Saturday September 14, 2024
Last night I got to hear the end of Off The Record presented by Geoff King. Getting Geoff to fill in was one of the better decisions I have made this trip. I can’t imagine the stress I would have felt if I had to pre-record it as I often do. Well done Geoff, who interviewed Alex Burns and Charles Jenkins. When I get time I will go back and listen to the whole program.
So, it was up early and at 8.30am and off to Dose Cafe West, just around the corner on Murphy Road. You can get a ‘flat white’ in most hip places in the USA now but you cannot get a large one at Dose, so I opted for a large latte and added a ham and cheese croissant. The place was really busy but still comfortable, full of students with their papers and laptops working on a Saturday morning.
I have heard from Don Flemons, co-founder the Carolina Chocolate Drops with Rhiannon Giddens. He is doing a concert nearby at Vanderbilt University this afternoon and I am going to interview him at lunchtime. After I return to the hotel, having replied to numerous emails about interviews, I sit down to do some research.
But first I have to phone T-Mobile about my phone which takes me a time-consuming half an hour before I finally give up. I don’t think any of the representatives can understand me. Previously, I had a $3 a month pre-paid phone plane which enabled me to top up each time I visited with calls, texts and data. Apparently, this great plan doesn’t exist anymore and I have to revert to a normal plan and then remember to cancel it after a month. Only problem is that there is no data. This is a major problem when trying to book an Uber if you don’t have nearby free wi-fi which is what happens later. I begin to think that I should have just used the International Global Roaming option on my Telstra account.
Remember I said that the bus service was good. I’ll modify that statement. I gave up waiting for the bus to take me down the road to my interview and ended up walking to Don Flemons hotel.
I met Don and his wife Vania, who suggested we needed an hour to talk which I doubted until we actually started. Don is a multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter (he calls himself a songster), historian, radio presenter and TV documentary host. He is on a mission to uncover, preserve and push forward America’s musical past— particularly Black musical traditions. His projects include narrating The Real Wild West documentary series, presenting The American Songster Radio Show, and being part of the Shulz’s Dream project (about the mythical black bluegrass player Arnold Shulz) and the Sun Records TV Show. Apart from that he has his own solo work, including his recent album Traveling Wildfire (which provided the theme song of The Real Wild West series. He also formed the Carolina Chocolate Drops in Durham, NC, back in 2005 with Rhiannon Giddens. I saw them several times at JazzFest and, of course, Rhiannon is one of our favourites. It was indeed a long delightful chat with Don and a real history lesson. You’ll hear it at length when I get back. I’ll even get a transcript up on the website soon.
The concert at Turner Hall in the Blair School of Music was at 5.00pm, preceded by a reception where Flemons got to meet the audience members. What followed was a one hour performance on guitar, banjo and bones (!), and a history lesson during which he showed his various musical instruments and some items he had donated to the university’s archives. After brief interval Don returned with a friend to demonstrate an Edison wax cylinder ‘phonograph’. After playing a cylinder that they had recorded earlier they then proceeded to demonstrate how the cylinders (which are not actually wax) were recorded more than 140 years ago. The audio quality was, as you would expect, primitive but people at the time probably thought it was wondrous. I don’t think they will replace the CD or even cassette but you never know how many hipsters will want to buy one.
I managed to get an Uber using the wifi at the college and when I got back to the hotel finally sorted out the data issue. A pain in the neck but necessary. No time for dinner tonight. Instead, I had one of the hotels free blueberry muffin and a muesli bar. Pathetic, I know. But cheap.
I am moving out to East Nashville tomorrow so will ask for a late check out. I have to sort out a few post-Nashville travel arrangements which are keeping me awake and causing me some angst. I’ll let you know how I go.