MLF-962

part 2 of JOHN COHEN member of NEW LOST CITY RAMBLERS folk music

John Cohen 01:37
And this was great stuff. And I remember, in '65, this wonderful fiddler named Ek Robertson. He was the first person ever to record a country record 1923. I interviewed him in Texas in 1963. That's how we kind of re-found him. And I think the film crew, I think might have been your film crew was sent over to get some film of Ek Roberts and we played behind him. I got so mad at that film crew, because it was your crew, but it wasn't you, I think, because here was actually this 82 year old giant of music. And he was so involved with his beautiful fiddle, he would take out a piece of rosin. And he put it on his fingers. And he put it on part of this and take a rubber band and put it around his neck and attach it to the fiddle would be just right. And he was fixing this into testing that. And this was extraordinary. The camera was right there. I said, film this. And the response was get that old man to play the tune. We got to be somewhere else at the seat...

John Cohen 04:25
But I'm interested in what's the word, downloading, all the knowledge that I have about banjo tunings and the stories and what these guys to another generation and there are people playing it now. That is so hopeful. It is so hopeful, Murray. It's more. It's even more interesting than having other string bands imitating us. It's better to get those other string bands to listen to the music and find their own responses. So these are things that are in a way the legacy of Newport but Newport as I said before, was just a moment in a dialectic. These are not the words of a hard luck.

Murray Lerner 05:10
You seem to me, I remember thinking about you people, you seemed to me a little sort of arrogant about your purity.

John Cohen 05:21
Perhaps well, not the purity. We were arrogant about that we were right.

Murray Lerner 05:28
I remember.

Murray Lerner 06:11
I think all you can do is document the, the dialectic between the two, you can't really isolate one from the other. That's the quantum theory metaphor, but you can't,

John Cohen 06:25
but you first have to become aware that you're doing that people, think, my camera's objective, I'm holding the microphone up, and therefore the singer is singing into it. And that's the truth.

Murray Lerner 06:37
I know I don't feel that at all. I I was a counter veiling person to the cinema's very table, because I didn't believe ar all in that. I felt that I had to be, that I was part of the scene, not had to be. And that's why my film starts in this funny way about, you remember there are all the jug bands talking, playing. And then I say cut, and they still we started having a kind of angry dialect dialectical between us, you don't remember that. But it tries to call attention to the fact there is a camera and someone being

John Cohen 09:27
But most of the outtakes of that film are what made the Scorsese film so strong. Those performances they're just glorious. And well edited. You know? Yeah. Alright, so well, let's go back to Newport. If there's something else if there's something else there was something

Murray Lerner 09:43
Something else, two things right? An hour later, I had to say, Peter, it gets time. I'm serious. He is the character. And we, I think he reveals himself very much in the filming I did of him you know about the fussing with the microphones and do you remember his consternation and Dylan,

John Cohen 10:05
don't get me started on the subject

Murray Lerner 10:09
Why not, I want to get you started. That's good. That's good. When you say something like that you got my interest. Why shouldn't I get you started? We don't have to use it.

Murray Lerner 11:41
I know. But here's the reason I know about Cornell. There was someone else at Cornell at the same time. His name is on the publishing rights to Puff the Magic Dragon. There is someone else who got credit for co- writing, Puff The Magic Dragon he was at Cornell. His name is Lenny Lipton. And he works in 3d, mainly. And it was one of those weird things he evidently typed something on a typewriter, and it made his case and you know, I mean, so anyway,

John Cohen 12:15
I always wondered about that song. But my wondering Is, everybody wonders about it? And what, how much of a Puff song it was, yeah, puff and drag.

Murray Lerner 12:25
I think it paid for his house that co-writing credit.

John Cohen 12:29
Well, I worked on Cold Mountain as a, as a film as a consultant. That's how I was able to buy the land across the street. And that's the way I think about it. And when I couldn't sustain repairs on my old Martin guitar, I sold it and built a kitchen. And I the good feelings that exist in my kitchen. The same good feelings that was in that guitar. We do things like that over time. It's really interesting.

Murray Lerner 12:53
You know, but anyway, yes. What? So what, uh, was there anything else about Peter, you wanted to say,

Murray Lerner 14:56
but did Peter ever get in your way when you were giving your performances. Get in your way or

John Cohen 15:07
no, no, because I deliberately stayed clear of where he was. I mean, I don't he had a wonderful successful world out there. But it was not. I didn't feel I didn't feel any relation to it.

Murray Lerner 15:26
He was fussing a lot with microphones.

John Cohen 15:29
Well that's technical stuff. But but the idea of being in charge, and he's knowing what's right that smothers other people's feelings a little bit. I don't, you know, I don't I don't want to be, I don't want this to go on record. You know.

Murray Lerner 15:46
let me ask you something else then, before you go into use it.To edit the Newport in a way but your career? What is music?

Murray Lerner 18:11
What is the satisfaction that you get out of it? What What does music do to you,

John Cohen 18:15
When I just sit there and play the banjo? I'm making patterns, I'm making sounds I'm making relationships, I'm bending notes, I'm twisting things I'm getting into a state I'm getting into a rhythm, I'm getting into a pulse I'm getting into another another level. That's one of the things that music is.

But you know, when you get into a church, it's a whole No, I got filmed in Gospel churches. And I photographed and recorded them. I mean, that's a whole other kind of, but the music is still at the center of it. I know I go to Latin America and I looking for musicians. And you go up to a musician who's performing and you realize that you have stepped right into the heart of their culture.
Because everybody's gathered around to listen to that musician who's singing something that reflects what they need to hear. Me being an outsider, I walk in there and go right into the heart of their culture through music. This is a lot of things that music is. Music is also a business. I don't know much about that part of it.

Now in 1967, I was invited to bring a wonderful, traditional ballad singer who I had found in North Carolina. He sang unaccompanied, his name was Dillard Chandler. He sang the Old English ballads like they were alive. He couldn't read, I made a film about him. It was really hard to get him, to convince him to come to Newport. I don't know how he got on the bus. I got somebody in Asheville to get him on the bus, somebody else to meet him in Washington, DC to get him on the bus to New York, some people in New York to get him on the bus to Newport, and someone to meet him at the bus in Newport. And I was going to film him at Newport. Because I was gonna film him at his home on the front steps in Appalachia, and then turn the camera around and show 20,000 People in the Newport audience. Oh, he never got on the first bus. He just never did. And there I was at Newport with my camera and my equipment.

Well, Sarah, and Maybell Carter of the Carter family they sang there that year, I asked, please can I have two songs from them? And we went off in the fields. And I recorded two songs by Sara and Maybell. It's the only footage of the two of them singing together. It's been used all over the place. You know, it's just because I had the camera there. And just a short time with them. And then this guy, country musician, George Hamilton, the second or the third, he sang a song and I said, Gee, I've got that song in my film. I heard it on a jukebox it's about T O B A C C O, that's the stuff for me.

John Cohen 22:41
And I said, Can I use your song in my film? It's about traditional artists. He says, Well, you'll have to speak to the man who wrote the song, who's here. I said, whose that? His name is John Hartford. Oh, Mr. Hartford, uh my name is John Cohen. And I'm doing a film about a traditional ballad singer, and the jukebox plays a song. And apparently it's a song you wrote, do you think you could possibly give me permission to use that song? hey, I'm a friend of old time music too. He already knew of all my work. And of course, he gave his blessing . This is the kind of stuff that happened in Newport, leaping across from the jukebox to the traditional singers to the country music to the scene in Newport. This was good stuff.

Murray Lerner 24:55
Maggie's Farm..It's Interesting because I liked it, you know, and, and I like both types of music, you know, like not, and I thought electricity added something unique. That wasn't volume but did something to your body visceral, visceral. Yeah, in a way it could be used for good or bad because it hypnotizes you in a way.

John Cohen 25:20
But you see where a lot of us were coming from, as we'd been listening to acoustic acoustic music. And so suddenly this new, you didn't have time to think whether it was good or bad, it was different. And this connection was with the Beatles, because once the Beatles came on everybody along MacDougal street was just changing left and right. I mean, that was if people don't understand how big a force musically that The Beatles were, then they don't understand that situation at all.
Now, recently, someone said to me that, boy, you watched Bob Dylan's whole career? How did it affect your music? How did it change your music? I said, it didn't change our music at all. And that's why Bob has continued to respect us. So that's my final statement for your, for my part of your film. Now you can ask me any question you want.

End Reel.