John Cohen (musician)
The Ramblers introduced young urban folk music fans to the work of rural performers such as Dock Boggs, Elizabeth Cotten and Blind Alfred Reed.
"[3] Cohen described the outlook of the Ramblers: “We made it possible for urban-based musicians to step out of the demands of the music business and look out into America to get in touch with the genuine energy, drive and craziness out there.”[4] Rather than pursuing commercial success through a polished sound, Cohen and the Ramblers undertook numerous research field trips to the South.
It illustrates how music and religion helped people in the Appalachian region maintain hope and traditions during hard times.
In 1962, Cohen returned to Kentucky, where he spent six weeks filming the documentary The High Lonesome Sound which centred on Roscoe Holcomb.
They produced a string of concerts featuring traditional musicians in New York in the 1960s[1] In 1959 he worked as an assistant photographer to Robert Frank and participated in the production of his film Pull My Daisy, the Beat Generation film directed by Frank and Alfred Leslie, written by Jack Kerouac and featuring Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, David Amram, and Gregory Corso.
He photographed poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso; painters Franz Kline and Red Grooms; and a young Bob Dylan, who had just arrived in the city.
Influenced by Frank, Cohen photographed the Abstract Expressionist painters and Beat writers who congregated in artists' studios and at the Cedar Tavern.
[1] John made 15 films, including The High Lonesome Sound (1963), Sara and Maybelle: The Carter Family (1981), and Mountain Music of Peru (1984).
He himself was the subject of the Smithsonian Channel's 2009 film Play On, John: A Life in Music In spring 1959, Cohen went to Hazard, Kentucky in search of traditional musicians.
Steve Leggett wrote in AllMusic that the record is "not so much a redefinition of Appalachian music as it is an attempt to enter it fully and completely.
[11] Cohen's archive includes interviews with Harry Smith, Roger McGuinn, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Gary Davis and Roscoe Holcomb.
The photographs include these artists and Willie Dixon, Woody Guthrie, Alan Lomax, Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, Merle Travis, Muddy Waters and many others.
The artists included ballad singer Dillard Chandler, “Singing Miner” George Davis, and Roscoe Holcomb.
Most of John's recordings of Roscoe can be heard on two Smithsonian Folkways CDs, The High Lonesome Sound and An Untamed Sense of Control.
