Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Friday 15 June 2018
Tiny Dust-to-Digital record label gathers big attention

By DON SCHANCHE Jr. broadcast back to Africa
Associated Press and transmuted again.
ATLANTA (AP) — When Like many other Dust-to-
college student and roots Digital products, these are
music fan Lance Ledbet- highly visual as well as au-
ter grew frustrated at the dible works of art.
near impossibility of buying The "Voices of Mississippi"
78 rpm gospel records from box set consists of three
the 1920s and '30s, he be- CDs and a DVD of docu-
gan to ponder a question: mentary material pro-
What would it take to reis- duced by Ferris, along with
sue those old tunes and put a 119-page hardcover
them in stores? book containing essays
Answering that question on Ferris' work, lyrics to the
has become a career for songs and photos made by
Ledbetter and his wife, Ferris. "Listen All Around" is
April, at their record label, entirely contained in an il-
Dust-to-Digital . lustrated hardcover book,
Since its first release in 2003, with two CDs tucked in the
the tiny company run from front and back.
their modest brick house in The label's first release,
a quiet Atlanta neighbor- "Goodbye Babylon," was
hood has become a pow- a mammoth six-CD set —
erhouse in the niche mar- five CDs of songs and one
ket of music that's been of sermons — packaged
gathering dust, waiting in a cedar box along with
to find or regain an audi- a book and bolls of cotton
ence: antique 78 record- from Lance Ledbetter's un-
ings of blues, gospel, jazz cle's farm.
and other styles, along with Drawn from the stashes of
musicologists' field record- In this Friday, May 25, 2018 photo, a copy of "Voices of Mississippi," a box set of recordings re- 78 rpm collectors — the
ings of rural musicians and leased by Dust-To-Digital, is shown in Atlanta. only place much of the
indigenous people all over Associated Press material was still preserved
the world. — "Goodbye Babylon" took
Nine of the label's releases things that are otherwise ers of folk music in the mod- can roots music he grew up the couple four and a half
have been nominated for hard to physically hear or ern world, and they do it all hearing and later record- years to produce, from the
Grammy Awards, and one mentally wrap your head from the basement of their ing in his native Mississippi. time Lance envisioned it
actually won. around." little brick house." "His parents had a working during their engagement
They cover an eye-pop- In the indie music maga- This month brings two new farm. He was actually hear- until it was released in 2004
ping musical territory, span- zine Pitchfork, music writer releases: collections of field ing it steps away from the and quickly garnered a
ning rural American blues Amanda Petrusich has writ- recordings in Mississippi and house he lived in," Lance Grammy nomination.
and gospel, traditional Mo- ten that it's "astounding from central and eastern Ledbetter said. His biggest moment came
roccan songs , Sacred Harp how essential . Dust-to-Dig- Africa. The second June release, while listening to a National
shape-note hymns, throat ital has been to the preser- The Mississippi material rep- "Listen All Around," rep- Public Radio segment in
singing in the Tuva region vation of traditional Ameri- resents another coup for resents 1950s recordings which rocker Neil Young
northwest of Mongolia, sto- can folksong." the Ledbetters, whose earli- made by British musicolo- touted "Goodbye Babylon"
rytelling and a host of other And Chuck Reece, edi- er releases "Goodbye Bab- gist Hugh Tracey in cen- and said he'd been given a
genres. tor of The Bitter Southerner ylon" and "The Art of Field tral and eastern Africa. It's copy by Bob Dylan.
A unifying theme ties them online magazine wrote Recording , Vol. 1" gained pop music, Lance Ledbet- "I thought I was going to
together, April Ledbetter recently that, "Lance and widespread notice. ter said, reflecting Ameri- faint," Ledbetter said. "I
said: "I think it's creating April Ledbetter are perhaps "Voices of Mississippi" was can music shaped by Afri- think that was actually the
context and access for the most important preserv- assembled from decades can-American roots, then high point."q
of field recordings by mu-
sicologist, academic and
documentary filmmaker
William Ferris. The material
was drawn from his archives
in the Southern Folklife Col-
lection at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel
Hill.
The Yale-educated Ferris
helped develop the aca-
demic field of Southern
studies, serving as found-
ing director of the Center
for the Study of Southern
Culture at the University of In this Tuesday, May 29, 2018 photo, box sets of the Dust-To-
In this Tuesday, May 29, 2018 photo, Lance Ledbetter holds a Mississippi and later teach- Digital 2003 release "Goodbye, Babylon," a collection of songs
piece of folk art in the shape of a skull as his wife, April, looks on ing at UNC. But his work and sermons, are seen at the home of Lance and April Ledbet-
at their home in Atlanta. ter in Atlanta.
Associated Press all stemmed from an early Associated Press
love for the African-Ameri-