Chris Strachwitz

The president from the Arhoolie Records label, folklorist and producer Chris Strachwitz, was being among the most prominent and influential champions of global roots music; primarily focusing mainly on American customs like the blues, Cajun, Tejano, zydeco, nation, and jazz, he afterwards branched away to explore music from across the world, protecting our shared ethnic heritage for potential years to explore. Delivered July 1, 1931 in Gross Reichenau, Germany, Strachwitz relocated towards the U.S. in 1947, and started collecting 78 rpm recordings a short while later. After initial becoming enthusiastic about New Orleans jazz, his passions quickly extended into nation, gospel, and Mexican ranchera music. While participating in Pomona College through the early ’50s, Strachwitz bought his initial tape recorder, documenting radio applications and live shows by the institution jazz music group; he later fulfilled record manufacturer Bob Geddins, learning from him steps to make correct recordings. After concluding a stint in the U.S. Military, Strachwitz resolved in the Los Gatos, CA region in 1956 and started a teaching profession. He made a decision to type his personal label in 1959, the entire year he produced his 1st visit to the American South and fulfilled his idol, Lightnin’ Hopkins. Although his programs to fully capture Hopkins throughout a live juke joint day by no means materialized, Strachwitz quickly produced his 1st recordings of Mance Lipscomb, issuing the LP Tx Sharecropper & Songster within an release of 250 on November 3, 1960. The name Arhoolie was recommended by friend Mack McCormick and influenced by “hoolie,” a term apparently synonymous having a field holler. A following research trip resulted in Strachwitz’s 1st meetings with Dark Ace, Li’l Child Jackson, and Alex Moore, most of whom he documented; he quit teaching in 1962 and scraped out a full time income selling Arhoolie produces, with desire for the label buoyed from the folk music growth of the first ’60s. Many years later, in trade for documenting the “PERSONALLY I THINK Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” for Nation Joe & the Seafood, Strachwitz maintained 50-percent from the song’s posting rights; its following use around the soundtrack from the film Woodstock produced him significant amounts of cash, with the gains funneled into purchasing the Un Cerrito, CA building which offered as Arhoolie’s house for another many decades. Strachwitz shifted to record materials by Mississippi Fred McDowell, Clifton Chenier, and Flaco Jiminez, whose Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio LP earned the label a Grammy prize. Another of Arhoolie’s biggest discoveries was Michael Doucet and his Cajun group Beausoleil, lengthy among the company’s best-sellers. Furthermore to placing out a large number of brand-new roots music information each year, in 1976 Strachwitz shifted into other mass media, teaming with filmmaker Les Empty for the documentary Chulas Fronteras. Under Strachwitz’s assistance, Arhoolie continuing to prosper through the entire years which implemented, its continuing function in the preservation of “down-home music” guaranteed.