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Free Dirt Records
Free Dirt Records is an American independent record label and label services company founded in 2006 by John Smith and Erica Haskell that releases folk and roots music. The label's releases have received two Grammy nominations. History John Smith met Erica Haskell when Haskell interned at Smithsonian Folkways in 2000. Later while Haskell was attending graduate school in ethnomusicology they collaborated on a box set of spoken word introductions paired with original songs by anarchist folk musician and storyteller Utah Phillips before founding Free Dirt Records in 2006. The label's first official release was by the traditional Bosnian group Mostar Sevdah Reunion. Smith and Haskell ventured to create a label where they could work with young artists making traditionally rooted music and showcase often overlooked material like spoken word. Since 2006, the label has released music by Pokey LaFarge, Anna & Elizabeth, Hackensaw Boys, Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge (Grammy-nominated), Cahal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MNRK Music Group
MNRK Music Group (pronounced "monarch", formerly known as Koch Records and eOne Music) is a New York City-based independent record label and music management company. It was formed in 2009 from the music assets of Koch Entertainment, which had been acquired by the present-day Entertainment One (eOne) in 2005. In April 2021, after the acquisition of eOne by Hasbro, the company announced that it would sell eOne Music to The Blackstone Group. It owns the libraries of Artemis Records, Dualtone Records, and Last Gang Records. History eOne as a whole has its origins in the music distributor Records on Wheels, which was acquired by the Canadian retail chain CD Plus in 2001 to expand its wholesale business. Darren Throop joined the company after CD Plus acquired his record store chain Urban Sound Exchange. The combined company later became known as ROW Entertainment, with Throop as president and CEO. In June 2005, ROW acquired the American independent music distributor and home entert ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
JP Harris
Joshua Pless "JP" Harris (born February 13, 1983) is an American country singer, songwriter, guitarist, and clawhammer banjoist based in Nashville, Tennessee. Career Harris was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1983. He spent much of his early life between Montgomery and Dadeville, AL, where his relatives had lived since the Revolutionary War. His mother was a teacher and his father worked in heavy construction. When he was seven, his family moved to Apple Valley, California, and later to Las Vegas. When Harris was fourteen he left home after finishing the 8th grade. After leaving home, he spent time in Oakland, California; he chose the Bay Area as the California punk bands of the 1980s and early 1990s had a major influence on his early musical development, and later spent a year in Arizona where he worked as a sheep herder for a group of Navajo elders. Throughout this time, Harris freighthopped across the US, eventually finding his way to the town of Halifax, Vermont, where h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mat Callahan
Mat Callahan (born Mathew Kerner, July 14, 1951, San Francisco, California) is an American musician, author, songwriter, activist, music producer and engineer. Biography Early life Callahan's father, William Kerner, was a leader of the international peace movement following WWII, joining with Paul Robeson and other notable figures in supporting a non-belligerent US foreign policy particularly in regards to the Soviet Union and China. William Kerner died of myasthenia gravis in 1954. Mathew's mother remarried in 1956 becoming the wife of longshoreman Jerome Callahan. Mat henceforth used the surname Callahan. He spent his childhood at Peters Wright Creative Dance, founded by his grandaunt, Anita Peters, and her husband Dexter Wright in 1912. His grandmother (Anita's youngest sister), Lenore Job, also a choreographer, dancer and teacher, was the director of the school when Callahan was born. His mother, Judy Job, followed her mother's lead also pursuing choreography, dancing and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alice Gerrard
Alice Gerrard (born July 8, 1934) is an American bluegrass singer, banjoist, fiddler, and guitar player. She performed in a duo with Hazel Dickens, and as part of The Strange Creek Singers (with Dickens, Mike Seeger, Tracy Schwarz, and Lamar Grier) and The Back Creek Buddies (with Matokie Slaughter). Gerrard was born in Seattle, Washington. Her mother was from Yakima, Washington, and her father from Wigan in England. Gerrard attended Antioch College, where she was exposed to folk music. After college, she moved to Washington, D.C. and became part of the thriving bluegrass scene there. Gerrard was married to Jeremy Foster who died in a car accident. She had four children with him. She was later married to Mike Seeger and recorded two albums with him. Garrard was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2017. The Alice Gerrard Collection (1954–2000) is located in the Southern Folklife Collection of the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hazel Dickens
Hazel Jane Dickens (June 1, 1925 – April 22, 2011) was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs. Cultural blogger John Pietaro noted that "Dickens didn’t just sing the anthems of labor, she lived them and her place on many a picket line, staring down gunfire and goon squads, embedded her into the cause." ''The New York Times'' extolled her as "a clarion-voiced advocate for coal miners and working people and a pioneer among women in bluegrass music." With Alice Gerrard, Dickens was one of the first women to record a bluegrass album. Career Hazel Dickens was born in Montcalm, Mercer County, West Virginia on June 1, 1925, the eighth of eleven siblings in a mining family of 6 boys and 5 girls. Many of Hazel's relatives were miners, including her brothers, cousins, and, eventually, her brothers-in-law. In the early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hackensaw Boys
The Hackensaw Boys are a string band based in central Virginia that formed in 1999. The band has drawn on many musical influences and are " own best for rowdy, energetic live shows." They have performed at Bonnaroo, Lockn', FloydFest, and the All Good Music Festival. The band tours continuously and claims twenty or more current and former members. The current four-piece lineup contains only one original member, David Sickmen, who rejoined the group in 2012 (after quitting in 2005). In April 2016 the band released ''Charismo'' on Free Dirt Records, their first studio album in almost a decade — which was produced by Larry Campbell. History The Hackensaw Boys were founded in the Fall of 1999 by Rob Bullington, Tom Peloso, David Sickmen, and Robert "Bobby" St. Ours who were all living in Charlottesville, Virginia at the time. Sickmen and Bullington met in Harrisonburg, Virginia in the early 1990s when the latter was attending James Madison University there. Bullington was play ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Muddy Records
Big Muddy Records is an independent American roots music record label based out of St Louis, Missouri. Founded by Chris (Kristo) Baricevic in 2005, Big Muddy Records has been a pivotal element in the development of many of St Louis' roots music acts, ranging from garage rock, punk, country, traditional jazz, blues, and folk music. Big Muddy Records is distributed by Entertainment One and Amped. Big Muddy Records artists include The Hooten Hallers, Jack Grelle, Ryan Koenig, Maximum Effort, Sidney Street Shakers, Rum Drum Ramblers, The Strange Places, The Loot Rock Gang, The Hobosexuals, Tortuga, and Southwest Watson Sweethearts. Past Big Muddy recording artists include Pokey LaFarge, Bob Reuter of The Dinosaurs and Alley Ghost, and 7 Shot Screamers. Bob Reuter and his legacy After the death of Bob Reuter in 2013, Chris Baricevic and Big Muddy Records became executors of Reuter's estate, including his catalog of music and his photography. They were tasked with preserving his leg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robb Johnson
Robb Jenner Johnson (born 25 December 1955) is a British musician and songwriter who has been called "one of the last genuinely political songwriters". He is known for his mix of political satire and wit. He has his own record label, Irregular Records, and has released more than 40 albums since 1985, either solo or in several collaborations. Biography Johnson began his musical career playing in folk clubs in the 1970s and ran a folk club at the University of Sussex, before forming a band called Grubstreet, which split up in 1983. Two years later he made his first solo album, ''In Amongst the Rain'', setting up his own label on which to release it, before forming an agitprop group, The Ministry of Humour, with Mark Shilcock and Graham Barnes. After the break-up of this act and a failed attempt at forming a new electric band, he returned to performing solo and also formed a duo with female singer Pip Collings. In 1997 he composed the song cycle ''Gentle Men'', based on the expe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leon Rosselson
Leon Rosselson (born 22 June 1934, Harrow, Middlesex, England) is an English songwriter and writer of children's books. After his early involvement in the folk music revival in Britain, he came to prominence, singing his own satirical songs, in the BBC's topical TV programme of the early 1960s, ''That Was The Week That Was''. He toured Britain and abroad, singing mainly his own songs and accompanying himself with acoustic guitar. In later years, he has published 17 children's books, the first of which, ''Rosa's Singing Grandfather'', was shortlisted in 1991 for the Carnegie Medal. He continues to write and perform his own songs, and to collaborate with other musicians and performers. Most of his material includes some sort of satirical content or elements of radical politics. Folk years Leon Rosselson was born and brought up in North London, lived in Tufnell Park and attended school in Highgate Road, adjacent to Parliament Hill Fields. His Jewish parents came to England as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chumbawamba
Chumbawamba () were a British rock band formed in 1982 and disbanded in 2012. They are best known for their 1997 single "Tubthumping", which was nominated for Best British Single at the 1998 Brit Awards. Other singles include "Amnesia", " Enough Is Enough" (with MC Fusion), " Timebomb", "Top of the World (Olé, Olé, Olé)", and "Add Me". The band drew on genres such as punk rock, pop, and folk. Their anarcho-communist political leanings led them to have an irreverent attitude toward authority, and to espouse a variety of political and social causes including animal rights and pacifism (early in their career) and later regarding class struggle, Marxism, feminism, gay liberation, pop culture, and anti-fascism. In July 2012, Chumbawamba announced they were splitting up after 30 years. The band was joined by former members and collaborators for three final shows between 31 October and 3 November 2012, one of which was filmed and released as a live DVD. Band history Early yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote over 20 books, including his best-selling and influential '' A People's History of the United States'' in 1980. In 2007, he published a version of it for younger readers, ''A Young People's History of the United States''. Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist." He wrote extensively about the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and labor history of the United States. His memoir, ''You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train'' (Beacon Press, 2002), was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn's life and work. Zinn died of a heart attack in 2010, at age 87. Early life Zinn was born to a Jewish immigrant family in B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
