#286 Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music w/ David Menconi
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
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Summary
From its founding in 1970, Rounder Records was different. What started as the passion project for three New England music lovers who wanted to preserve and proselytize folk and roots music, eventually grew into a record label with an eclectic catalogue featuring long-forgotten bands, promising musicians such as George Thorogood and Allison Krauss, and even an album just called "Hollerin'" (which is exactly what it says it is). Along the way, Rounder Records became indispensable in transforming American folk music. In this episode, we learn more about the history of Rounder Records from music historian David Menconi, author of the new book Oh, Didn't They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music (UNC Press, 2023).
You can hear David Menconi's playlist of key tracks from the Rounder catalogue on Spotify by clicking here.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Bob Crawford. |
| 0:06.3 | I'm Ben Sawyer. |
| 0:07.5 | And this is The Road to Now. |
| 0:09.5 | Bob, when I picked up David Minkoni, our guest today, when I picked up his book and started reading it, I was like, this is perfect timing. |
| 0:21.0 | I mean, we walked away from our conversation about Americana with so many, like we had so many |
| 0:26.9 | big questions we wanted to answer. |
| 0:29.0 | And going to this book, it was like, what that? |
| 0:32.2 | Oh, okay, this makes sense. |
| 0:33.3 | Oh, my God, these connections. |
| 0:34.2 | And it ties all this together. |
| 0:36.7 | And as Bob was just saying, |
| 0:38.7 | this book right here, you could not at all be interested in the music. And the idea that some |
| 0:45.0 | kids from New England, one of which is fascinated with the history of Russian anarchism. |
| 0:51.1 | I knew you would like that, Ben. |
| 0:52.9 | Roll down to the south and create a movement in music. |
| 0:57.4 | You would still love this. David Minkoni, welcome to the road to now. Well, I had to be here. |
| 1:01.9 | Thank you. I just say welcome back. You've been here before. It's great to have you. |
| 1:05.7 | Great to be back. Indeed. And your, your latest book that we're talking about is, oh, didn't they ramble? |
| 1:12.7 | And it's a history of Rounder Records. |
| 1:15.7 | It is. |
| 1:16.5 | The noted Fokin Bluegrass label that started up in Massachusetts, some years ago. |
| 1:21.1 | So just the first question I had when I was reading this, I was like, this is incredible. |
... |
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