Dust to Digital, the Atlanta-based juggernaut label headed by wunderkind Lance Ledbetter continues to continue...and I mean in large southern culture chunks. Just look...FOUR projects now ready for your holiday shopping, and each anxiously awaited here. Yes, there is still Christmas for adults, and this label proves it. Again and again.
Let's face it...you can't open a download Christmas morning. Put your hands on something! At Dust to Digital physical objects of artistic beauty and quality persist...and now is a particularly rich and fertile time to consider their projects. All are affordable and all will be appreciated by anyone you purchase them for. Buy Now. Simple as that. Seriously.
Let Your Feet Do The Talkin’ tells the story of 70-year-old buckdancing legend Thomas Maupin and examines music’s ability to form and to strengthen relationships and to lift us above our circumstances. Baby, How Can It Be? is a three-CD set from the 78 rpm record collection of John Heneghan with liner notes by Nick Tosches and a centerfold illustration by R. Crumb. The discs are organized by theme: Love, Lust and Contempt. The Hurricane that Hit Atlanta is a two-CD collection of archival recordings from Rev. Johnny L. "Hurricane" Jones. Culled from more than 1,000 tapes going back to 1957, every track on this set is available to the public for the very first time. Ten Thousand Points of Light is a documentary film that should be added to everyone's annual holiday playlist. The wry, understated and terrifically funny look at the Townsends, a suburban Atlanta family who, every holiday season for eight years, transformed their Stone Mountain area brick ranch house into a meteoric blaze of Christmas lights is available on DVD for the first time.
This weekend, Lance Ledbetter, Co-Producer and I find out if we win a Grammy for our Book/CD release Take Me to the Water Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography in the Best Historical Release category. The competition is stiff, the other nominees deserving... but we are proud of the contribution we've made and can hope for the best! Copies of the book are avaliable from the publisher Dust-to-Digital and Amazon.In the meantime, one the last photographs I have of a water immersion baptism. A mass-baptizing of Jehovah Witnesses on Long Island taken in 1946. It is not in the book, but maybe I'll be able to get it into the show! The Original photographs I collected were donated to the International Center of Photography in New York City and they will be exhibited there this year. Stay Tuned for updates. WISH US LUCK.Anonymous Press Photograph, 1946 "Group Baptism of Jehovah Witnesses" Collection Jim Linderman
Take Me to the Water receives Grammy nomination for Best Historical Album
"Best Historical Album is a Grammy category that never attracts much attention, but the nominees are usually excellent. This year is no exception: Among them are the Little Walter Chess recordings and a Sophie Tucker collection from the folks at Champaign-Urbana’s great Archeophone label. The excellent Dust-to-Digital label is a regular presence among the nominees, and this year it’s up for a fascinating package called Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950.
The 8.75" x 6" hardbound book includes a gorgeous collection of rare photos of riverside baptisms by both white and black congregations, taken from the collection of Jim Linderman; there’s also a terrific essay by Luc Sante. Accompanying the images is a wonderful CD featuring black gospel, blues, and old-timey country songs that touch on baptism—including tracks by ubiquitous preacher Reverend J.M. Gates, quirky gospel singer Washington Phillips (who also played a fretless zither he built himself and called a Dolceola), the Carter Family, and J.E. Mainer’s Mountaineers. I don’t really think that baptism songs comprise a truly important genre, but the practice itself is obviously a huge part of religious life, and immersion baptism is still practiced today in the U.S. So while this may seem like a rather esoteric subject for a Grammy bid, that doesn’t make the music (or the photos) any less compelling." — Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader
http://www.dust-digital.com/
December 3, 2009, Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography 1890–1950
Steven Lance Ledbetter & Jim Linderman, compilation producers; Robert Vosgien, mastering engineer (Various Artists)
[Dust-To-Digital] was nominated for a Grammy award, Category 24 "Best Historical Album"
PUBLISHER
REVIEWS, FILM
