Chris Strachwitz interviews Archives - The Arhoolie Foundation

Chris Strachwitz Interviewed by Roy Trumbull on KBRG

Chris Strachwitz has been many things – songcatcher, music publisher, author, filmmaker, but he is first and foremost a Record Man. Take a listen to a newly unearthed interview with Chris in 1964 as he describes capturing the indelible songs on those early Arhoolie records, upcoming releases, and what it takes to start a record company.

Ry Cooder Interview

“Once you can see somebody play, I’ve always found this to be true, it illuminates the whole situation, how they hold the instrument, how they physically go about doing these things. Copying notes off a record is pointless. You got to know how they get themselves in a physical state and then things happen, they just seem to happen…

Bukka White Interview

“‘I just reach up and pull them out of the sky – call them sky songs- they just come to me.’ That’s how Bukka White described his music making. His performances were not polished, finished, slick tin pan alley songs but marvelous, on the spot creations – images and recollections as they come to the artist’s mind.”

Chris Strachwitz Remembers Mance Lipscomb

That’s his name, is Mance Lipscomb. That’s the first time we ever heard his name. And he told him exactly where he lived on the Washington road and gave us the address. And we went there and of course he wasn’t home. It was kind of in the middle of the afternoon or late afternoon by then.