Crib Notes

Dust-to-Digital and AM 1690 present
An Evening with Art Rosenbaum featuring performances by:
Tony Bryant — Fourth generation Georgia blues.
Earl Murphy — Missouri fiddling by a 92 year old master
George Gibson — Old time Kentucky banjo and songs
Plus special guests: Around the Globe Sea Chantey Singers from Athens, Ga.

Sat., April 4. $10 8 p.m. The Highland Inn Ballroom Lounge, 644 North Highland Ave.

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Last night (Thurs., Feb. 12th) April and Steven Lance Ledbetter, the duo behind the Atlanta-based re-issue label Dust-to-Digital, celebrated receiving their first GRAMMY® award at The Kirkwood Ballers Club at the Highland Inn Ballroom Lounge.

This year the label received a GRAMMY® for Best Historical Album, for Art Of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years Of Traditional American Music Documented By Art Rosenbaum.

According to Dust-to-Digital’s site…

Art of Field Recording Volume I is a four disc set with a 96 page book that contains essays and annotations by Art and over 100 illustrations and photographs by Art and his wife Margo. Art took a similar approach to Harry Smith in assembling the music: the discs are divided into Blues, Instrumental and Dance, Sacred, and a Survey disc that has a little bit of everything.

The Art of Field Recording… was also nominated for a GRAMMY® for Best Album Notes, but that award went to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue: 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition .

“It still hasn’t sunk in yet,” says Lance. “When the trophy shows up, and it’s engraved with our name on it I’ll face the facts, but as of right now I still feel the same as before the ceremony.”

(Photo by Chad Radford)

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Seems like there was more action behind-the-scenes than onstage, despite the 20-plus performances at this year’s Grammy Awards.

Chris Brown reportedly got gangsta with his girlfriend Rihanna, causing them both to cancel their performances. The alleged reason behind the smackdown should bring a whole new meaning to their upcoming collabo, “Bad Girl,” produced by Atlantan Polow da Don for the Confessions of a Shopaholic soundtrack. Meanwhile the real “gangstas,” Lil Wayne and T.I., delivered upstanding, redemptive performances — neither of which required NARAS President Neil Portnow to excuse their inclusion in the program, the way he had to when Eminem performed to the chagrin of gay rights activists in 2001.

Of course, the Recording Academy continued this year with the ultra-lame generational mashup theme that made for some of the oddest pairings ever.

Surely, Stevie Wonder would’ve been insulted if only he could’ve seen how silly he looked on stage with the Jonas Brothers. The Al Green/Justin Timberlake pairing was quite a yawner, but perhaps we should be thankful that Timberlake didn’t attempt to rip Green’s shirt off for a grand finale. And did we really need to see B.B. King and John Mayer trade ugly guitar faces for the second year in a row?

(more…)

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Atlanta-based record label Dust-to-Digital does it right. They don’t release a lot of discs, but what they do put out is so consistently good that it’s always worth buying.

Take The Art of Field Recording Volume I for example — when that box set came out in 2007 it got two GRAMMY nominations and glowing praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and pretty much everyone else who heard it.

So listen up, the second volume of The Art of Field Recording is just starting to hit shelves now and Dust to Digital are throwing a shin-dig in Athens on Saturday to celebrate. Performers will include the blind, nonagenarian Sister Fleeta Mitchell, Ed Teague who “is perhaps the only tradition-schooled two-finger banjo picker still actively playing in north Georgia,” and a good number of other artists recorded over the years by folklorist Art Rosenbaum. More details can be found at Dust to Digital.

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