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The third nominee is Art of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years of Traditional American Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum, a typically terrific release on the Dust-to-Digital imprint that compiles recordings overseen by the record collector named in its title. (The label has just released the equally impressive second volume.) But the fourth, Polk Miller & His Old South Quartette (Tompkins Square), is probably the weirdest. Inside its beautiful package–Susan Archie, who worked on Revenant’s amazing Charlie Patton box, handled the art direction–is a fascinating and disturbing relic of the minstrelsy era. Miller, a white southerner from a slave-owning family, toured and recorded in the early 20th century with a black vocal quartet, singing the songs of the plantation.
Bearing in mind who’s performing this music, it’s hard to imagine something more fucked-up than the opening track, a former Confederate battle anthem called “The Bonnie Blue Flag.” (Like the six tracks that follow it, it was recorded in November 1909.) As David Wondrich wrote in his 2003 book Stomp and Swerve, “One wonders what the poor bastards in the OSQ thought about this one. It couldn’t have helped that their record company singled Miller out for his efforts ‘to bring the ruling race an appreciation of the characteristics of the Negroes.’”
Today’s playlist:
