A CONVERSATION WITH JORMA KAUKONEN  (cont.)

JK: When we started this project, I started listening to a bunch of scratchy old records I hadn't listened to in years.

PM: Yeah, a lot of my teenage years were wrapped up in scratchy records.

JK: We were talking about that the other day. People these days have a real hard time listening to that unless they're investigating the music, because they're so accustomed to the "perfection" of CDs.

PM: Zeros and ones.

JK: Speaking of that, this is a 5.1 SA-CD recording, that new SONY thing.

PM: I'm ignorant of it, can you wax on?

JK: No, we'd need Jerry, he's got all the figures and info on it. It's got some ungodly sampling rate. Apparently, you need to buy a new gadget to get the most out of it. But the sampling rate is so high that it puts back in the "air" that used to be in vinyl that disappeared with the digital revolution.

PM: How'd they do that?

JK: I haven't heard it yet, so I can't swear to it, but I am gonna try and induce them to give me one. [laughter] The Robert Johnson recordings will come out again on yet another format.

PM: It's almost weird, the interest that erupted over those recordings, when Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Arthur Blake are still so relatively unknown.

JK: Well, you know, so much has to do with Columbia picking it up and re-releasing it, it was a John Hammond Sr. thing. And they made it readily accessible, a record you could pick up anywhere. I remember when I got to Antioch College, John Hammond went there, too, and I was learning the Reverend Gary Davis stuff. John had these reel to reel tapes of what became that Robert Johnson album. We all listened to it, and thought "That's way too weird." [laughter]

PM: So, were you and John friends at Antioch?

JK: Oh yeah. We threw up on each other, it was great.

PM: I gotta get that CD of Tom Waits tunes that Hammond did.

JK: Now that's great, a stroke of genius. Tom did a great job of producing that album, because he let John be John. The band is terrific, and John does his own thing with the tunes. The band really swings. John's another very lucid fellow.

PM: Well, Jorma, it's so nice to see you in Nashville. I hope you'll come again soon.

JK: I'll be back in two weeks to mix, email me. How's your brother Billy doing? [My brother and Jorma have been on the road together a bunch. Billy's a great songwriter and slide player in Europe, we've played together a lot of our lives. Jorma and I talked about each of our brothers, his brother Peter is also a fine musician.]

PM: So, what goals still lie ahead?  continue

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