wright.

- Don Borchelt

Check out my webpage.

Edited by - Don Borchelt on 12/28/2009 04:25:13

steve davis - Posted - 12/26/2009:  10:06:58

Resonator 5 string on the far right...Gibson?

Don Borchelt - Posted - 12/26/2009:  10:19:53

Steve, starting at .33 or so, the camera pans across the line of musicians, ending just at it gets to the last picker, the one with the resonator banjo. It sure looks like a Gibson to me, but the frame below is the very last one in the sweep, and it stops before you see the peghead. One interesting thing, all three banjo pickers appear to me to be playing in an up-picking two finger style, not a clawhammer adherent among them. The first might be playing clawhammer style with a middle finger lead, but it looks to me more like he is picking lead with his index finger, then brushing with his middle, or maybe middle and ring. The other two have their right hands anchored, and are picking up with the index. More proof that it is a myth that clawhammer style was the predominant old time banjo picking style.

Edited by - Don Borchelt on 12/26/2009 10:27:10

steve davis - Posted - 12/26/2009:  10:23:24

Looks like possibly a tube and plate flange.

pearcemusic - Posted - 12/26/2009:  10:34:28

that is so cool, Don ... thanks for sharing

ramjo - Posted - 12/26/2009:  10:46:57

Don, your narration here is invaluable. Thanks!
My guess about the harp guitar--the bass strings probably do vibrate in sympathy, but they're pretty thick, so probably not audibly. They're referred to a "sub-bass" strings, and are definitely to be plucked. Probably the player in the film used this guitar in other ensembles where the music had more space for low-low notes than in the string band in the video.

Here's a new-agey sample from a Canadian harp-guitarist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1RXgN-2b-c

Edited by - ramjo on 12/26/2009 10:57:27

salvatone - Posted - 12/26/2009:  11:20:54

Pretty nice piece of history. Thanks Don.

joemac - Posted - 12/26/2009:  11:58:25

Brilliant Don, thanks

mike gregory - Posted - 12/26/2009:  12:49:09

quote:

---

Originally posted by steve davis

Resonator 5 string on the far right...Gibson?

---

Don Borchelt - Posted - 12/26/2009:  15:33:59

Okay, now I am going to really go out on a limb. I wonder if the Mastertone picker might be Fate Norris, the banjo picker who played with Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. Norris lived in Resaca, Georgia, about 120 miles north of Warm Springs. He left the Skillet Lickers sometime in 1931, and lived close enough to Warm Springs to make the trip for such a weighty command performance. I've put the image above next to the famous, but fuzzy image of the Skillet Lickers. If I'm right, we may know a little bit more about how he picked, since he is generally inaudible on the Skillet Licker recordings. I don't know, looks like the same guy to me...

Edited by - Don Borchelt on 12/26/2009 15:39:37

steve davis - Posted - 12/26/2009:  16:07:47

You're some kind of detective,Don.
Looks like the same features to me,too.

tomberghan - Posted - 12/26/2009:  16:48:52

He looks like the same guy to me too Don!

Now . . . A short diversion from the main topic of this thread:

>>>The character to the left of Roosevelt is playing on a Gibson harp guitar. In the limited close up shots which include this musician, you never see him tickle the extra strings. I wonder if they were just supposed to ring in sympathy, or if there was an established technique for incorporating them into a piece.<<<

The instrument we call “Harp Guitar” had essentially been around centuries before Gibson (and others) came out with their wonderful American interpretation.

It is fundamentally no different, except in shape, from an Italian “Tiorba” . . . known in France as the “Theorbe,” and in Germany and the British Isles as the “Theorbo.”

There are literally thousands of pieces written for the theorbo and it was the instrument of choice to accompany singers in the opera and also to provide the continuo in ensembles throughout the late renaissance and baroque periods. But by the time people were moving to the “New World” the theorbo had pretty much died out, so extremely few of them made it to America and were virtually unknown in North America until the 1960s (although Suzanne Bloch had been playing one since WWII).

This is a recording that demonstrates what these types of instruments are capable of doing:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/to...zenay_Ms.mp3 br /

I am the musician playing in this recording. I mention this only to let the readers know that I understand exactly how it all works and thought you might find it mildly interesting. The instrument I am playing has 14 single-strings. Basically set up just like a harp guitar. Many harp guitars had 16 . . . but it all works the same regardless. I am “fretting” on the first six exactly as one would play a guitar, and the tuning of these six strings is similar to a guitar, but not quite the same, but close enough.

As for the bass strings (7th to 14th), they are simply tuned diatonically (in a descending scale). When you hear me play a bass string I simply reach down with the thumb of my right hand (the picking hand) and pluck the pitch I need. When the musician needs to play in a different key, the bass strings must be retuned, sharp or flat, as the mode requires.

It is all in the right hand. And as amazing as it may seem to pickers who have never played so many strings . . . don’t be too impressed, because you get used to it fairly quickly and your hand learns where the strings are.

These types of instruments are a lot of fun and very beautiful.

Now, as for the fellow in the video, he is simply playing it as he would a normal guitar. He is just simply strumming along “bump-a-ditty” style. In this situation, the harp guitar is just for show.

The harp guitar is not really designed for an ensemble such as this one, but rather for solo-play, or intimate accompaniment (accompanying a singer or melodic instrument such as violin).

Sadly Harp Guitars quickly fell into obscurity. It didn’t really fit into the traditional American music genre and it unfortunately was not accepted into the “art music” scenes (i.e. classical music).

Today, it seems only seemingly eccentric musicians play theorbos and harp guitars . . . and . . . you know . . . clawhammer banjo . . . stuff like that!
Woo boy . . . what a bunch a bunch of odd ducks.

CurtissWhite - Posted - 12/26/2009:  18:35:07

The person in the striped shirt is "Waldo".

Don Borchelt - Posted - 12/26/2009:  18:46:15

Tom, that was extremely beautiful. I don't know, I'll bet you could play some great Appalachian modal tunes on that, and get a great sound. Here's what one looks like, for anyone interested.

Edited by - Don Borchelt on 12/26/2009 18:52:55

steve davis - Posted - 12/26/2009:  19:44:10

Very fine playing,Tom...sublime.

pearcemusic - Posted - 12/26/2009:  20:00:49

quote:

---

Originally posted by tomberghan


The harp guitar is not really designed for an ensemble such as this one, but rather for solo-play, or intimate accompaniment (accompanying a singer or melodic instrument such as violin).

Sadly Harp Guitars quickly fell into obscurity. It didn’t really fit into the traditional American music genre and it unfortunately was not accepted into the “art music” scenes (i.e. classical music).

---

Tamarack - Posted - 12/26/2009:  21:26:22

A fascinating story -- the Warm Springs connection explains why a moneyed New Yorker like FDR would be inclined toward old-time fiddle tunes. I noticed something odd about the woman in the striped top -- the film editor would have had a blast in the age of PhotoShop!

Tom -- your playing on the theorbo is wonderful! One of the many reasons BHO is a fun place to be is the variety of music that pops up. Within the past 24 hours we have had the usual intense discussions of banjos and banjo music, and also a discussion of jazz guitarists. Tonight I learned about and heard some wonderful renaissance/baroque music.

tomberghan - Posted - 12/26/2009:  22:00:15

Thank you all very much. I did not intend to divert the conversation away from the FDR film . . . just to give you some information about fretted string instruments with diapasons (extra bass strings), such as the harp guitar.

The photos Don posted above are of theorbos for playing continuo in ensembles. But the solo theorbe (sola tiorba) is smaller and higher pitched. The reason for the great size (long string length) of the theorbo-for-continuo is the low pitch.

I mainly play the solo repertoire. Here is my solo theorbe next to one of banjos so that you can see their relationship in size. And you can see the similarity in the setup of the theorbe to that of the harp guitar. The Gibson Harp Guitar just has a kind of cello body is all. But they are very similar in concept. OK, sorry, back to the FDR film!

Forrest - Posted - 12/26/2009:  22:52:58

Tom,

Thanks for sharing the clip of you playing the theorbo. I think Steve said it all when he called your playing sublime.

aroblin - Posted - 12/27/2009:  03:54:22

Don--

I can't thank you enough for bringing the FDR/Soldier's Joy film to my attention.

Tom--

Thank you for your wonderful playing and expertise on harp guitar.

BHO rules!

The Old Timer - Posted - 12/27/2009:  08:02:59

Anna appears in some footage in the middle, but not the beginning or end. I think the song was shot twice, and edited together for close-ups. No one was in charge of continuity apparently.

Or maybe she was just off on the side flat-footin'...

Edited by - The Old Timer on 12/27/2009 08:04:54

Chesapeake - Posted - 12/27/2009:  08:09:26

Don - Thanks for clearing up the mystery of what that guy sitting next to FDR is playing. It looks like a bazooka with tuning pegs.

tomberghan - Posted - 12/27/2009:  09:18:21

>>>Anna appears in some footage in the middle, but not the beginning or end. <<<

You're right! How odd. At 22 seconds Anna mystically appears and then disappears later at 43 seconds. She must have learned astral travelling at summer camp I guess. The splice was well done too. The musicians are still strumming and bowing in time . . . but then in the last splice (after 43 seconds) I don’t think they are moving in time any longer . . . close but not quite. It is funny how if you look at something long enough all sorts of little odd things start to show themselves.

>>> It looks like a bazooka with tuning pegs<<<
It kind of does actually! When asked “What is the difference between a regular lute and theorbo-lute?” lute players are often heard to reply that the theorbo burns longer. I suppose the same holds true for the harp-guitar!

Klondike Waldo - Posted - 12/27/2009:  13:40:45

I would guess that the theorbo did not transition well into the modern string orchestra because though well suited to playing with other lutes, viols and recorders, it did not have enough "oomph" to cut it with modern woodwinds , brass and the violin family which make up the modern orchestra and which are capable of a much broader dynamic range.

GerryH - Posted - 12/27/2009:  18:40:51

Fascinating clip and subsequent discussion. Loved the music of the theorbo, Tom,
GerryH

tomberghan - Posted - 12/27/2009:  22:41:51

>>>I would guess that the theorbo did not transition well into the modern string orchestra . . . it did not have enough "oomph" to cut it with . . . the modern orchestra . . . capable of a much broader dynamic range.<<<

Nah . . . that wasn't it. Theorbos hold their own pretty well in a orchestra such as appropriate for Handel's Messiah . . . I mean it isn't gonna work with Wagner, but, you know . . . that's cool.

Now the real deal is that is just got too many darned strings and all the theorbo players switched to banjo. It’s true! But the snobs in Boston and New York would not accept them because “The banjo is not from the continent!” they said. So, they made them put burnt cork on their faces and play at the theaters around the block. And, the rest is history. I know this to be true because I saw it on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show with Sherman & Mr. Peabody.

Don Borchelt - Posted - 12/28/2009:  04:31:37

tomberghan wrote: " I know this to be true because I saw it on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show with Sherman & Mr. Peabody."

A Way-Back Machine visit to Joel Walker Sweeney would have made a good episode. "But Mr. Peabody, his four string banjo already has a little drone string." "Yes, Sherman, I'm afraid you're right. It seems our Mr. Sweeney did not invent the banjo after all." "But Mr. Peabody, why do people say that he did?" "Because, Sherman, white folks lie like a cheap rug."



Check out my webpage.

Edited by - Don Borchelt on 12/28/2009 04:49:40

MrNatch3L - Posted - 12/28/2009:  05:12:07

I don't want to hijack this extremely interesting thread- I hope just a little deviation will be OK. I just wanted to say I was immediately struck by the overal design similarity of the FDR Little White house...



...to the family home of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin:

wrangler - Posted - 12/28/2009:  06:24:41

Don,
You have done again. A banjo playing detective is just what I suspected. By the way, how do I run for president of the Don Borchelt Fan Club?

Don Borchelt - Posted - 12/28/2009:  15:18:13

wrangler wrote: "...how do I run for president of the Don Borchelt Fan Club?"

I don't think there will be a primary fight. Heck, I'd be shocked if you had an opponent in the final. But I appreciate the compliment, just the same.

oldwoodchuckb - Posted - 12/28/2009:  17:16:31

I'm coming in on this rather late but I actually met a man who played harp guitar, although he would have been a child when the movie was shot. I was only about 20 when I met him. We repaired one of his guitars and got a five minute demo when the job was done. He used the extra strings for basses - letting them ring out under the tunes he played. At least in the shop he never did any runs on them.

As to myth of preponderence of clawhammer - I don't recall any such myth. THe last time down stroke was in any preponderence was probably round and about the Civil War - if then!

I've hunted out every known re-issue of old recordings over the last 40 years (even the re-issues were usually hard to find) and clawhammer (frailing - framming, whatever) was very thin on the ground when it came to recording. I do know that what I would call modern clawhammer/fiddle duets were being done in the region where NC, VA,KY, and Tenn, (is that TN?) come together because there my first album of re-issues (Folkways Anthology) had "Black Eyed Susie" and "Train On The Island" by J.P. Nestor and a fiddler who's name I never can recall even though he is the better known of the duo. They were from the Galax area and the recording were done in Bristol, Tenn. Part of the same session that produced Jimmie Rogers and The Carter Family.

oldwoodchuckb - Posted - 12/28/2009:  17:59:29

Tomberghan
I just got to your first post on the subject - That was beautifully played. I assume the composes is our old friend Anon since the indication is that the name was that of a collection. I love early music - most of the stuff I actually played on guitar was pre-baroque.... or 20th century Never liked the 19th century guitar repertoire and couldn't handle most Bach.

When you say your in a tuning similar to guitar, do you mean the one where the Guitar G would be tuned down to F#? That is if you didn't pay too much attention to actual pitch - and I didn't. That was a pretty common tuning for Neo-lutes (6 string lutes of the 19th and 20th centuries).

My thoughts on the fading of the lute family are all based upon my own inability to ever get a working grip on the instruments. If I couldn't do it with a 6 string neo-lute (with a bust of Mozart on the peghead) How could anyone be expected to deal with those loooong beasties. In fact, until they began appearing again, I thought the old woodcuts were more fanciful than factual.

Is there actually a secret to holding a bowl back instrument? I know I would be afraid to even try playing one of those 5 foot jobbies considering the hand work that goes into each.

I've often wondered about the relationship between Gibson, and actual theorbos since the Gibson Harp Guitars seem to have more in common with the parlour harps that had a brief popularity somewhere around the same time (same to me since I wasn't actually there). I don't know if the Oskar Schmidt company ever made any actual harps but all their instrument (including the autoharp) are based on the various zither family instruments of the era.
They all rely on piano style strings. Thick steel wire with immense bronze windings to get the lowest tones, and since they are never divided (ie fretted) they will intonate true - or true-er than a heavy fretted string

Edited by - oldwoodchuckb on 12/28/2009 18:02:09

Don Borchelt - Posted - 12/28/2009:  18:08:50

I wrote: "One interesting thing, all three banjo pickers appear to me to be playing in an up-picking two finger style, not a clawhammer adherent among them... More proof that it is a myth that clawhammer style was the predominant old time banjo picking style."

Woodchuck wrote: "As to myth of preponderence of clawhammer - I don't recall any such myth. THe last time down stroke was in any preponderence was probably round and about the Civil War - if then!"

Perhaps I have set up a straw man with my comment, but I have often got the impression from clawhammer pickers that they believe their style to be the most authentic form of old time banjo. I'm trying to be delicate here.

Edited by - Don Borchelt on 12/29/2009 05:25:37

oldwoodchuckb - Posted - 12/28/2009:  18:09:41

The original "Bazooka" was actually a stringed instrument played by a vaudevillian who made it into the early television era, when people like Ed Sullivan would explain to the audience that the weapon wasa named for the instrument and not the other way around - just as the Jeep originated in Popeye cartoons as a character named Jeep-jeep.

stanger - Posted - 12/29/2009:  14:31:25

I have the Yazoo tape. On the box notes, it says that the musical and dancing shorts were taken by cinema news crews as filler and human interest stories, to fill up extra time.
I remember the news shorts quite well. Back when I was a kid, there was always a news short, a cartoon and previews before the main feature came on.

Some of the studios- Universal, especially, had their own news division. Others used film companies like Pathé, who produced news films for world-wide distribution. I remember not all the news seen was light and fluffy- I recall seeing the first hydrogen bomb blast in the theater, waiting for Dumbo to come on, and it was real scary to a little kid! If the news of the week was dramatic or disturbing, the short would be lightened up with a piece like this one at the end. Sports was always covered late, too, for the same reason.

The Yazoo tape has a ton of good stuff on it, and a lot of banjo playing. There is a great segment on Uncle John Scruggs, a black sharecropper who frails his banjo and sings out in front of his shack, and at the end, all his grandkids are dancing in a circle around him. Another one shows a white frailer playing in front of his house on what must have been a blazing cold day- he, and his wife and daughter, are all wearing heavy coats and still look like they're all freezing. (the film crew probably didn't have floodlights with them to shoot indoors.)
regards,
stanger