One evening in 1965 my friend Marc Silber brought Mance Lipscomb whom he had known for years to my home on Manhattan's West 86th Street for dinner and to record a few tunes. Marc had brought along his Gibson 1937 Advanced Jumbo which Mance played for us and reminisced while I recorded him on my Bell reel-to-reel tape recorder. These 15 tracks are the result of that evening's recording session.
Dick Abrams
Chicago, 2023
00:00 So Different Blues
05:35 Shine On Harvest Moon
07:30 Gotta See Your Mama
11:50 Goin Down Slow
15:40 Baby Please Don't Go
21:05 Stop Time
22:50 Shorty George
25:40 Tell Me, Baby
28:30 I Ain't Got Nobody
30:05 Shake Me, Mama
34:00 It's All Over Now
36:50 Darktown Strutter's Ball
39:00 Night Time is the Right Time
43:50 Nobody's Business
47:00 Ain't It Hard
MARC SILBER'S PERSONAL RECOLLECTION OF THE SESSION:
Soon after I first came to Berkeley in the Summer of 1961 and was learning folk music I discovered Jon and Deirdre Lundberg's Fretted Instrument shop on Dwight Way. This was a daily hang-out for folkies and instrument lovers.
One day a man came in and said he had started a record company and asked Jon if he would sell the first album he produced. That was Chris Strachwicz and he had discovered Mance Lipscomb on a trip to Texas.
Soon Mance came to the Bay Area and we got to meet him and hear him make music and he was the nicest person and also a very deep person. Mance would appear at Folk Music venues and Folk Festivals and he eventually came to New York City where in November, 1963, I had opened a small Instrument shop in Greenwich Village in the style of Lundberg's, called Fretted Instruments. Mance would hang out there when he came to New York and it was a great blessing for all of us.
On one of these visits I took him to the home of someone immersed in blues and old-timey music and who collected vintage instruments, and that was Richard Abrams. Richard made a recording of Mance one evening on a reel to reel tape recorder. These recordings have now resurfaced as RIchard is making them available to the Public. This is a blessing and falls into a category I call RESCUED MUSIC.
I could tell many stories of my time hanging out with Mance Lipscomb and how he was always gentle, positive, very natural, and deep.
Eventually, a film-maker associated with Chris Strachwicz made a 44 min. documentary about Mance called "A Well-Spent Life" (Les Blank, Flower Films, 1971).
I will close with something that was quoted from Mance by a writer who asked him if Mance was his born name. Mance said no, my born name cause trouble where I lived so we did not use it. And what was that name asked this writer? EMANCIPATION LIPSCOMB.
1965 1/4" audio tape was digitized, edited, illustrated, and mastered by S.E Winters (wallpapermusique)