J-Walk - Posted - 01/28/2009:  09:11:27

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You might be familiar with the Henry Reed Collection at the Library of Congress:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/reed/

Lots of interesting material, but each file must be downloaded separately. Yesterday I came up with a method to download them all automatically. After I got them, I renamed the files with the tune title. For example, 13037a14.mp3 is now named 'sweet sunny south.mp3'. I also tidied up the MP3 tags.

All in all, 185 tracks of historical fiddle goodness -- but quite a few of the tunes are duplicated. The quality isn't great, but the collection is good for reference.

If anybody wants 'em, you can download them all in a 40Mb zip file:

http://j-walk.com/henryreed.zip

bj - Posted - 01/28/2009:  09:23:22

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I often start with a Henry Reed version when I'm learning a new tune. The stuff in this collection is great, if you can hear past the noise and the fact that Henry was definitely way up in years when these were recorded, and had his good days and not so good days when he was playing these tunes.

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raster1 - Posted - 01/28/2009:  09:56:36

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Thanks, this is yet another goldmine and your efforts at downloading and titling are much appreciated.

BTW, how on earth did you automate the download process? I've tried various ways to do a similar extract of the TIF transcription files and can do but one at a time.

Cheers,
Ralph




"Violins don''t have beer stains, thought Albert, so it''s a fiddle."

SMDTMTL - Posted - 01/28/2009:  10:03:48

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Hey J-Walk... thanks very much for doing all that work and sharing.. Really great to be able to get it all at once... I've been there before and downloaded a few at a time. Listening to some of it right now. Great stuff!

thanks,
Steve

"Find a million dollars, pick it up
all day long you''ll have good luck." my nephew Chris

J-Walk - Posted - 01/28/2009:  12:28:06

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Ralph, I examined a few of the download URLs to see how they were formed. Then I copied the pages of tune title links to Excel, and created formulas to build the URLs. I pasted them to a Web page, opened it in Firefox, and used the 'Download them All' add-on to do the work. I also have an Excel workbook that I use to fix MP3 tags.

The entire job took less than 30 minutes. But I'm pretty good with Excel.

ironworker - Posted - 01/28/2009:  12:41:25

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j-walk-

hats off to you for saving the rest of us a bunch of time. 30 minutes is more time than i can usually devote to anything except eating and sleeping.

this is a collection all OT fiddlers need access to, and don't forget to thank Alan Jabbour ,each night before you conk out, for his work and effort over the years to get this music into the light of day.

michael ford

ChickenMan - Posted - 01/28/2009:  14:34:08

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Gee, and I spent the better part of an evening downloading and renaming. What I would like to compile is the info on each tune (cross references to other tunes and like tunes with different names etc.) but haven't figured out an efficient way to do so.

Personally, for field recordings, I feel the quality is not bad - better than any of the Ed Haley recordings that I have and Ed's were commercially released sounding the way they do. I like the various noise in the background of Henry's as it adds to the "you are there" feel of the recordings.
He did seem to have days where the playing was more focused and "better" than other days but even that is a nice honest picture of how we all have good days and bad when it comes to the fiddle.

The multiple recordings of the same tune are different versions and some more complete versions or (in the case of Money Musk) different parts ABCD etc.. that Henry remembered between recording sessions.
Be sure to read Alan's notes about Henry and the sessions as they are a nice glimpse of the man who made the music.

About Excel: I was taught if you have to click more than 3 times to do whatever it is you are using Excel for, there is a better way. J -Walk, I assume you know many of the better ways.

______________________________________
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BanjoBrad - Posted - 01/28/2009:  15:24:31

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"About Excel: I was taught if you have to click more than 3 times to do whatever it is you are using Excel for, there is a better way. J -Walk, I assume you know many of the better ways."

Pick up any of the Excel Bibles and check the author, ChickenMan.

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Edited by - BanjoBrad on 01/28/2009 15:25:07

J-Walk - Posted - 01/28/2009:  15:57:47

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Alan Jabbour recorded a bunch of Henry Reed tunes with the Hollow Rock Stringband. I just realized that Hollow Rock=HR, and Henry Reed=HR. Coincidence? I think not.

carlb - Posted - 01/29/2009:  05:17:53

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quote:

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Originally posted by J-Walk

Alan Jabbour recorded a bunch of Henry Reed tunes with the Hollow Rock Stringband. I just realized that Hollow Rock=HR, and Henry Reed=HR. Coincidence? I think not.

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Here's what Alan says:

"Hi Carl,

It’s natural to imagine that the consonance of “Henry Reed” and “Hollow Rock” might have been intentional. But it wasn’t. Hollow Rock is a small rural community with a general store near New Hope Creek outside of Durham, North Carolina. Tommy and Bobby Thompson lived in that area, and they even occasionally played music in the Hollow Rock store before I came along in 1965 or so. Our band coalesced out of musical sessions at their house, as I shared tunes I had been learning and we began working out ensemble versions of them. The Thompson’s place became in a short time a general locale for musical gatherings playing oldtime music – in fact, you can call it the central locale of the Durham oldtime music scene in the 1960s. As our little band (with me on fiddle, Tommy on banjo, Bobbie on guitar, and Bertram Levy on mandolin) started attending oldtime fiddlers’ conventions in places like Hillsville, Galax, and other VA and NC towns, we realized we needed a name. Hollow Rock was where it was at, so we adopted that as our name.

Now Hollow Rock is being engulfed in the burgeoning suburbanization of the areas in proximity to Durham and Chapel Hill, and the old Hollow Rock Store was torn down a few years ago when they four-laned the highway and bridge over New Hope Creek. Someone actually intervened to save the store by moving it to their own property, and I am getting inquiries about whether the Hollow Rock Store might be pivotal in a future preservation effort in the area. It’s fun seeing preservationists puzzle over whether our role in the oldtime stringband revival makes the site “historically significant.” Of course it is very significant to a lot of us who cut our teeth on oldtime music there.

The letters “H. R.” in Henry Reed’s name really were a coincidence, not a planned consonance. But I’m reminded of our renaming the old Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress the Archive of Folk Culture, after it was moved from the Music Division to the new American Folklife Center. AFC.

Feel free to share if it seems useful.

Best,

Alan"

Carl

"Just around the corner is someone who plays better than you....." "There will always be someone who likes your music and someone who dislikes your music. Get over it......." [Dan Haerle, former music prof at University of North Texas]