Jimbo Mathus: still singing for Rosetta & Squirrel Nut Zippering, ep. 352

0:12[SPEAKER_00]: Hi and welcome to Basic Folk where we have on his conversations with folk musicians on the Bluegrass situation. [SPEAKER_00]: It's Cindy House. [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for joining us today. [SPEAKER_00]: Jim Bowmath is on the show very excited to get into a very interesting conversation with the front man for the squirrel nut zippers. [SPEAKER_00]: Before we do that, have you signed up for Basic Folk's newsletter? [SPEAKER_00]: It is a monthly email.

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1:07[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's get to it. [SPEAKER_00]: Frontman for squirrel nut zippers, Jimbo Mathis grew up in a house full of musicians, and by the time he was eight years old, he was sitting in on family jam sessions. [SPEAKER_00]: Jimbo dropped out of college and joined the merchant Marines and eventually settled in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. [SPEAKER_00]: He formed the squirrel nut zippers in 1993, which experienced massive success [SPEAKER_00]: The band was swept into the short-lived swing music revival featuring bands like The Brian Sets or Orchestra, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, movies like The Mask and Swingers.

1:48[SPEAKER_00]: It was a short-lived revival, but the zippers offered fans something deeper and darker. [SPEAKER_00]: that lent a life-long career for the ever-curious Mathis. [SPEAKER_00]: Right around the time the band was rising to start him, Mathis released the album Play Songs for Rosetta, under the name James Mathis and his knock-down society. [SPEAKER_00]: The album originally released in 1997, is recorded in tribute and benefit for Charlie Patton's daughter, Rosetta Patton Brown, who he grew up with.

2:22[SPEAKER_00]: Jimbo learned in his 30s that she was Charlie Stodder and that she had never received any royalties from his music. [SPEAKER_00]: There is a new vinyl addition of the album available for pre-order in a very limited run until September 30th, 2026. [SPEAKER_00]: In our conversation, Jimbo opens up about his connection to Rosetta and what he learned about Charlie Patton through his very private daughter. [SPEAKER_00]: He talks about his short film called Postcards to Rosetta, which explores the secret moments in the life of Charlie Patton.

2:55[SPEAKER_00]: and particularly the relationship he had with her. [SPEAKER_00]: The short film features Mary Annette's interpreting moments in Charlie's life. [SPEAKER_00]: It is amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: He can watch it on YouTube. [SPEAKER_00]: He comments on his ethos on genre, as well as talking about the latest girl that zippers album based on his grandfather's life as a bootlegging jute joint operator and big band promoter in the south, which Jimbo has been working on [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to take a listen to a track from Sing Roseeta, and then we'll get to our conversation with Jim Bo Mathis on Basic Folk.

3:33[SPEAKER_00]: Here's I Got Mine from Jim Bo Mathis. [SPEAKER_01]: The man thought a day's right on the floor And the things he could like to have Just as I jumped out the back door was like a man I got my hand, I got my hand Around here trying to get some good ol' at time Ever since then I've been living high Was I been living up a chicken and white? [SPEAKER_01]: I've been long through the knockdown, so sighted, but I got mine I went to town in the morning, and the people all begin to greet me They say they'd seen that galle at mine, couldn't say exactly when The man grab a turkey ride ball and neck, and the thing roll to run like hell Just as I don't think about coming like I'm mine [SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm here trying to get some goody and all that time Everything's lit up in the middle of the night I've been living on my chicken in black I've been long to knock down the side of the pack My clock's down there [SPEAKER_00]: So, Jimbo, I just want to say it is entirely unfair to try and cover everything interesting about you in one hour.

5:24[SPEAKER_00]: So, I just want to, I have a little bit of a tirade to go on. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought that I had enough covered in six pages of notes when trying to get ready for this interview. [SPEAKER_00]: Then of course, it occurred to me that the squirrel nut zippers released a double album this year. [SPEAKER_00]: which is scroll nuts at first starring in fat city, the ballad of little Tony, which is based on your grandfather's life as a bootlegger, jute joint operator and big band promoter in the south.

5:52[SPEAKER_00]: And you say you've been working on that for 30 years. [SPEAKER_00]: And while like that's a new release, it very much encompasses. [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like the majority of your artistic output, not which is not just music, by the way. [SPEAKER_00]: You have like some kind of wild true story. [SPEAKER_00]: You've come across from personal experience. [SPEAKER_00]: that you've been thinking about for decades. [SPEAKER_00]: And it seems like there must be like 1,000 projects, family stories, and creative ideas swimming around in your head.

6:22[SPEAKER_00]: Does that sound right? [SPEAKER_00]: And where do you think this drive to share these stories through your art came from? [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's right. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was curious how you were going to arrange this one-hour chat. [SPEAKER_02]: But that does say a lot about me as far as [SPEAKER_02]: loving my history and where I come from, I really appreciate the region I come from, I'm appreciating the troubles we've had and the good things we've had, how that ties to music and family and all that kind of stuff.

6:53[SPEAKER_02]: So that is an interesting way to come out with a little Tony. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, but I think it does say a lot about me. [SPEAKER_02]: I think you're correct on that, because I keep reading thinking about these things that I grew up with in these family stories. [SPEAKER_02]: I think influence my music writing a lot via jazz, blues, bluegrass, honky talk, or whatever genre. [SPEAKER_02]: It's always filtered through that family filter, that history, filter, that loving, even as a small child, [SPEAKER_02]: talking to the old people, you know, so much of what I've done has been growing up with a lot older people.

7:36[SPEAKER_02]: And learning from them, I've never ceased to amaze me. [SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm one of the old people, which is kind of cool. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and now someone's asking me about that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a way to, to, I guess, comment on your initial thoughts there. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: There's also this through line of Southern Gothic in your work, which makes sense because you are from Mississippi.

8:05[SPEAKER_00]: But what has been your relationship to Southern Gothic? [SPEAKER_00]: And why does it fit your artistic vibe? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, everything I do with music is also tied to literature, visual arts, and everything. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, as far as Southern Gothic, [SPEAKER_02]: and my estimation, and so reading of course, Faulkner. [SPEAKER_02]: But then you listen to the ballads that Bill Monroe did and all these songs I grew up with, the murder ballads, you know, and all the, the Bill Monroe stuff, the awful dreadful snake, all these little dramas, melodromas with music and also everything tends to be a little dark down here.

8:52[SPEAKER_02]: I think with the humor and dialect [SPEAKER_02]: The music too, so Jimmy Rogers of course, had some pretty dark things of gambling and prostitution Charlie Patton. [SPEAKER_02]: So the music I listen to kind of reinforce that. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not Gothic in the British sense, but I mean, like you say, the southern Gothic is kind of its own genre. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that feeds from literature and just the storytelling and the music all tied together.

9:30[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and just the good old ghost stories and stuff you grow up with, you know, the long black veil and you know how that ties to the music is pretty important. [SPEAKER_02]: I think the dark part of Bluegrass folk music is always really inspired me. [SPEAKER_00]: Can you set the scene for what music in your house look like growing up? [SPEAKER_00]: Like by the time you were eight, you were sitting in on family jam sessions. [SPEAKER_00]: So what did that scene look like?

9:58[SPEAKER_00]: And how did your family's relationship with music impact the musician that you've become? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, I've been thinking about that all day getting ready to talk to you. [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, there was everything, you know, because the music was what they call. [SPEAKER_02]: social music. [SPEAKER_02]: It was music we made for our own friends and family. [SPEAKER_02]: My father, mother, all my family there in Mississippi were pretty.

10:27[SPEAKER_02]: Got pretty wild cards. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they liked to entertain and [SPEAKER_02]: They were never professional musicians, but they were serious about their music. [SPEAKER_02]: And that was one of our serious past times that we did. [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, paint the picture. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, eight-year-old Jimbo, you know, just never going to bed, you know, the grown-ups would be out in the yard or in the garage or it's so family-of-van, all the older guys picking, spying in all the songs, I just never got bored with it and it was just there all the time and be a lot of hell-raising.

11:19[SPEAKER_02]: Because in all kind of toast like oratory like these long dirty poems and stuff that people would recite and, you know, a lot of bear drink and don't smoke and, you know, and so just me just sitting there absorbing it and they never made me go to bed. [SPEAKER_02]: my mom, my dad, my uncles, my cousins, everybody around, the kids all running around. [SPEAKER_02]: And it would just go on for hours and hours, you know, for years of my life.

11:50[SPEAKER_02]: It's the food and, you know, all the different conversations that would go on. [SPEAKER_02]: So it was never a performance for, say, [SPEAKER_02]: but it was really an art piece in my mind. [SPEAKER_02]: I wish I had cameras in those days, film cameras to actually film it, to not have to describe it to you. [SPEAKER_02]: But it was pretty free wheeling. [SPEAKER_02]: It was safe enough for a kid, you know, I was never in danger, you know.

12:16[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: It was so important, you know, in some strange way, and then they would go back to their jobs on Monday and would start over the next weekend, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, it always involves, you know, we go to family reunions where the grandparents are there, where the different larger community is gathered around, you play the old songs that they like, you know, that they know that they love the old rugged cross, whatever, you know, they want.

12:55[SPEAKER_02]: You know, cut off jeans, shorts, you know, with grown folks, you know, just, I wish I had a camera to have taken pictures of it. [SPEAKER_00]: You have to recreate it with your marionettes. [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have some photographs from the day, so if you ever want to share some on your, in your media. [SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to. [SPEAKER_02]: I'll send some to you. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've got some. [SPEAKER_02]: I've got some. [SPEAKER_02]: So thanks to picture, there are all good people, solid people, that they love music and it was just a passion.

13:27[SPEAKER_00]: And then how did that impact you as a musician? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was one of those things I always kept with me, even as I moved beyond the mandolin and the banjo and the folk music, I started wanting to start rock and roll bands. [SPEAKER_02]: pretty rapidly have moved away from this region to get more experience. [SPEAKER_02]: There was a lot of questions I needed answering. [SPEAKER_02]: Not just mostly in our art, music, visual art, theater, all this.

14:00[SPEAKER_02]: So when I moved to Chapel Hill, I was able to absorb a lot, so I was able to go to the library, get any record I wanted. [SPEAKER_02]: you know from the blues from bluegrass from folk to everything. [SPEAKER_02]: And that changed me very rapidly. [SPEAKER_02]: And then I was just so it was like a mission. [SPEAKER_02]: That's the only way I can describe it. [SPEAKER_02]: It was a mission I was on to learn everything I could about American music.

14:32[SPEAKER_02]: And there was no purpose other than it was just my obsession. [SPEAKER_00]: I read about when you moved to Chapel Hill, you discovered that you could go to UNC's library and just read and read and read. [SPEAKER_00]: And it kind of makes me wanna learn a little bit more about how do you best learn new things? [SPEAKER_00]: Because I know at one point you went to college for philosophy and you dropped out, but then you got access to this incredible library and became sort of an auto-diedactic.

15:04[SPEAKER_00]: So what kind of learner are you when it comes to learning new things? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, especially at that age, just voracious, you know, there were so many things. [SPEAKER_02]: Like I said, there were so many questions I had growing up here in this rural area. [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have access to a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: And everything in me just went to music, history, art, [SPEAKER_02]: bright lyrics in English, you know, and it's just one of those things at that time it was just unstoppable, you know, what I did and there was really no purpose and I can't stress that enough.

15:48[SPEAKER_02]: I really didn't have a plan, but everything just lined up so perfectly there. [SPEAKER_02]: And I met the people I really should have met and I read the books that met so much to me. [SPEAKER_02]: I immediately started reconnecting and realizing that my destiny was actually back here in Mississippi. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's where I ended up returning to, but it took me going up there and doing that research. [SPEAKER_02]: But at that time, I can't even, you know, the thing I'm worst at is explaining why I do things.

16:24[SPEAKER_00]: And so, right, I'll mix all those questions. [SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean, the only, no, it's not a bad question, but it's the worst, I'm worse at it, and doing explaining that than I am, and I just doing it and showing you, I don't know if that helps at all. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, when you are in the library, reading up about the music from where you're from, you said I was trying to learn and understand American music, how I fit in.

16:52[SPEAKER_00]: and what I was gonna do with it. [SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't know, I was just wondering, like you've studied and played American music all your life, all sorts of different type of American music. [SPEAKER_00]: How does that inform the way you feel about being an American? [SPEAKER_02]: Will. [SPEAKER_02]: It makes me very happy and proud, you know, I mean, that's really, that's our greatest, as far as I've been certain, I'm, among our greatest contributions is the music that we had made as a country, you know, America, that's the thing I can point to and go, this is a music where Hispanics and whites and blacks and any race, Germans, you name the race, where they've all come together.

17:36[SPEAKER_02]: and done their best work. [SPEAKER_02]: So here in the south, I have my own, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a black and white mixture down here with some Mexican influences on the music as well, you know, why I've always loved history to to find out how all these combinations have been. [SPEAKER_02]: But [SPEAKER_02]: the storytelling, the way the immigrants brought everything together, the way it still is being combined. [SPEAKER_02]: I can't sit here and tell you, Cindy, a better thing to point to and go, that's the best thing of America.

18:16[SPEAKER_02]: I truly can't, as far as arts. [SPEAKER_02]: And then so much in music like I was telling you early, the social thing. [SPEAKER_02]: So that involves cooking, talking, just interacting. [SPEAKER_02]: And so to me, that's the best thing I can point to. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was never discouraged. [SPEAKER_02]: I've worked with so many blues artists, African American artists growing up in one of my, it's probably something that I have more than a lot of musicians, my age.

18:44[SPEAKER_02]: It's just the way I'm interacted with all these different races of people, you know, to me, that's the best thing they've never looked at me as a white dude, even as the younger guy going, he's a white dude. [SPEAKER_02]: He can't play with us or we're not going to allow him. [SPEAKER_02]: They always [SPEAKER_02]: To me, that's one of the greatest things I can point to what I've accomplished in my life is working just with anybody.

19:16[SPEAKER_02]: And to me, that's probably the answer to your question. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's one about the squirrel nut zippers and being part of this short-lived swing music revival in the 90s, there were bands like Brian Setser, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, movies like the mask and swingers. [SPEAKER_00]: So squirrel nut zippers were a part of this revival and experience massive success. [SPEAKER_00]: But to me, there's always been something different. [SPEAKER_00]: about your band than the majority of those 90 swing revival bands and we were kind of talking about it earlier like there's a darkness in the squirrel nut zippers.

20:03[SPEAKER_00]: There's something like academic there like more like David Lynch less like Tim Burton and it kind of makes me feel like it was unfair that you all kind of like were swept up in that scene. [SPEAKER_00]: So how do you see the squirrel nut zippers [SPEAKER_02]: Well, some of both, but I think you're right, we were kind of ignorant of it. [SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, when I started the band, I mean, just to go back to the earlier conversation, once I relocated to Chapel Hill, I wanted to recreate that social feel of music.

20:39[SPEAKER_02]: There were a lot of bands up there at that time and had, you know, doing cutting edge, rock and roll, and all this stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: And so it was I, you know, there was always this thing in the back of my mind [SPEAKER_02]: sitting around the fish fry feeling, and that's how the zipper started, but I was intrigued at that time by American Vaudveille Jazz, and That was something I was also learning. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was still learning the blues and ragtime and all that So we were completely oblivious to any of that that was going on.

21:15[SPEAKER_02]: So getting caught up in it was fine [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, a lot of our songs were about based on, like, Edgar Allan Poe's stories and these different literary references and these strange, you know, cabaret, German cabaret references and everything. [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't feel like we were really, we never attempted to recreate anything. [SPEAKER_02]: Everything I've done, [SPEAKER_02]: I've composed my own music in that idiom.

21:46[SPEAKER_02]: I studied the idiom long enough to understand how it really worked and kind of get into the psychology. [SPEAKER_02]: of that idiom. [SPEAKER_02]: And then of course, I just being me, I start composing in that idiom. [SPEAKER_02]: And so the simplest first songs of the zippers were just me learning a few jazz chords. [SPEAKER_02]: And then concocting some nice little lyric to go with it. [SPEAKER_02]: But [SPEAKER_02]: As far as that goes, we never really, I never felt a part of that.

22:18[SPEAKER_02]: It was just timing. [SPEAKER_02]: As far as I'm concerned, we were just caught in that time. [SPEAKER_02]: So much of being, so much of being an entertainer, I think, and life on your timer is just timing. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And the timing was good. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the timing was really good. [SPEAKER_02]: And I could have never predicted that, but like it goes back to us in [SPEAKER_02]: feel like I've been on like a calling like a path like it.

22:47[SPEAKER_02]: The the biggest decisions in my life, I cannot explain why I made them exactly other than just instinct. [SPEAKER_02]: And that whole thing was just caught up in instinct. [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like we've proven ourselves as creatives in the corona zippers organization. [SPEAKER_02]: We're still here 30 something years later. [SPEAKER_02]: We're still doing the band keeps improving and growing evolving and that all jazz, vaudeville, idiom just keeps becoming easier for me, more comfortable for me.

23:20[SPEAKER_02]: But that time I was just doing it as a challenge. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I knew I could play Ville Monroe, I knew I could do a decent handed or some Charlie Patton, you know, but it was just something that I want to do outside of everything and. [SPEAKER_02]: I hope that answers the question. [SPEAKER_02]: I never mind it being a part of it because it was a success for us. [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people know us in generations ago now.

23:54[SPEAKER_02]: They were kids and things like that when we started and I still meet them in our concerts. [SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like I put a nice generational weirdness in America that I'm quite proud of that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the timing was very fortuitous because the internet was just starting up and also the thing about the school on that zippers is that I think a lot of a lot of young kind of outcast weird literary kids were able to find you because you're a part of that and that's really cool.

24:30[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we got a lot of really cool weirdos that now that now have their own kids and bring them to meet me. [SPEAKER_02]: you know, and they're quite unique and just good people. [SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, going back to my original mission of just recreating that social environment, taking that that I grew up with the folk music and just like I was saying playing in the basement, playing at the family reunions, evolving that into [SPEAKER_02]: and then having them come back and bring them.

25:05[SPEAKER_02]: Now there's a couple of two or three generations. [SPEAKER_02]: And so I feel like it's mission accomplished on that, like, you know, and it's something different, you know? [SPEAKER_02]: It's something that real weirdos can really get behind, you know? [SPEAKER_02]: And they can see the literary references. [SPEAKER_02]: They can see the Gothic references. [SPEAKER_02]: They can dig into some of these lyrics and find meaning there.

25:30[SPEAKER_02]: in sarcasm, dark humor. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm quite proud of it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's talk about play songs for Rosetta, which is coming out for the very first time on vinyl, released under the name James Mathis and his knockdown society. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'd like to say that people can pre-order the vinyl now until September 30th. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure I'll say that in the intro. [SPEAKER_00]: But [SPEAKER_00]: just want to get that in there.

25:53[SPEAKER_00]: And I hear there are only 500 copies available. [SPEAKER_00]: The album originally released in 1997 features Charlie Patton songs recorded in tribute and in benefit for his daughter, Rosetta Patton Brown, who you grew up with, and you learned in your 30s that she was Charlie's daughter and that she never received any royalties for his music. [SPEAKER_00]: So she worked with members of your extended family and I heard you explain this in a video, but I couldn't say it back.

26:22[SPEAKER_00]: So can you first explain your connection to Rosetta and where she was in your childhood? [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, she was African American woman and a very small town in the Mississippi Delta. [SPEAKER_02]: So just cotton feels around. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they came from one generation before, two generations before [SPEAKER_02]: times. [SPEAKER_02]: And one thing about Mississippi, you know, you hear the name and for a long time, I was hesitant to even back in the 80s and 90s when I was traveling.

26:53[SPEAKER_02]: I was hesitant to even mention to anyone that I was from Mississippi. [SPEAKER_02]: because of the stigma attached to it. [SPEAKER_02]: And I learned enough at that time. [SPEAKER_02]: And I had seen enough on my own to die away from that. [SPEAKER_02]: And to just not mention that. [SPEAKER_02]: But over time, I started to realize the contribution that the state our people had made. [SPEAKER_02]: And my mind started opening back up to it.

27:24[SPEAKER_02]: And I started researching, digging in well, [SPEAKER_02]: about the same time, I fell back in love, I fell in love with my state for the first time. [SPEAKER_02]: The early 90s round there is about the same time that it was revealed that Rosetta, who was the, she was the help at my aunt and uncle's house in Mississippi. [SPEAKER_02]: She was the help just like you see on the movie, the help. [SPEAKER_02]: that's like she was. [SPEAKER_02]: They were cotton farmers.

27:59[SPEAKER_02]: They were wealthier people and black and white community was very interrelated in all these strange ways. [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to explain but that's the way it was. [SPEAKER_02]: The thing about me, I never saw the race thing. [SPEAKER_02]: I never saw the color thing. [SPEAKER_02]: I always just assumed she was part of the family. [SPEAKER_02]: So that's I could talk about that a lot but for your [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's a crash course in with me and Rosetta and was with her a lot during the summer is my family and don't meet off my at Tony Carroll's house and I always just sat in the kitchen with Rosetta and so just loved her like a family member, a close personal family member, so it took me for a while to realize that this woman was [SPEAKER_02]: Charlie Patton's daughter and Charlie Patton's a great pioneer of music in this country, still on some past as far as I'm concerned.

29:03[SPEAKER_02]: But does that answer enough about the Rosetta situation? [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to go too far into it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's totally fine. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was just one of those things in the deep south that that happens. [SPEAKER_02]: I think you've seen it many times, you know, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: I think the thing that was throwing me off is that your odd name is Tony Carroll. [SPEAKER_00]: We have good nicknames in my family, and it's, and it's like two names like Tony Carol Chapin.

29:35[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yep. [SPEAKER_00]: Tony Carol. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the thing about my family, I mean, just real briefly, we were only two generations ago. [SPEAKER_02]: We were Italian immigrants in the Delta, like we didn't have connections there, either. [SPEAKER_02]: We just came in as Italians and the black and white community, really. [SPEAKER_02]: were in the same boat. [SPEAKER_02]: So you were talking about earlier about my grandfather and little Tony, how is a Duke join operator, bootleaker, and all this stuff.

30:01[SPEAKER_02]: So actually in the Italian community, the black and white, in this state were more similar than dissimilar. [SPEAKER_02]: And so we have a lot of double nicknames in the Italian side of the family, but that's Rosetta. [SPEAKER_02]: And to me, she was just part of my family, come to find out how she's connected to this American musical legacy. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's after I had already knew Charlie Patton was of the two things came together, seriously, in the early 90s.

30:43[SPEAKER_00]: And you made this short film called Postcards to Rosetta, it explores secret moments in Charlie Patton's life. [SPEAKER_00]: And in particular the relationship he had with his daughter and it features those incredible marionettes you made interpreting moments in Charlie's life. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a scene, a very touching scene where he visits Rosetta and also he writes for a couple of postcards. [SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell me about the postcards?

31:11[SPEAKER_00]: Like did she save them? [SPEAKER_00]: Did you see them? [SPEAKER_00]: What meaning did you glean from those postcards? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, so much of it, you know, at that time, you know, what's I realized this, I would start asking her about this. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, the thing to know about Roseanna, I'm a she lived in a little shotgun house with banana trees around and just in the black part of town. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, there was the tracks.

31:35[SPEAKER_02]: There was a little black part of town. [SPEAKER_02]: There was the side that Tony Carroll lived on. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, but I was always a busy visiting her like I wouldn't visit any of my relatives. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, but after I found this out, I started kind of mentioning it and I come to find notes. [SPEAKER_02]: He's very embarrassed by that by the fact that Charlie was a patent and was her father because he was a, he was basically abandoned them.

32:01[SPEAKER_02]: That was the common story, you know, a blues man. [SPEAKER_02]: I tender it blues man playing in houses and prostitution gambling. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's true. [SPEAKER_02]: But then, and that was the common way that it had been written, a lot of his life is mysterious, and a lot of it is not known. [SPEAKER_02]: But she knew more than I thought, and he would come and visit her, and she would tell me the stories about how when her dad would come to Drew, or whichever town they were living in, Duncan, he would bring his guitar, of course, like you saw in the film, [SPEAKER_02]: and like happy songs for the kids, you know, of course, there's kids everywhere in the yard, family all around.

32:50[SPEAKER_02]: There's a big deal when he came down. [SPEAKER_02]: And so he was a dad figure to our, but she wasn't someone who would have bragged about that or she wouldn't have bragged about anything, eh. [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, a blues man is considered, well, this is a deafness music in our community. [SPEAKER_02]: There was the church and there was the blues. [SPEAKER_02]: And she really saw it like that. [SPEAKER_02]: But so I spoke gently to her about it and tried to encourage her to talk to me about it.

33:23[SPEAKER_02]: And which she eventually did embrace it and realize how important he was and became proud of that. [SPEAKER_02]: But initially it was just conversations like that. [SPEAKER_02]: Like when she told me, he played skip to my lead, for the kids, you know, and then [SPEAKER_02]: the whole postcards thing I just thought of that on my own because I realized when I was making that film and he was very literate and had a lot of letters that he had written to other people and it was incredibly literate.

33:56[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think of all these travels when he's going to Wisconsin and New York and Chicago, he would write Rosetta and so I just made that up. [SPEAKER_00]: Man it seems so real. [SPEAKER_02]: It does seem real. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, we could talk for hours about him. [SPEAKER_02]: And there's still more things that mean uncovered about him. [SPEAKER_02]: It's one of the most overlooked. [SPEAKER_02]: I think pioneering just incredible pioneering artists of America in my opinion.

34:44[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's so great that you are cataloging his stories and Rosetta stories. [SPEAKER_02]: It is more things come to light. [SPEAKER_02]: I keep kind of cataloging them. [SPEAKER_00]: So you're writing these? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, just remembering, yes. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Did she ever talk about her mother or her house relationship with Charlie? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Martha also as far as that goes I didn't know Martha she was deceased before.

35:16[SPEAKER_02]: I came along. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they were very tight family, you know, in the crazy thing. [SPEAKER_02]: So Martha had one child, which is Rosetta, Rosetta had one child who's also a daughter. [SPEAKER_02]: One child, she also had one child who was a daughter. [SPEAKER_02]: And Kisha, who I'm still friends with, Kisha has two sons. [SPEAKER_02]: that are still living over there in Dunkin, one of them's a great football player in Clark Stale for the football team.

35:49[SPEAKER_02]: But I knew everybody from Rosetta down through the family, and it's still in close to Keisha, and also the great, great, great grandsons of Charlie. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a picture of Charlie's gravestone with Rosetta is in the picture, who else is in the picture. [SPEAKER_00]: John Fogretty was there because he paid for the headstone right so there must have been a point where Rosetta was no longer embarrassed by Charlie. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.

36:34[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_02]: I think it just around that time, you know, when everything started coming to light, she became proud of it, you know. [SPEAKER_02]: And by the end, she had that wonderful bills, that wonderful, the one photograph of Charlie, you know, on her mantle in her little house, [SPEAKER_02]: you know, in her backyard there. [SPEAKER_02]: And little awards and things like it, it became something she was proud of. [SPEAKER_02]: But there was a lot of overcoming to get to that point.

37:13[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, just a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: Race wise and everything. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: That's good. [SPEAKER_00]: She unpack some of that stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: She really did. [SPEAKER_02]: And she lived quite a long ways up into her 90s. [SPEAKER_02]: I was at her funeral and all that. [SPEAKER_02]: And just the kind as sweet as lady. [SPEAKER_02]: So. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So play songs for Rosetta on vinyl is going to include.

37:40[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, something called on the record, which will be a new recording of you for the first time documenting your reflection of Rosetta and what that record means to you. [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually asked Jen, if I could listen to it and she told me that you're recording it tomorrow. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm writing it. [SPEAKER_00]: You're writing it right now. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: I was wondering because I got, oh, maybe we could practice.

38:01[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how do you start and put a story like that into five minutes on a track? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: But the song froze. [SPEAKER_02]: And I did that 30 something years ago, or 30 years in 27, it'll be 30 years old. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's me. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not so much Charlie Patton. [SPEAKER_02]: It was just the impact of all that may process in that. [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of the songs on their own creations.

38:27[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know if I do any of his songs per se. [SPEAKER_00]: I manufacture that in my head, I guess. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, it's one was seemingly so, but it's actually just me processing his music and creating my own thing. [SPEAKER_02]: But it sounds quite old, even it is old. [SPEAKER_02]: But even at that time, the record sounds quite old, like it's just an artifact you could have stumbled on somewhere. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm putting off this writing assignment, [SPEAKER_02]: until the last minute.

39:03[SPEAKER_00]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: You know how we did that? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: But how do you put that kind of story into a five-minute track on the album? [SPEAKER_02]: So that'll just be a bonus track on the double album, with the original recording, plus some cool live things. [SPEAKER_02]: I did it that time with the live band we took. [SPEAKER_02]: I took that project on tour, did some dates through the south. [SPEAKER_02]: and I've got some great recordings in the very final track that will be the, I guess, so we're going to be one of the main points of this near-miss records that are reassuring these CDs that were never released.

39:45[SPEAKER_02]: They want to spoke and piece from the artist. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, regarding the thing. [SPEAKER_02]: So do you want to write it? [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah, I'll write it up in some way over. [SPEAKER_00]: It's got to be five minutes five minutes. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you got it. [SPEAKER_00]: You just take clips from this interview. [SPEAKER_00]: I love it. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it has been 30 years since this album came out. [SPEAKER_00]: How has the record changed for you?

40:23[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it... [SPEAKER_02]: It's exactly what I wanted it to be, which is kind of like a travel log like we recorded in different cities. [SPEAKER_02]: Some of it is in Clark today, some of it's in New Orleans. [SPEAKER_02]: It's combining, you know, a lot of different characters, musically, some from North Carolina, some from back here. [SPEAKER_02]: and some that are more, more bluegrass and hillbilly musicians, some that were more blues and gut bucket ragtime music, some jazz musicians from New Orleans, and it was intended to be like just a memory of this entire time.

41:04[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what it is, you know, it's like a travel log, [SPEAKER_02]: with a caravan moving across the deep south. [SPEAKER_02]: And when I hear it now, it's just, it sounds exactly like what I wanted it to sound like. [SPEAKER_02]: Some of it's recorded in some of the big parlour in a abandoned house in Clarksdale. [SPEAKER_02]: Some of it's in the back of like an ice cream [SPEAKER_02]: it a friend's house. [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, after one night, one day of recording, we went to a bar.

41:40[SPEAKER_02]: I found a horn section, brought them back to the house and recorded, you know, the horn section, portions of the record. [SPEAKER_02]: John Sinclair, the great poet and activist, you know, wandered in and he's on there. [SPEAKER_02]: Wow. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so many things here, looking back at [SPEAKER_02]: Many people on this record are not alive anymore. [SPEAKER_02]: There's four or five, I can think of right now that are not even alive anymore.

42:11[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like a travel log representation of what was happening to me artistically at that time. [SPEAKER_02]: Me trying to reconnect, forge more ties and Louisiana and crafting how to write and antique idioms. [SPEAKER_00]: Can you talk about how Rosetta encouraged you to dive deeper into the blues? [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I can, you know, it was just finding out about her. [SPEAKER_02]: The blues had been like a dirty secret, I guess. [SPEAKER_02]: You could say of mine, like, I would have never thought to even try to perform it.

42:53[SPEAKER_02]: I had been studying and learning it from records, you know, moving the needle back and forth figure and out how to play. [SPEAKER_02]: all the blue styles. [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't, like I said, I grew up in the hillbilly style. [SPEAKER_02]: So I was able to learn first hand, you know, how to do that. [SPEAKER_02]: The blue styles were more mysterious to me, but equally as intriguing, but I'd gotten fairly proficient at it, but have never really shared it that much with people.

43:19[SPEAKER_02]: And [SPEAKER_02]: you know the zippers were going ahead this other thing going like combined all these things but meeting Rosetta and then A, seeing that she was really in financial need I was at a point there where I could actually do a little something to help her you know I mean I certainly wasn't wealthy but I had [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I could pay for this record and take the record advance and give it to hurry. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and so to me, that really got me off my butt.

43:53[SPEAKER_02]: It said, okay, I want to do this. [SPEAKER_02]: Rosetta needs this. [SPEAKER_02]: This will be something that I can really be proud of forever, like it'll differentiate me from [SPEAKER_02]: anything zippers, like I'm making my own claim as far as music, as far as music goes, like, okay, I'm going to be a Mississippi musician for the rest of my life, no matter what happens with these other projects. [SPEAKER_02]: So it was like a mission statement for me too, but again, [SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, and I don't know if I would have ever done anything like that, but I'm so thankful that it happened.

44:39[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and just got me comfortable with the fact, okay, like I said earlier, I was embarrassed to say I was for Mississippi, but at that point when I did that, I'm no longer embarrassed. [SPEAKER_02]: And here we go. [SPEAKER_00]: Such a beautiful cool project. [SPEAKER_00]: So, Jimbo, you have been kind of like a chameleon when it comes to the different types of music and styles that you perform and record. [SPEAKER_00]: What is your current ethos on genre?

45:15[SPEAKER_02]: You're still the same, I'm more and more into, like music from Mexico and stuff, which I've always really been into Columbia's [SPEAKER_02]: and the curry dos and stuff, but I'm getting more and more into that. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's still the same old things and it's just me continuing to listen. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'll go back and listen to the Harry Smith stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: I'll go back and listen to Charlie Patton. [SPEAKER_02]: I'll go back and listen to Bill Monroe and still get new ideas.

45:51[SPEAKER_02]: So we may eat those. [SPEAKER_02]: Has it really changed? [SPEAKER_02]: I have more people that [SPEAKER_02]: I can reach out to and do things, you know, any time I want to do something, I can pull it together, you know, it's just so I mean, now it's almost like gotten too far like. [SPEAKER_02]: there's just not enough time right I mean my current ethos I'm working with the black keys I have a good job you know playing with them so I'm actually making a pretty decent living you know the the squirrel that zippers have been build and back up over the past 15 years building the audience back bringing new [SPEAKER_02]: points of view to that whole institution.

46:40[SPEAKER_02]: I guess you've got it now. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm ready for the next thing. [SPEAKER_02]: Somebody wants to make a record with me. [SPEAKER_02]: I got you. [SPEAKER_02]: There's no shortage. [SPEAKER_02]: Somebody wants to make a film. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm ready. [SPEAKER_02]: Somebody's like, [SPEAKER_02]: the energy level is just, it's just rocking and rolling. [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't see any change of the ethos other than I'm just more into music for Mexico now.

47:12[SPEAKER_00]: What part? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I like the the kind of the Sonoran that I like the rancher us, the oreos and stuff, really been into that. [SPEAKER_02]: And the [SPEAKER_02]: I don't see really any difference now than it was it in. [SPEAKER_02]: I've learned a lot and I've kind of mastered some things I get you could say, quote unquote, there's still more ways to combine it and more songs to write, you know, ultimately it's like, how do I put, explain myself?

47:45[SPEAKER_02]: Like I said earlier, I feel like the worst thing on that good ad is explaining myself through talking, but through music, it's easy. [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that, that's what they say. [SPEAKER_00]: Show, don't tell. [SPEAKER_00]: Here you go. [SPEAKER_02]: Never heard that. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: I want to do the lightning round before I let you go. [SPEAKER_00]: Are you up for that? [SPEAKER_02]: Sure. [SPEAKER_02]: Whatever you'd like.

48:10[SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: Here we go. [SPEAKER_00]: What is the, what is a book that everyone should read? [SPEAKER_02]: Moby Dick. [SPEAKER_00]: Mo. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: Are you read Moby Dick? [SPEAKER_00]: Cover to cover? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: What is one animal you would like to see in real life up close that you have not met yet? [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well. [SPEAKER_00]: Going with the movie team.

48:38[SPEAKER_02]: I bad. [SPEAKER_02]: I'd say just a silver bag gorilla. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, all right, what are you bringing to the pot luck? [SPEAKER_02]: Lama being salad. [SPEAKER_00]: Whoa. [SPEAKER_00]: What does your hunting outfit look like? [SPEAKER_02]: And that's pretty straightforward. [SPEAKER_02]: Just some car heart govrawls and, you know, to bog and let me back up. [SPEAKER_02]: What type of hunting? [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, crossbow. [SPEAKER_02]: It's in the lightning ramp, crossbow.

49:17[SPEAKER_02]: That's an interesting question. [SPEAKER_02]: Do you want a real answer or a fun answer? [SPEAKER_00]: A real answer. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, I'm going to come up. [SPEAKER_00]: Cameo. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, depends on the terrain, you know, brown agree. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: Not orange, not bright orange? [SPEAKER_02]: No, no safety. [SPEAKER_02]: No. [SPEAKER_02]: No safety. [SPEAKER_00]: Life on the edge. [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

49:42[SPEAKER_00]: Aside from Tony Carroll, who is your favorite person in your family? [SPEAKER_02]: Wow, that's a tough one. [SPEAKER_02]: Currently, I'd say Rani DiMilio is the last of the old school Italians that are still alive, that I'd say Rani DiMilio. [SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, this is the last one. [SPEAKER_00]: Where is your preferred swimming spot? [SPEAKER_02]: To Missy River. [SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, really good. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Cindy.

50:20[SPEAKER_02]: I really appreciate it. [SPEAKER_02]: Y'all are great. [SPEAKER_02]: We listen to your thumb of your podcast, baby. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, really? [SPEAKER_02]: You guys sound great. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: Wonderful. [SPEAKER_02]: I'll start following you too and listening. [SPEAKER_02]: So, we really appreciate it. [SPEAKER_00]: This episode of Basic Folk was produced by Anthony Cabrera, Dietrich Strauss, Composes our Music.

50:39[SPEAKER_00]: Basic Folk is a production of the Bluegrass situation. [SPEAKER_00]: You can find all of our episodes there. [SPEAKER_00]: You can check out Basic Folk.com. [SPEAKER_00]: You can search for Basic Folk on the Series XM app, find us on folkalley.com or Folkalley's mobile app, or you can get us wherever you listen to your shows. [SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest sharing it with a friend, perhaps that friend you had from high school that you were always going thrift store shopping with and thinking about buying manic panic at hot topic, but maybe you never did it because you weren't brave enough, but you really did love the squirrel nut zippers.

51:18[SPEAKER_00]: Send it to that friend. [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening all the way to the end. [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Ian next time. [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, bye.