Spring Break
Retired professor nominated for two Grammy Awards
Folk music contributes to album
JOHN BARRETT
Issue date: 12/9/08 Section: Variety
This stripped-down, noncommercial quality of folk music contributed greatly to his passion for field recording.
"Some of the folks I have recorded were playing for remuneration or had some sort of professional profile," he said. "But a lot of them were just down-home musicians and singers who were playing indigenous folk music."
"The Art of Field Recording Volume I" features four CDs of rural and traditional genres of music, in addition to several of his interviews with and paintings of various artists.
"My wife, Margo, is a photographer and accompanied me on a lot of these field trips, so her photographs, in addition to my artwork, are included in the book and on the cover of the box-set."
Audio engineer Mike Graves lent his talents to serve as the final helping hand for the project.
"[Graves'] specialty is sound restoration, so he takes these open-reel tapes that might have problems with age and gets a very nice natural sound out of them," Rosenbaum said.
The compilation has also gathered acclaim from both The New York Times and The New Yorker.
"It was a pretty interesting surprise," he said. "I view it as a plus for this genre of music that something like the Grammys will recognize it, because they pretty much stand for music as a business."
"And as a business, a lot of this kind of music that people make for themselves is around the edges. It may not be part of the widespread mass commercial culture, but it certainly has tremendous value and beauty."
"Some of the folks I have recorded were playing for remuneration or had some sort of professional profile," he said. "But a lot of them were just down-home musicians and singers who were playing indigenous folk music."
"The Art of Field Recording Volume I" features four CDs of rural and traditional genres of music, in addition to several of his interviews with and paintings of various artists.
"My wife, Margo, is a photographer and accompanied me on a lot of these field trips, so her photographs, in addition to my artwork, are included in the book and on the cover of the box-set."
Audio engineer Mike Graves lent his talents to serve as the final helping hand for the project.
"[Graves'] specialty is sound restoration, so he takes these open-reel tapes that might have problems with age and gets a very nice natural sound out of them," Rosenbaum said.
The compilation has also gathered acclaim from both The New York Times and The New Yorker.
"It was a pretty interesting surprise," he said. "I view it as a plus for this genre of music that something like the Grammys will recognize it, because they pretty much stand for music as a business."
"And as a business, a lot of this kind of music that people make for themselves is around the edges. It may not be part of the widespread mass commercial culture, but it certainly has tremendous value and beauty."
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