Ascolta anche: Beans, Bacon & Gravy, "My Own House"document available in:English Español Italiano 
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In Lugano, Switzerland, just before our presentation of Manituana at Il Molino occupied social center, we met Angelo Nuzzo, who's been playing mandolin, dulcimer and autoharp for almost 30 years in the band Beans, Bacon & Gravy. BB&G are veteran interpreters and aficionados of North American old time music. They play the tunes that immigrants from England, Scotland, Ireland, France and other parts of Europe took with them to the colonies during the 18th and 19th centuries, laying the foundations of a music we usually regard as quintessentially American, although part of it is rooted in European soil. Those ballads, jigs, and fiddle songs are the ones the white settlers used to play and dance to during the period we chose to depict in Manituana and in the next books of the Atlantic Tryptich. Appalachia is the foremost region where this tradition is still a living one. Angelo picked two songs from the BB&G repertoire, ”The Coo Coo Bird” and ”My Own House,” as contributions to Manituana's communitarian soundtrack. “The Coo Coo Bird” (top right click, streaming audio) is a typical example of a Frankenstein song,” as critic Andrew Hultkrans once put it. Its surrealistic lyrics—for which dozens of alternate versions exist—is a collage of lines of obscure origins, fragments of old nonsense rhymes, etc. The song was made famous by banjoist Clarence Ashley (1895-1967), who recorded it for the first time in 1928. In 1953 Harry Smith included it in his seminal Anthology Of American Folk Music. Listening to those discs changed the life of Bob Dylan and heavily influenced the late 1950s–early 1960s folk revival in the U.S. Here's one of the existing versions of the song:
”My Own House” (top left click) is a Scottish waltz, also known as ”Me Ain Hoose” or, in Gaelic, ”Mo Dhachaidh.” Beans, Bacon & Gravy line-up: Angelo Nuzzo (Angelo) - autoharp, dulcimer, mandolin, triangle, vocals Celso Costantini (Celo) - banjo, double bass, ukulele, vocals Mauro Rogora (the Chief) - glass harmonica, banjo, guitar, violin, vocals Paolo Rusconi (Paolino) - guitar, dulcimer, vocals Sergio Tosi (Scanna) - lead vocals, spoons, hurdy-gurdy, washboard
24 June 2007 |
Audio:
Download:› Scarica l'mp3 di The Coo Coo Bird› Scarica l'mp3 di My Own House ) Beans, Bacon & Gravy in a late 1970's picture Links: |
