dear Board, attached is the text of a TV news item that was broadcast
by the Times Picayune of New Orleans. Thanks to Mickey for his good
words.
peggy
Peggy A. Bulger, Director
American Folklife Center
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20450
(202) 707-1745
(202) 707-2076 FAX
[log in to unmask]http://www.loc.gov/folklife
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fyi - save our sounds
25 of 28 DOCUMENTS
Copyright 2002 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
December 22, 2002 Sunday
SECTION: TV FOCUS; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 625 words
HEADLINE: Audio preservationists fear the sound of silence
BYLINE: By Dave Walker; TV columnist
BODY:
A world-music maven since childhood -- after accidentally discovering
tribal
rain forest recordings in an inherited pile of Big Band records --
Mickey Hart
is doing everything he can to ensure future generations can have the
same
transporting experience.
"I am, of course, a great lover of world music -- since I was 6 years
old,"
said Hart, known to most as drummer for jam-band granddaddy The
Grateful Dead,
during a recent telephone interview. "I also recognize that our sonic
legacy is
perhaps our greatest creation as a people, and for many years I've been
a remote
recordist myself.
"I've recorded the world music out there, and realize its value is
right up
there with Monet, Renoir and Picasso as oral versions of great
masterpieces.
"These things are pieces of our subconscious that rise to the
surface, that
represent the essence of who we are, our badge of identity. So they are
of great
value. They bring beauty into the world, and also tell us where we are,
where we
are going and where we've been."
Hart is one of several musicians interviewed in the History Channel's
examination of Save Our Sounds (SOS), a joint venture by the
Smithsonian
Institution's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the Library
of
Congress' American Folklife Center.
But Hart is more than a talking Deadhead.
A member of the SOS Leadership Board, Hart is dedicated to preserving
a
century-plus of recorded audio heritage -- everything from speeches to
folk
songs to frog croaks.
Now archived on a variety of fragile media -- including wax
cylinders, wire,
acetate and audio tape -- the words, music and sounds are being
carefully
transferred by SOS technicians to (hopefully) more durable digital
storage
modes.
Offering a detailed look at the agonizing transfer process -- some of
the
source recordings are literally crumbling -- the film makes a
convincing case
for sonic preservation.
"The material on which these treasures were recorded are corroding
and
decomposing to the ravages of time," Hart said. "This is a race against
time
which really can never be won. But we'll fight till the bitter end, or
until we
can get as much of this material into the digital domain to preserve it
for
future generations.
"Once it's gone, it's gone forever."
One sequence in the special replays haunting post-attack interviews
with
Pearl Harbor witnesses. Another tracks Woody Guthrie's first recording
of "This
Land Is Your Land."
Not coincidentally, SOS is fund-raising to support continuing
efforts, both
on its own Web site (www.saveoursounds.org) and via a celebrity guitar
auction
on Ebay.com.
"It's really an amazing fight," Hart said. "If there were no
bluegrass or
blues or folk music, there'd be no Grateful Dead. There'd be no
Santana. There'd
be no Paul Simon. That's something that people should recognize.
"When a person starts out on his long march learning how to play an
instrument, he bases his knowledge on a body of work that comes before
him, and
then eventually he finds his own music.
"If there's no body of work, chances are the music would die."
And that would be a genuine tragedy -- for reasons we may not fully
comprehend.
"I think of music not as a luxury, but as a necessity of life on many
levels," said Hart. "Some of it could have medicinal purposes, as
healing agents
like rain forest herbs.
"There could be a cure for some kind of disease living in these
songs. I see
them in that kind of way. These are medicinal. Their entertainment
value is
secondary to me."
. . . . . . .
TV columnist Dave Walker can be reached at [log in to unmask] or
(504)
826-3429.
_________________________
SAVE OUR HISTORY: SAVE OUR SOUNDS
Thursday
7 p.m.
History
LOAD-DATE: January 6, 2003
