![]() GROSS: Now, I want to play something that you made in the early 1960s. It's the music of the French-speaking Creoles, Blacks in southwest Louisiana, in contrast to the white Cajun music. Others said, oh, it's just going out in the country and having a party, going to the zydeco, going to party and having a good time playing music, push and pull, you know, that accordion music. So I simply asked people, what does zydeco mean? And some of them said, well, it means snap beans, not salty. I didn't know what zydeco music was, either, when I first went down there in 1960 or '59. I want to play one of those early sessions, but before I play it, tell us what zydeco is and how it's distinguished from, say, Cajun music. GROSS: Some of the early music that you recorded was zydeco music in Louisiana, in - at house parties, in bars. And sort of meeting all these people taught me. But I had no idea what the in-between process was. An artist goes in, and out on the other side come the records. I first thought, to make a record, you go into one side of a factory of a huge place. And I simply was amazed that this is all it takes. He was recording literally in his back room with one microphone and a disc cutter, you know, where you cut directly to disc. And when I came up here to Northern California, I met people like Bob Geddins, a Black man originally from Texas who has recording here in the Bay Area. And I guess I was simply amazed by it all. But records, you could hear what's in those grooves. STRACHWITZ: Well, since I was so enamored with this whole idea of records and what's on them - you know, I always collected things and stamps before that. GROSS: What made you decide to try to record people and meet the people whose record you were listening to and record new records by them? And once in a while, I could splurge and buy myself a 78. ![]() I didn't have any money, but I would save my allowances. And it turned out almost every kind of vernacular music was recorded. STRACHWITZ: Well, that was, at that time, the only kind of record. TERRY GROSS: When you started collecting records, where did you go to get them? I mean, I think a lot of people thought of 78s as junk that they'd just sell in flea markets or give them away. And 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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