Former professor Art Rosenbaum (right) draws a portrait of folk musician Mabel Cawthorne more than 20 years ago.

Retired professor nominated for two Grammy Awards

Folk music contributes to album

By: JOHN BARRETT

Posted: 12/9/08

Former University art professor Art Rosenbaum taught drawing and painting from 1976 until 2006, when he retired.

But he also possesses a strong passion for folk music and has channeled that passion through his work as a field recorder - something he has been pursuing since he was in high school.

Rosenbaum's body of work in the area of field recording has brought him to a wider level of recognition. His newly released box-set compilation "Art of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years of Traditional American Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum" was recently nominated for Grammy Awards in two categories: "Best Historical Album" and "Best Album Liner Notes."

"[The] compilation is all field recordings that I've made personally over 50 years that includes different categories of folk music like rural, acoustic blues, string bands, mountain ballad singing, religious and church music," Rosenbaum said.

"A small portion of the material had been issued for small releases in the past, but most of it is previously unissued, and this compilation's purpose was to get it organized and put it out."

Field recording, which simply refers to any recording made outside of a studio environment, became an interest of Rosenbaum's early in his life.

"In high school, I wasn't attracted to pop music. I was attracted to folk music," he said. "I realized that there was some of this material out on record, but most of it was music that people make for themselves, in home or in church or for square dances," he said. "So I thought if I could find environments and people who have carried on these traditions, that's the best way to learn it."

Rosenbaum proceeded to seek out singers and musicians in his hometown, Indianapolis, who were attuned with folk music and the traditions associated with it and recorded their music on simple reel-to-reel tapes.

"I realized people like [musicologist] Alan Lomax were doing what I was doing, and it was called 'field recording' because they were outside of the studios; they were in people's living rooms or back porches," Rosenbaum said.

This stripped-down, noncommercial quality of folk music contributed greatly to his passion for field recording.

"Some of the folks I have recorded were playing for remuneration or had some sort of professional profile," he said. "But a lot of them were just down-home musicians and singers who were playing indigenous folk music."

"The Art of Field Recording Volume I" features four CDs of rural and traditional genres of music, in addition to several of his interviews with and paintings of various artists.

"My wife, Margo, is a photographer and accompanied me on a lot of these field trips, so her photographs, in addition to my artwork, are included in the book and on the cover of the box-set."

Audio engineer Mike Graves lent his talents to serve as the final helping hand for the project.

"[Graves'] specialty is sound restoration, so he takes these open-reel tapes that might have problems with age and gets a very nice natural sound out of them," Rosenbaum said.

The compilation has also gathered acclaim from both The New York Times and The New Yorker.

"It was a pretty interesting surprise," he said. "I view it as a plus for this genre of music that something like the Grammys will recognize it, because they pretty much stand for music as a business."

"And as a business, a lot of this kind of music that people make for themselves is around the edges. It may not be part of the widespread mass commercial culture, but it certainly has tremendous value and beauty."