I just saw a wonderful documentary on Netflix about the history of Arhoolie Records and it’s interesting founder, a fellow named Chris Strachwitz. Chris is a German immigrant who was smitten by the beauty and primitive majesty of all forms of American roots music and became obsessed by tracking and recording what he heard, and sharing it with all who would listen.
The documentary is called, “This ain’t no mouse music”.
Now Chris never precisely defines what mouse music is, but if you listen to what really turns him on, you can come up with a pretty good definition of what it ain’t.
He likes his music raw. He likes it wild and unencumbered. He likes it original and prefers it fast and reasonably loud. The stuff that makes you jump out of your seat and shout and clap your hands.
And his music catalogue looks exactly like the records that I used to buy in the used record stores for $.50 or a buck back in the late sixties and seventies, when my musical tastes were developing and I knew that the pablum my friends were ingesting on the radio did not register on the inside of my heart, but this stuff did!
I remember the first time I heard Big Mama Thornton singing the blues, a song called “black rat”. The shivers went up and down my spine. This here was no prepackaged music by committee…This here was life!
And the music rolled across that screen from every corner of the American tradition. Delta blues singers like Lightnight Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, (Tom Moore blues), Fred McDowell, Big Joe Williams, Old Country and bluegrass: our own Rose Maddox and the Maddox brothers, Del McCoury, Laurie Lewis, Gospel, the Rev. Louis Overstreet (workin’ on a building)New Orleans Brass bands Treme brass band, Preservation hall Jazz band, the New Orleans ragtime orchestra Zydeco buckwheat Zydeco, Cajun Clifton Chenier Jimmy Rimington and the creole all-stars, Polka, barbershop, Norteno, Tex- Mex The Texas tornados, and the greatest accordion player on the planet Flaco Jimenez old time fiddling, and our favorite anthem from Woodstock, I feel like I’m fixin’ to die rag Country Joe McDonald and the fish.
I’m tellin’ you, when I watched this, I was tired, and this documentary was long, and I was in desperate need of a good nights’ sleep, but I couldn’t turn it off till the last fiddle faded into the credits. It was like watching a movie of some of the best parts of my life, to say nothing of a large percentage of my C.D. boxes.
Now this music we love, it ain’t the most popular music on the radio. The percentage of people who listen to it is small, and a lot of them wonder what’s wrong with us for liking it. I reckon it’s because they’ve spent too much of their lives in gray flannel suits listening to homogenized orchestrations of pop standards on elevators.
I guess some folks just look at the trees and never think a lot about the roots that nourish them and give them their life.
I like blue grass, and I like gospel, and old country, and delta blues and Ry Cooder and Flaco jimenez., and swing, and the music of LIFE. I’m Getting old. I want something that keeps my blood pumping.
Thank you Chris Strachwitz. Thank you Arhoolie Records. Check out there catalog. There’s a lot of joy in there. It will make you smile.
