:57:01
I didn't start to have any ambition
until I started working more and more.
:57:04
I wondered how people recorded.
I wondered how you get to do that.
:57:08
There were always talent scouts
in the clubs.
:57:12
No one had ever spoken to me directly
about making any records...
:57:15
so I just assumed they'd passed on me.
:57:22
The most important new vocal personality
of recent years:
:57:26
Johnny Mathis, who vaulted over
a Columbia microphone to stardom.
:57:35
I always looked for songs that had
a kind of excellence, lasting quality...
:57:38
and artists who produced
a beautiful sound with their voice.
:57:42
From 1953, I was a head of A&R
at Columbia.
:58:04
That was the sound of the day.
:58:05
People would want to hear
a beautiful voice sing a melodic song.
:58:09
- John, are you gonna do one, or was I?
- You will.
:58:11
Okay. I'll do Man of Constant Sorrow
then with the autoharp.
:58:27
We recorded for Folkways.
:58:29
We lived in the clear, pure light
of non-commercial...
:58:32
long-playing, short-selling records
for Folkways.
:58:35
I learned it from a record that was made
down in the Southern mountains...
:58:38
in the late 1920s.
:58:40
We also seemed to represent
some idea about, excuse the expression...
:58:43
integrity, or standing for something
authentic or real in music.
:58:54
We were always pointing
to other people's music...
:58:57
pointing to old singers,
Appalachian singers, blues singers.