{"product_id":"various-artists-playing-for-the-man-at-the-door-field-recordings-6lp","title":"Various Artists - Playing For The Man At The Door: Field Recordings [6LP]","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the 1950s and 60s, the blues was the dominant form of Black vernacular music throughout Texas and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ethe surrounding areas. In segregated neighborhoods, community members gathered in saloons, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003edancehalls, and each other’s homes to hear their neighbors sing their stories of sorrow, heartbreak, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ejubilation, and triumph. Robert “Mack” McCormick, an academically untrained but fanatical devotee of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ethe blues, stepped into this world and became one of its most devout advocates and documentarians. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBy photographing Black and Latino Texans and their neighborhoods, as well as recording and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003einterviewing musicians—many of whom never stepped foot into a proper recording studio—McCormick \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eendeared and eventually embedded himself into these communities. By the time he died in 2015, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMcCormick had amassed a collection of 590 reels of sound recordings and 165 boxes of manuscripts, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eoriginal interviews and research notes, thousands of photographs and negatives, playbills, and posters. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBecause McCormick never published or released most of these materials, his collection became a thing \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eof legend and intense speculation among scholars, blues aficionados, and musicians alike.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePlaying for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958–1971 is \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ethe first compilation of music drawn from this fabled collection, which indelibly documents a pivotal \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003emoment in African American history. It features never-before-heard performances not only from \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003emusicians who became icons in their own right—including Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb—but \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ealso, crucially, performers whose names may be unfamiliar to even the most devoted blues fans and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003escholars. Newly mastered recordings and accompanying photographs bring to life many of these \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eforgotten figures: offering insight into their lives and illuminating in new, enlightening ways their joys \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eand anguish, deep social connections, distinctive voices, and cultural networks. The collection spans \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003egospels, ragtime, country blues dirges, the unclassifiable music of George “Bongo Joe” Coleman, and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003emore, showing that no community, no matter how tight knit, is monolithic. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAccompanying the music is a 128-page book, which contains breathtaking photographs by McCormick \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eand his associates, as well as contextual essays by producers Jeff Place and John Troutman on \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMcCormick’s life, and by musicians Mark Puryear and Dom Flemons on some of the marginalized \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ecommunities throughout “Greater Texas” to which McCormick devoted his life’s work. This release is a \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003epartnership with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cdiv data-bt-autogen\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUPC:\u003c\/strong\u003e 093074026014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLabel:\u003c\/strong\u003e Smithsonian Folkways\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRelease Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9.8.23\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Vinyl\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Smithsonian Folkways","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52027897217255,"sku":"93314","price":129.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0625\/2481\/7639\/files\/4178748-2940565.jpg?v=1777664349","url":"https:\/\/monumentsinruin.com\/products\/various-artists-playing-for-the-man-at-the-door-field-recordings-6lp","provider":"Monuments in Ruin","version":"1.0","type":"link"}