7/25/2023 0 Comments Soundbyte buttonAnd I think part of my love affair with this music has been my love affair with meeting these other cultures. All of that, you know, it was just - the radio was my ear to the world, so to speak. Paul Baptist Church Choir over a station out of Los Angeles. Texas Tyler, the Maddox Brothers and Rose. I'll never forget that first record by Lightnin' Hopkins I heard. And somehow the blues that I heard, I think, spoke to me the strongest. I guess I had a lot of insecure feelings. He told Terry he first heard the music of the American South on the radio.ĬHRIS STRACHWITZ: I think that was my first exposure to all of it, and I was absolutely wiped out by it. Though he devoted his life to recording the Indigenous music of the U.S., Strachwitz was born in Germany and came to California as a teenager in 1947. We're going to listen to Terry's 1990 interview with Chris Strachwitz. But Strachwitz continued his nonprofit Arhoolie Foundation, which promotes and preserves American roots music. In 2016, Smithsonian Folkways acquired Arhoolie Records. Strachwitz also recorded Flaco Jimenez, Big Mama Thornton, Clifton Chenier, Mance Lipscomb and many more. Guitarist Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones heard it, and later, the Stones covered the tune. He recorded "You Got To Move" by the then-undiscovered bluesman Fred McDowell. I can't even imagine what it would be like to not have heard those recordings.Ĭhris Strachwitz traveled the country looking for little-known performers, recording them in their homes, front porches, beer joints and churches. Bonnie Raitt said of him, the ripple effect of Chris Strachwitz in the world is immeasurable in preserving this music. In 1960, he founded the Arhoolie record label. As a teenager, Chris Strachwitz heard a recording of Lightnin' Hopkins and fell in love with the blues, leading him to a lifelong devotion to regional American music - blues, Cajun, hillbilly, zydeco, Tex-Mex and gospel.
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