#almeda riddle

[thedickcavettshow]

Joan Baez at the Berkeley Folk Music Festival, 1964

[diseducattivo]

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: The Body

Chip King and Lee Buford have been emanating waves of blackened emotion as The Body since 1999 when they formed in Providence, RI. Since then they relocated to Portland, OR and during the last few years have embarked on a frenzy of activity. With extensive touring and collaborations with (among others) Wrekmeister Harmonies, The Haxan Cloak, Krieg, Thou and Sandworm, they capped things off with No One Deserves Happiness (Thrill Jockey). Released last year, the album was widely acclaimed, and for good reason. Setting out, as they said, to "make the grossest pop album of all time", The Body drew on collaborators in the studio to blend pop, beats, metal, doom, and noise into an oppressive yet utterly compelling vision of inner torment and drama. Here, Lee Buford of The Body offers Dusted readers some pointers to what inspires him.

The Weeknd — Trilogy

Chip and I don't always listen to the same stuff but The Weeknd is something we both love. The production is insane plus even the songs about partying are so crushingly sad. It's nice to see nihilism played out over a Siouxsie and the Banshees sample instead of some ding dong in corpse paint playing third rate dark throne riffs. 

Bohumil Hrabal — Too Loud a Solitude

The story of a man who compacts paper and reads all day long to gain some semblance of reasoning to the world. Can only relate to humanity by its greatest accomplishments, literature and art but is conflicted living in the real world with regular ass people who don't appreciate beauty. So basically a metaphor for every modern music scene. 

Anna Ahkmatova — Complete Poems

On "I Shall Die Here" we got our friend Kathryn to read "The Last Toast" on one of the songs. Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva are both hugely influential in that they write very plainly but it conveys so much. Maybe that's a Russian thing? I don't know enough about Russian literature to say. 

Goethe — Sorrows of Young Werther

A book about a guy who's in love with a woman who will never love him in the same way.  Ends in suicide. Basically 150 pages of a guy who can't understand how to live in the world, so pretty much the same as every Body song. 

The Cure — Pornography

We both grew up in the 1980s, so our musical upbringing is a pretty big mix of everything.  My first band was a Cure cover band and Chip lived in Europe for awhile when he was a kid. We grew up with The Cure and never stopped loving them. 

Neurosis — Through Silver in Blood

When we started, Neurosis was a definite touchstone for everything we did. The percussion and use of samples appealed to us in a big way. After playing shows with them and meeting them I gotta say I love them even more than when I was younger. Genuine super nice guys that still make innovative music. It's something I think every band should aspire to. 

The Providence music scene 

We moved to Providence after a few years of the band being together and it probably is the one thing that has had the most immediate influence on us. That's where we met most of the people who play on the records with us and also where we record everything still. The beauty of the music scene there is that it's isolated enough that there's a camaraderie that doesn't exist in most cities. The talent there is astounding too so it pushes everyone to insane levels in every creative aspect. It's really inspiring.    

Electric Light Orchestra

ELO has a way of putting a million instruments on a song without any of it sounding superfluous.

Almeda Riddle

A fellow Arkansan but with the voice of an angel. Her style is simple and to the point. Reminds me of all the good things I love about the south.

Chrissy Wolpert

Chrissy has been on every record we've done except the first one I think. It's hard to imagine us recording without her. She's an invaluable member and friend.

[curseofmeatthawsmoth]

I've heard Mike Seeger sing this anti-war hymn to autoharp accompaniment a few times. He always credited Arkansas ballad singer Almeda Riddle as his source, but I've only recently heard her own version of it. This song was written immediately before the First World War by a certain William Ramsey (sp?); Mrs. Riddle was 80 years old in 1980, so born circa 1900.

Dear Heavenly Father, would Thou deign to hear us And order all warfare to cease? Oh grant, gracious Father, the ushering in Of the dawning of worldwide peace

Chorus: Peace, peace, Sweet dove of peace let your white wings encircle our globe Oh, God, how we pray and hope each day For the dawning of worldwide peace

Save from the slaughter of bloodthirsty rulers Our fathers, brothers, husbands, and our sons; Grant that sweet rivers of peace may soon flow Where the blood of our own now runs

Oh grant that all nations will ground arms of war And return to the great Prince of Peace Relying on Him to preserve and protect them That warfare and strife will cease Beating their weapons of war into plowshares And sowing the battlefields in wheat Feeding the hungry of every nation And living at last in peace

Here are some of Almeda's comments about the song that I've transcribed from a few different sources: "[The song] meant a lot to us. It still means a lot to me.... Since then I have lived through four wars. And I'm only 80 years old, that means about every 20 years we have one. I've seen my husband, my sons, my grandsons... and now if we go into it, I have a great-grandson that's 17. And I'm tired of war. So this is my prayer." "I was born during the Spanish-American War. And I was a young lady during World War One, and the Korean War.... I have lived through four wars.... And I wish that, during my lifetime - there's always been talk of war, or war - that I could just live long enough to see every nation in peace.... That's my prayer daily."

"I get to thinking of the battlefields over in Europe as I've heard the boys of World War One and Two describe them to me, especially Flanders Field.... and I think of how beautiful it would've been if they'd been sowing that wheat...."

[one-cd-at-a-time]

Southern Journey  Volume 6 (Sheep, Sheep Don’tcha Know The Road)

Almeda Riddle (The House Carpenter)

This song is haunting and beautiful

[historybetweenthepages]

Almeda Riddle - Black Jack Davey - Songcatcher II

Almeda Riddle sings in old-timey, mountain style. She learned music from her father, and many of her songs go back to the Middle Ages. She h

1964

[these-summer-nights-in-december]

She was cutting hay while the north wind blows Down in Arkansas The sickle slipped and it cut off her nose Down in Arkansas

The doctor put it on but upside down Down in Arkansas Now when it rains she almost drowns Down in Arkansas

“Down in Arkansas,” sung by Almeda Riddle, recorded 1959

[kindastetchy]