A Conversation with Christopher King – HuffPost 10.8.10

Mike Ragogna: Hi, Christopher. What was the inspiration to put a project together likeBloody War: Songs 1924-1939?

Christopher King: Well, I had been working with Josh at Tompkins Square, which is the label that put out the Bloody War compilation. I had been working with him on two previous projects, the first one being People Take Warning, which was a collection of pre-war disaster songs dealing with natural disaster as well as murder, and then we later put out a collection of an old time string band called Red Fox Chasers, which is a group from North Carolina. We were exchanging ideas back and forth for another collection, and I had suggested that there was another component in the history of pre-war music, and that is the songs of remembrance dealing with warfare, the whole bailiwick of the experience of warfare, both from the soldier’s eyes as well as the people left at home.

MR: There is a beautiful German movie about World War I about trench warfare…

CK: …there is a version of All Quiet On The Western Front, which is probably what you’re referring to.

MR: Yes. That movie is, supposedly, a decent representation of what warfare was. Would you say that that’s true, that it was a fairly accurate depiction?

CK: It was. Obviously the one thing that would have been left out of that movie would have been, basically, the gore and the pile and piles of bodies because with trench warfare from World War I, there was such an unexpected escalation in violence and bloodshed that people didn’t know what to do with the bodies–it was just like an overpowering sense of battle. So, when the bodies would get piled-up, of course, then disease would fester and it would afflict more people, and you add to that the whole notion of chemical warfare, and it was just a completely alien sense of war that had not been experienced. The Civil War did not even come close to the violence.

MR: Can you give us the time line of Bloody War, the eras you’re covering?

CK: It harkens back to both the American Civil War as well as the Spanish American War. In fact, quite a few of the numbers on this set are directly related to Americans involved in the Spanish American War, such as the sinking of the battleship of Maine, as well as the conscription and drafting of soldiers to fight in that war. That was one of the first wars where African Americans were actually drafted and served, and Coley Jones, who’s on this set singing “Army Mule In No Man’s Land,” sings about that experience of being drafted for the Spanish American War. Essentially, though, World War I was “the war to end all wars,” and it was one of those unfortunate circumstances where various nations banded together against other nations, completely unlike the American Civil War or the Spanish American War, which involved smaller entities or just factions of those entities. World War I was essentially the Germans, Austro-Hungarians, and the Ottoman Empire against the rest of the world, and they met on the battlefield in France in Flanders field. Essentially, that war dragged on for almost five years before the United States got involved, and then, of course, the U.S. got involved right at the end of the conflict. World War II was, essentially, a replication of World War I, but it involved decidedly larger super-powers and had a much larger playing field, which, of course, involved much larger casualties.

MR: How did you come across some of these recordings? Many of them are very rare, right?

CK: Oh yeah, quite a few of these are one of maybe one or two known copies. I have most of these in my collection. I basically have been collecting old 78s since before high school, and I get somewhat obsessed with various topics such as disaster songs, or in this case, war songs, and I try to find the best copies of everything and put them in my collection. Most of these were actually issued for commercial sale in the United States just because this was a topic that people wanted to listen to. It was sort of like what you would call news reportage or ways of sort of sentimentally celebrating people that have served in the military or that were lost during a conflict.

MR: This project is associated with The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, so are some of the proceeds from this record are going towards that organization?

CK: Essentially, both Josh and I realized that this type of project would benefit those people who have sacrificed the most for us, specifically the veterans of both the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts that have become wounded. So, Josh set up a reciprocal agreement with IAVA–the Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans Of America–to ensure that a proceed of all the profits from sale of this CD go to the vets.

MR: What’s the reaction to this project been from veterans current and past?

CK: There’s nobody alive from World War I–the last person passed away a couple of months ago–but the response has been exceptionally favorable from everyone, both from veterans of wars as well as just fans of the music. I do know that I gave this to a friend of mine who is a veteran from Vietnam who served in special forces, and he thought it was just an incredibly touching tribute to what people had to give in order to preserve the freedoms of others.

MR: This also is pretty tough subject matter to be focused on, as you were, for long periods of time. You had to do a lot of research focusing on war, so I imagine it could have been a bit hard on the heart. How do you get through the process of listening to that many war songs?

CK: Well, it’s all goal-oriented. You have to look at the final goal of any project, and yes, just about any project you do, if you get emotionally tied up with it, it could lead to distraction, depression, or emotional anxiety. I always have to focus on the end of the project or the goal, which, in this particular instance, is to put out this music for people to share, enjoy, and learn from, and, at the same, time benefit others.

MR: Are there songs on this project that are particularly touching to you?

CK: There are quite a few here. I’m from the South–I’m a Virginia native and I’ve never really left Virginia–and the song by Fiddlin’ John Carson, “The Dixie Division,” was, to me, sort of a revelation because it was so acutely performed and so complex in the way that he strings together various songs. They’re all songs from the Civil War and World War I vintage, but he sort of revamps them into this slower version of the tune “Long Way To Tipperary.” That song just really revealed the creativity of a pure, southern character, Fiddlin’ John Carson, who was one of the first country musicians to ever record.

MR: You have a history of being a compilation producer.

CK: Producer, writer, and primarily engineer, working with the old 78s to begin with. It’s only been in the last five years that I’ve taken on the responsibility of soup-to-nuts, basically, from researching the material, compiling the images, compiling the actual recordings, to getting the artwork done, contacting different people to get the project done, and finding a home for the project.

MR: And you have a relationship with Tompkins Square, and you’ve produced other projects with them, as we talked about earlier. What were those projects?

CK: I’ve done two other projects prior to this. The first one is People Take Warning, which was a three-disc collection of pre-war songs of disaster, and the second one is a delightful collection from a string band in North Carolina, called The Red Fox Chasers. I’m currently working on a project called Ame Apedre: To Love And To Lose, which is a collection of songs about love and loss.

MR: I have one last, very difficult question for you. Obviously, having researched for Bloody War, and having gone through all the music you’ve gone through, what are your thoughts on war in general?

CK: Well, my thoughts on war in general would actually be in line with this collection of material. This collection of material is neither anti-war, nor pro-war–I don’t think there is such a thing as being pro-war–but it is acknowledging that warfare, as such, is a necessary evil when you’ve got so many conflicting agendas and so many persons attempting to compete for limited resources. Ultimately, if you look back at the beginning of warfare, which harkens all the way back to the yawnings of agriculture, when we finally stopped hunting and gathering and started to set up city-states and farms, the origins of warfare are specifically at that point when there was this realization that there were limited resources of things for us to go after. So, you had to go territorial–with your property, your women, or whatever. Warfare is just that expression of tension or friction that results.

MR: Interesting. Do you see yourself doing another project like this in the future? Is this a continuing theme for you now?

CK: Do you mean on war or just on the notion of compilations in general?

MR: Well, we know you’ll be doing that.

CK: (laughs)

MR: As far as a project specifically like Bloody War.

CK: Not in this specific medium. I might be interested in writing about it or collaborating with others regarding the writing of or the production of artwork about it. But no, this pretty much exhausts the musical component that there is to warfare.

MR: You, I imagine, also have an eye on music in general, so like most of this country, I’ll bet you just can’t tear yourself away from things like American Idol.

CK: Yes I can.

MR: (laughs) Music to my ears, thank you.

CK: If you don’t have a TV, and you have a willful refusal to be distracted by all the flashing lights of modernity, then it’s actually pretty easy.

MR: (laughs) Do you find that that helps you stay focused on the task at hand, when you’re doing a project like this?

CK: It really does. As a matter of fact, I had just exchanged some comments with a friend of mine who is a musician, cartoonist, and a collector, Robert Crumb, and I said, “I think distraction is the true evil which all intellectuals try to avoid.” It’s so insanely difficult to try to avoid the clutter of cell phones, computers, and the clutter of all these digital devices and squawking boxes that are around. That’s the real effort. But if you can do it, then you can actually achieve what your goals are, which is creativity or composition.

MR: Then, actually it’s a fair question to ask you, what advice do you have for artists or people that are coming into music right now?

CK: I guess you really have to identify and build up the core of yourself. You have to find out what it is that you really want to put forward from yourself, whatever you think is unique that really needs to be shown to the world, and that’s all you should focus on and nothing else. It should be to the expense of everything else, that that’s all you need to focus on.

Transcribed by Ryan Gaffney