ARHOOLIE FOUNDATION COLLECTIONS:Chris Strachwitz Interviews
In 2015 The Arhoolie Foundation received a grant from the Grammy Foundation to digitize and put online the interviews that Chris Strachwitz recorded with musicians and friends over the past 50 years. He recorded these to capture the personal history of many of the musicians he recorded for his Arhoolie Records label and also for his long running radio show on on KPFA-FM (Berkeley, CA) during the 1970’s and 1980’s. You can listen to the following interviews and many have transcripts as well.
Bill Neely Interview
Bill Neely has been singing and picking guitar since 1929 when Jimmie Rodgers showed him a few basics. In the late 1940s he started writing his own songs and has been doing it ever since. The songs on this, Bill’s first album, are almost all his own compositions.
Read MoreJohnie Lewis Interview
“I said well Lord, if you let me live to see tomorrow I’m going to get me a guitar. That’s how I had my start. Then I went to Mrs. Patterson Pawn Shop”… “and I bought me a guitar with the name was Value. That’s the name of the guitar with pearl and ivory all around it. About a week, I was playing pretty good.”
Read MoreLeo Soileau Interview – Cajun Music
Leo Soileau was a traditional Cajun music pioneer. Listen to his 1974 interview with Arhoolie Records’ Chris Strachwitz to learn more about Cajun music history.
Read MoreMarcellus Thomas Interview – Blues
“I recorded Marcellus Thomas during my first session with Big Joe Williams in Los Gatos, CA – and I think it may have been Marcellus who drove Big Joe and his wife and child from Oakland down to my shack in the hills of Holy City where I was living that first year as a school teacher in Los Gatos…”
Read MoreJohn Littlejohn Interview – Blues
“So when I got 14 years old, my father won a guitar in a crap game. He asked me – He really didn’t give it to me. I’d catch him going from the house and I’d grab it, you know. The first tune I learned how to play was – I heard Lightning Hopkins playing this tune – ‘Baby, Please Don’t Go.’”
Read MoreMercy Dee Walton Interview
“The blues to me was a way of getting rid of your trouble through your music. During those times when I started playing things kinda rugged, you know what I mean. A dollar or two was a great thing back then. I just started playing the blues.”
Read MoreVern Williams & Ray Park Interview
Vern & Ray Interview: (14:44) LISTEN HERE: Vern & Ray Interviewed By: Chris Strachwitz Date: unknown Location: unknown Language: English [feather_share] This is an unedited interview originally recorded...
Read MoreT-Bone Walker Interview – Blues
“To be the best, I’d have to stick with my style. I can’t get away from it. That’s the reason why I don’t do rock-n-roll, which they’ve been trying to get me to do it, but I’ll get away from my style.”
Read MoreTejano Musician Andres Berlanga
“I started playing guitar, I didn’t know nothing about guitar, I was hard labor man working on construction and all that then I come to think, this man can do it I guess I can do it too and I tried it and I tried it and I got on it.”
Read MoreAdolph Hofner Interview
“There wasn’t very many such things as guitars back in community I lived with, it was all brass and drums and tubas and vice-versa; but what got me interested in that was the steel guitars, I like the way they whine, you know? Also, see them in the Sears Roebuck catalogue and I figured it could be easy to play.”
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