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AND ROLL...
Georgia folk music's patron saint:
ART ROSENBAUM
Painter, muialist, teacher, traditional musician and archivist
Art Rosenbaum is a local treasure.
It seems that no matter what region he's in, he can't help
but dig up that area’s musical gold. His early interest in banjo
music, thanks to the Pete Seeger records his family kept
around the house, led him to find
Kentucky five-string whiz Pete
Steele, who became a big influ
ence. Out of college, he recorded
many blues musicians in and
around his native Indianapolis,
Ind. The list includes Scrapper
Blackwell (famous in the thirties
for his duet recordings with pianist
Leroy Carr) and Guitar Pete
Franklin. Later, while teaching art
at the University of Iowa, he spent
a summer in Scotland where he
recorded many of the region’s trav
eling a cappella ballad singers.
Back in the states, he. along
with traditional music revivalists
Mike Seeger, John Cohen and
Ralph Rinzler, introduced scores of
fresh sounds to New York City fans
in the form of "Friends of Old Time
Music." Yet, while Seeger and
others were bringing blues and
mountain musicians like John Hurt
and Dock Boggs to the city.
Rosenbaum rooted around New
York itself, introducing local a cap
pella gospel. Spanish bagpipers and
Yiddish folk singers.
With his move to Athens and his subsequent teaching
career, Rosenbaum literally put Georgia folk music on the map.
His book and two-volume LP set Folk Visions and Voices
(recorded and annotated in the late 1970s) brought together
Georgia mountain stylists such as banjo player/ballad singers
Maybelle Cawthorn and W. Guy Bruce (whose "Shout Lulu" is a
must-heai), as well as black banjo player Jake Staggers of
Toccoa. Just as interesting, however are the albums' selections
of Athens area musicians like Neal Pattman and gospel duo Doc
and Lucy Barnes. At one time, Athens was home to a good deal
of banelhouse piano, black gospel and hard country blues. It
still may.
Since then. Art has continued to paint, teach and play
banjo, fiddle and guitar. He recorded fiddler Gordon Tanner (son
of legendary Skillet Licker leader Gid Tanner) and cunently
plays with a band still called the Skillet Lickers, which features
third and forth generation members of the Tanner family. Since
the early 1980s, he and his wife —
photographer/painter Margo
Rosenbaum — have been making
treks to Macintosh County, on
Georgia's coast, to record one of the
oldest American musical traditions,
the ring shout. And Rosenbaum's
Mel Bay-affiliated banjo book, first
printed in 1968, has been updated
and altered and is still cunently
available.
When asked about the connec
tion between folk music and
Athens' better-known rock and roll
scene, Art put it this way:
"Traditional music obviously wasn't
called any such name when it was
younger. I know many early string
bands got together in hopes of
gaining a bit of attention, maybe
making a few records. I see a con
nection between this and bands in
town. They're playing in the
garage, shaping music out of their
ow r n experience."
In other words, experiencing a
scratchy lecording of a fiddle band
or a blues guitar player is in many
ways finding the roots of America's regionalized indie move
ment. And there's something similarly raw in the old music
that drives folks like Rosenbaum to record it, expose others to
it and, most importantly, play it.
Bruce Miller
Art and Margo Rosenbaum's latest book, Shout Because
You're Free : The African American Ring Shout Tradition in
Coastal Georgia (UGA Press) is available in local bookstores.
PHOTO BY MARY JESSICA HAMMES
One step beyond: uber-daimmer
DWAYNE HOLLOWAY
Dwayne Holloway may be the best drummer in town. He
can work around the kit like a helicopter. He's feather-light,
but he can surprise you wffh light
ning bombast — though he never
plays to show off, and is more inter
ested in musicality than technical
flash. He's the kind of drummer who
makes other drummers want to go
home and practice. He's the kind that
makes less accomplisned drummers
feel like cavemen.
"I think there are players who
play music for fun, and there *re
players who want to take their
playing a bit further," Holloway says.
"I think the musicians I usually play
with want to take their music and
playing further."
After relocating to Athens in 1991
from his hometown of Tifton, Ga.,
Holloway dove into musical study and
performance and quickly established
himself as a major p'ayer in the small
local jazz scene. Whether behind the
drum kit or a stack of Latin percus
sion instruments, he provides many
jazz, fusion and experimental instru
mental groups with a steady backbeat and a smooth touch.
His Ro\ ng style has been compared to that of studio great
Steve Gadd and jazz/fusion legend Tony Williams.
After studying at Abraham Baldwin College in Tifton,
Holloway transferred to the University of Georgia to pursue a
degree in music education. He immersed himself in perfor
mance classes and switched his major to music performance.
Holloway can play with pretty much anybody: he's been
involved in the hip-hop infused
Thunder Wumper, the jazz/funk
quintet Phat Phive, various sessions
at the Atlanta Institute of Music and
the funky soul band Beehive.
Holloway's current regular gig is as
drummer from local band Squat and
the larger ensemble Grogus (featuring
Squat and on array of friends). Since
‘53, he and drummer Carlton Owens
— another great percussive talent in
Athens — have taken turns behind
the kit for these bands, often playing
together on stage. "If I had my
choice, I'd prefer to play straight-
ahead jazz," says the drummer. "I've
been getting into a lot of harder
fusion from the ‘70s lately, but I
want to keep exploring all different
styles."
If you're a rhythm junkie, the
style of the week will be irrelevant
when you hear Holloway playing in
it.
Ballard Lesemann
Squat's next gig is March 26 at One Love Music and Dance Hall.
PHOTO BY BAllARD LFSf MANN
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MARCH 10, 1999 FLAGPOLE B