Genius of the Seventh Ward (Louis Vasnier)

Catalogue number: ARCH SPV-0702-241

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  Genius of the Seventh Ward (Louis Vasnier)

  Thirty years before some fiddlers from Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia started recording a new genre of music called “hillbilly,” a Creole of color from the Seventh Ward of New Orleans named Louis Vasnier (1858–1902) beat them to the punch. Recorded in 1891, “Thompson’s Old Gray Mule” is the most raucous version of a song that, better known as “Johnson’s Old Gray Mule,” would enter the country music canon. But Vasnier did more than give us what is arguably the oldest country record in existence. For the short-lived Louisiana Phonograph Company he also waxed sermons by a fictional preacher named Brudder Rasmus, and “Adam and Eve and de Winter Apple” joins “Thompson” on this 45-rpm vinyl single. Vasnier’s two surviving cylinders are the earliest extant sounds from New Orleans. In them, he summons up the atmosphere and the culture of the Crescent City during the time Buddy Bolden was still a teenager. This collection includes a 16-page booklet with notes and new research by Richard Martin that provides a deeper understanding of these recordings, the history of the Louisiana Phonograph Company, and significant new findings on the life and times of Louis “Bebe” Vasnier.

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