Art interviews his old friend John Cohen of New Lost City Ramblers fame about his trip to the South in the 1960′s to research obscure banjo tunings which inadvertently yielded an influential compilation of field recordings. These recordings were originally released in 1975 by Rounder Records under the name “High Atmosphere.”

This episode of Backroads & Banjos focuses on a fantastic guitar picker named Elizabeth Cotton. Being left-handed, Elizabeth was known for developing her own unique style of picking a right-handed guitar. She was a caretaker in the folk-singing Seeger family household but none of the family knew of her talent until one day when she picked up a guitar and started to play. Mike Seeger made some of his earliest field recordings of Elizabeth Cotton and the two would go on to tour and perform together in the early 1960′s. Many of her own songs including “Freight Train” and “Ain’t Got No Honey Baby Now” became staples of the 1960′s folk revival repertoire.

While Art was still in college in the late 1950′s, he went to work at a resort in Michigan one summer and befriended some migrant worker families on nearby Allegan Farm. In this segment, Art reminisces about the time he spent with these people, his first exposure to Southern music, and the first field recordings that he ever captured.

In honor of the holiday season, this week’s Backroads & Banjos features Christmas-related songs by Georgia artists that were all captured by Art throughout his last 50 years of collecting field recordings.

On this segment of Backroads & Banjos, Art presents the funny, jovial, and poignant songs of Gaston County, NC native, Dave McCarn. At first McCarn pursued songwriting on guitar and harmonica as relief from his daily work at the textile mill, but after auditioning in 1930 for Ralph Peer, a man credited for founding the early country music industry, his original recordings of “Cotton Mill Colic” and “Everyday Dirt” allowed him a brief foray into professional music before returning permanently to millwork in 1932.

On this segment of Backroads & Banjos, Art and Neal discuss the aims of the recurring segment over the last couple of years and Art talks about his son Neil Rosenbaum’s film, “Sing My Troubles By”. The film is about Georgia women who are carrying their musical traditions into the 21st Century and will be screened at 5 & 7:30 PM on Monday, December 6th at Athens Cine. There will be live performances as well as a Q&A with Art and his son Neil, the filmmaker.