The Art of Field Recording

PRX

Willie Mae Eberhardt and Mother Mitchell

The Art of Field Recording

From: Philip Graitcer
Length: 00:07:57

Folk music is still being played by the "folk." Read the full description.

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Piece Description

Most people think folk music as a thing of the past. It seemed to disappear in the sixties when rock and roll and the Beatles swept the music scene. But if you search hard enough, folk music and the musicians who play it are still around. Art Rosenbaum has made it his life’s work to find and record it. He’s become the Indiana Jones of folk music.<p>
Independent producer Philip Graitcer (GREAT-sir) traveled with Rosenbaum to visit a few traditional musicians.

Broadcast History

Weekend America, January 24, 2009

Transcript

fletaAMB (:33) arriving at Mother Mitchell’s

Art Rosenbaum and I are visiting 94 year old Fleta Mitchell. Everyone calls her Mother Mitchell. Mitchell lives with her pastor and singing partner, 78-year old Willie Mae Eberhardt, in a tiny one story cinder block house just outside of Athens, Georgia.

Mother Mitchell’s been singing gospel music in her church since she was two years old, almost a century ago.

Art: FOLK33 1:42 we talked a lot about your starting out in music when you were a little girl, how you’d sing “Let Me Fly” and….

Mitchell:1:52 and “You’d Better Mind.” I was so short, they’d stand me up on the table…they didn't have no piano then, and I stood up on the table and sang, “You’d Better Mind.”

Mitchell’s been blind since birth. She seems frail, bent over with age, and can barely walk. But as she sits down at the piano and fumbles to find the right keys, she becomes a l...
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