♪♪♪ ♪ Good morning Captain, Good morning, sir.

♪ ♪ I said good morning Captain, good morning sir.

♪ ♪ Or do you need another mule scanner out on ♪ ♪ your new road lines?

♪ ♪ Well I'm a good boy, Captain ♪ and I keep it rolling all the time.

♪ ♪ I said I'm a good boy captain and keep ♪ ♪ a rolling all the time.

♪ ♪ Well, I can carve my initials with a whip on ♪ ♪ the mules behind.

♪♪ Lou Curtiss: From the campus of San Diego City College, this is KSDS San Diego, KSDSHG1.

Over on the web we're jazz88.org.

Howdy, I'm Lou Curtiss.

It's time for "Jazz Roots."

We'll be around for the next couple hours playing some great blues piano on "Jazz Roots" tonight.

Big Maceio Merriweather was just about Chicago's tough piano man in the 1940s.

Came up, I believe he was from Georgia originally, came to Chicago though and right around 1940, hooked up with Tampa Reds, great band, and made some really remarkable sides.

We're gonna hear the first recording he ever made.

He was Tamper Red on guitar, Big Maso with that great left hand.

June 24, 1941.

Here's some power piano, "Worried Life Blues."

♪♪♪ ♪ Oh, Lordy, Lord.

♪ ♪ Oh, Lordy, Lord.

♪ ♪ It hurts me so bad for us to part.

♪ ♪ But someday, baby I ain't gonna worry my life anymore.

♪ ♪ So many nights since you've been gone.

♪ ♪ I've had to worry And grieve--♪♪ George Varga: The fact that Folk Arts Records and Lou and the festivals were an incredible incubator.

Again, I can't think of anywhere in the world that you could say both Tom Waits and former American Idol finalist, Jessica Sanchez both benefited from that.

You've got two different worlds here and they came together in San Diego through Lou Curtiss.

Mojo Nixon: Well, I think, you know, Duke Ellington said it best.

It's two kinds of music, good and bad.

Lou Curtiss liked good music.

Lou Curtiss didn't have any albums in there.

It's all just one great album after another.

Lou: We came down here to San Diego when I was 12 years old in 1952 and the first week we were here, my uncle Tony, he took us out to the Bostonia Ballroom to see Hank Williams.

I went there many times all through the--I saw Ernest Tubb and Gene Autry and El Travis and them.

And my dad collected 78s.

He collected country, but he also collected pop stuff.

He collected--his favorite was kind of western music, you know, the sons of the pioneers and that sort of stuff.

And--but he also collected anything that was kind of a radical nature too.

♪ I got spurs that jingle, jangle, ♪ ♪ jingle as I go riding merrily along ♪ ♪ And they sing, ♪ ♪ "Oh, ain't you glad you're single?"

♪ female: Who said?

♪ And that song ain't so very far from wrong ♪ ♪ Oh, Lillie Belle, Oh Lillie Belle ♪ ♪ Just one thing I can figure, she got tired ♪ ♪ of chasing triggers.

♪ ♪ I got spurs, I got spurs, I got spurs.

♪ ♪ As I go riding merrily along.

♪♪ I remember going to a war surplus store.

George, Dan, and Buford, the 3 GIs, those happy-go-lucky guys.

And they had just a floor full of 78s records.

It was just an area there.

If I ever get a time machine, that's where I'm going.

There was just an area there where I--one of the first records I bought was on the ABC label, was "Talking Atomic Blues" by a fellow named Sam Hinton.

Sam Hinton: This is one I made a recording of way back in 1950, back in the Middle Ages.

♪♪♪ I'm gonna preach you all a sermon 'bout Old Man Atom, and I don't mean the Adam in the Bible datum.

I don't mean the Adam Mother Eve mated, I mean the thing that science liberated.

You know Einstein said he was scared, and if he's scared, brother, I'm scared.

Lou: And I was about 10 years old and I had no idea who Sam Hinton was, but I liked the song and I liked "Lost John" which was on the other side of it.

And I came to San Diego and I went to Southwest Junior High School.

And the first week I was there, we had an assembly, and it was Sam Hinton on the assembly.

So, I went up and introduced myself to him and that was in 1953.

And he told me about the Folk Song Society in San Diego and said, "You guys might wanna come out to it."

And that started me off here in San Diego where we're getting involved in folk music and music in general.

♪ I wish I was in London or some other ♪ ♪ seaport town.

♪ ♪ I'd set my foot in steamboat and sail the ocean round.

♪ ♪ While sailing round the ocean, while sailing ♪ round the sea, ♪ ♪ I'd think of handsome Mollie wherever she may be.

♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Curt Bouterse: And about the same time, actually, as I started school I ran into Lou Curtiss who had just fairly recently started the San Diego Folk Song Society, I think that's what it was called at the time.

And of course, we got along famously because we were interested in the same kinds of things.

And everybody, this was in the early ''60s, about 1961, 1962.

Everybody was listening to the "New Lost City Ramblers."

Anyway, all of these meetings that we had, Lou was always there.

Periodically, we would do concerts, not only sponsoring concerts, but also we would get together in addition to the impromptu sessions and the gazebo at Scripps Cottage.

We would have sometimes on a weekend we'd have a concert where people get together.

There were a few coffee houses around the time, most of which have faded from memory, but the one place that was important that Lou was involved with, was "The Sign of The Sun."

Lou: We came to California and lived in Chula Vista for about three months.

I moved to Imperial Beach and I grew up in--from there on--from about 12 years old on in Imperial Beach.

Imperial Beach exposed me to Mexican music.

And I spent a lot of time south of the border because in those days you could walk down to the border.

I'd crawl through a culvert, and I was in Mexico and I'd walk into town.

And usually, I'd go to the pastry shops and gorge myself on pastries and go around to some places.

I knew there was some music lawn bar and places like that.

And I--it was just--I picked up a lot of that kind of music in Mexico.

And then I heard her on the radio of course, and out of Rosarito Beach or all the Clear Channel stations out of Rosarito Beach.

Most of the people in school didn't stray too far from Top 40.

So, I never had--I had one or two friends who, like me, started, about that time, started collecting 45s.

And I had amassed about six or seven thousand of them by, say, my high school years.

Lou: And let's see, we got the North Carolina Cooper Boys up.

This one's sort of a tongue-in-cheek piece, but it's all about Daniel and the den of lions.

Here it is on Jazz 88.3.

♪ Daniel Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel in ♪ the lion's den.

♪ ♪ Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel in the lion's, ♪ ♪ Daniel in the lion's, Daniel in the lion's den.

♪♪ Lou: My high school was Marra Vista High in Imperial Beach.

My junior high was Southwest.

But, along about that time, I started just taking the bus downtown and there was a series of clubs downtown owned by this guy named Kennedy.

And he catered to--mostly to the Navy.

And even though I was 14 or 15 years old, I went in these places and the place at fourth and B--fourth and C Streets called "The Cottage Inn."

It was one of his places and it was a rockabilly place.

And Eddie Cochran played there sometimes.

The house band was Jody Reynolds, the guy that did that song "Endless Sleep."

The saddle Rock and rhythm place was where Merrill Moore played, and that's where I met Merrill Moore, who long time boogie woogie piano player.

He turned me on to different things that I went down to the crossroads and I met Slim Gallard.

The reason he was in San Diego was this was during the blacklist and he had written a book on his Fut language, his Futorini, bouti and all that stuff, you know.

And somebody said that it was a code for the communist conspiracy, and he couldn't gain work in LA.

So, he came to San Diego.

I don't know why he came to San Diego because we were worse politically than L.A. was.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ I started out in 1958.

We had a group called the John B Trio, the best striped shirt group you could buy locally at least, and we went to New York thinking to make us all stars.

We looked around for gigs, and looked around for gigs, and finally the only musician in our group who was Eric Horde got a Job playing with Ian and Sylvia.

Roger and myself, we foxed around the village and I got a job washing dishes at the Gaslight Cafe.

And I'm told I was there the night Bob Dylan came in and auditioned and was told he sounded like a hillbilly.

And one day about a year later, I went back to my apartment.

I was living in Brooklyn Heights.

It had been broken into and virtually cleaned out.

So, I ate crow and called my dad and he sent me money to come back to San Diego.

And when I got back here, I kind of went back to what I was doing before.

I was playing in local folk groups and working a little bit in politics.

Then I had a girlfriend who knew I was really into Kennedy, and she talked me into taking all my 45s out to the swap meet and selling them and donating the money to the Kennedy campaign.

And so, I was without a collection again.

So, I started all over again.

Lou: We're gonna hear another version of "Doing The New Lodown."

This time the guest vocalists are Cab Calloway and the Mills Brothers from December 29, 1932, worrying Mills getting all of his various stars together for an all-star record.

♪♪♪ ♪ Don't make me play that thing again.

♪ ♪ Is this way.

♪ ♪ Make 'em play that crazy thing again I've got to do that ♪ ♪ lazy swing again Hi-ho, doin' the new lowdown!

♪ ♪ Got my feet to misbehaving now Got a soul that's not ♪ ♪ for saving now Hi-ho, doin' the new lowdown!

♪ ♪ That dancin' demon-- ♪♪ Lou: One of the things I did during summer session in 1963 and 1964 was go to the South and worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Freedom Schools.

Shortly after that, Bob Dylan came through Mississippi with the Freedom Singers.

And shop at the SNCC offices and we arranged--we set up a sound system in a cotton field and he gave impromptu concerts.

Virginia Curtiss: So, it wasn't really safe, but he stayed with a nice church-going black family, you know.

And the people he taught mostly wanted to learn to read the Bible because that was important to them.

So, that's what they taught, you know.

But the idea was to get people to read and write well enough to register to vote.

Lou: Working in McComb, Mississippi teaching in the Freedom School, it was a scary time.

I came to the south with at the same time that Goodman, Schwerner, and Cheney came, we went to the same organizing school in Indiana.

I came down about a month later and I just heard the news about them when I got there.

And the family I was staying with, the Sam's, took me out and they pointed across the cotton fields and said, "See that big old house over there?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "That's where the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan lives."

Virginia: One of his proud moments was that he was actually in jail with Martin Luther King in Atlanta.

So were many other people, but he was one of them.

Curt: Somewhere along in the mid, probably the mid-'60s, just before, I think, just before I went in the service in '64, Lou and Carol McComb and I and a few other people were talking about the idea of opening up a sort of a folk music shop, craft cooperative kind of thing.

And the idea was to have the record store, a place where people could hang out, where local crafts people could have and also craftspeople from the Appalachians could have.

We could have woodwork, we could have pottery, we could have textiles, this sort of thing.

Lou: And I opened Folk Arts Rare Records on July 31 of 1967.

Brendon Boyle: Welcome to Folk Arts Rare Records, established by Lou Curtiss in 1967.

I am immensely lucky to now be the owner of this place largely thanks to Lou Curtiss's generosity towards me somebody he didn't even know very well, just kind of knew casually.

And we got to know each other quite well after I took over the business from him.

♪♪♪ ♪ And the things we did together going to make ♪ ♪ us live forever, you and I.

♪ ♪ There's no farewell.

♪ ♪ There's no goodbye.

♪♪ Jack Tempchin: I met Lou Curtiss at the foot of Washington Boulevard.

He opened the first Folk Arts.

And I went in there, and this is the day when albums were made of black plastic, and they came in a big sleeve thing, LPs.

And he collected all this incredible music all the way back to 1920 and 1930 and all the way forward.

And none of us knew anything about the music that had come before, but Lou Curtiss did and we would go in there and he would love to play you records.

And I was friends with Tom Waits at the time and we would go into Lou Curtiss's folk arts.

George Varga: I didn't live in Folk Arts Rare Records the way say a Mojo Nixon or A.J.

Croce did, meaning that they were there for hour upon hour, day after--or Gregory Page, who I think made 14 albums, all of them thinking Lou Curtiss as "musical advisor."

So, not to that extent, no, but I happily went in and I would thumb through.

You could go in and, you know, not even look at a record.

You could look at all the photos on the wall, including a great one of Lou and Tom Waits from I think 1972.

Mojo Nixon: So, you're driving down Adams Avenue in San Diego and there's, you know, there's stores and there's offices and there's, you know, like a burger joint and the Roberto's and whatnot.

And there's a string of, you know, houses and I'm trying to find a place.

And there's a little sign outside that says, you know, "Folk Arts Rare Records."

I go, "This can't be it.

First off, it's way too small.

Second off, it's a house.

Somebody lives there," you know, "and what's inside there?"

What is inside there is a treasure trove of obscure, rare, weird, oddball American music.

But all the stuff, like I said, you couldn't get a Tower Records or especially Sam Goody.

Sam Goody can kiss Lou Curtiss's-- ♪ When you're smiling, when you're smiling, ♪ ♪ the whole smiles with you.

♪ ♪ When you're laughing, when laughing, the sun ♪ ♪ comes shining through.

♪ ♪ When you're frowning, ♪ ♪ Oh you bring on the rain.

♪ ♪ Stop your sliding, be happy again.

♪ ♪ When you're smiling, oh, when you're smiling, ♪ ♪ the whole world smiles with you.

♪ ♪ The whole world smiles with you.

♪♪ Gregory Page: And I would just go in his shop, you know, every few weeks and then I started going more regularly and then it just became my schoolhouse.

That craftsman home on Adams Avenue was my education in music, just to be around the master, you know.

And he just resonated with this enthusiasm and excitement for what he was playing.

I'd walk in and he'd be playing something and I'd be like, "Who's that?"

"Well, that's a crooner from the 1940s named Al Bowlly."

And all of a sudden, my mind would be blown with, "Wow, we've never heard of this."

I mean, a lot of the enthusiasm and enjoyment that Lou would give would be sharing somebody that you'd never heard of before.

And a nearly forgotten songwriter, an almost forgotten crooner.

And so, that really was amazing for me to be able to hear these unknown nearly forgotten musicians that really hadn't heard of.

George Varga: In the case of Adria Croce, here you have a 12-year-old kid who's kind of a prodigy playing piano, but did he know at 12 who Cal Cal Davenport or Midlux Lewis were?

No.

How did he find out about them?

He went to Folk Arts Rare Records and Lou Curtiss could not only grab him all the recordings, but he could tell them where they came from.

Did they ever play here.

You know, Lou Curtiss is the guy who knew that in nineteen, I don't know, thirty whatever, that Fats Waller did a live recording on a Tijuana radio station.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ A.J.

Croce: When I was a kid, I was sort of--I was a little scared of Lou.

I didn't know he was very quiet.

I couldn't tell whether he was, you know, sort of judging.

It definitely, you know, I think it's pretty common for people that work at record stores, whether it was Tower Records or whether it was Sam Goody wherever you live in the US, you know, everyone's judging.

That works, you know, that works at a record store.

They're going, "Oh, this guy," you know, "has terrible taste," or, "this guy has good taste."

And then you either strike up a conversation based on the record that you chose or, you know, they're judging you.

Well, I couldn't tell with Lou.

He was real quiet, thoughtful, and it took time before I realized how incredibly knowledgeable he was and what a encyclopedic, you know, understanding of, especially recorded music from the teens up.

I'd say up until the recorded music of maybe the ''40s and some.

And then his taste really from that point really began to focus to certain things, you know.

He liked country, he liked folk music, he liked bluegrass, he liked blues, he did--he wasn't, you know, as into rock and roll, he wasn't as into certain genres of music early on.

The earlier recordings he was into all genres.

Bud Kader: And so, I walked in and here was this absolute heaven of vinyl.

Man, oh man, if I would have--if I could go back and bought some of the stuff now that I passed on then, I mean, it would be so thrilling, but I did buy a lot of nice vinyl and that was at the time when you would go into a thrift store and it was just plastic records, you know, to them.

And you could pull some good stuff and there's a lot of good lacquer too.

So, I walked in, I met Lou and right away, we became soul mates.

He--Lou taught me an awful lot, and I taught him a little bit because he would say, "Oh, what about this one," or some ethnic records or something such as that and we really, really kind of fed each other.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Alison Brown: My biggest recollection of Lou Curtiss is when we had just moved to San Diego.

I think it was, we moved in '74, so this was '75.

And there was a banjo fiddle contest in Balboa Park.

And so, I went and I entered beginning bluegrass banjo and my parents and--had to--we had to leave before the contest was over.

So, I wasn't able to get my award and I won first place in beginning bluegrass banjo.

So, a couple days later, my dad took me to Lou's shop and--to pick up my award.

And Lou said, "Come to the back."

So, we went to the back of this dusty shop and in my like, 12-year-old imagination, it was kind of like the beginning of never ending story or something like that.

And Lou pulled out a piece of construction paper and a blue magic marker and he said, "Here's your reward."

And it meant a lot to me.

And so, all these years later I still have it.

And this is what he wrote.

So, this is one of the most unique prizes I ever got for playing the banjo.

Sue Palmer: And I remember him as sort of a very much a character and I loved going there.

And I was discovering all of these wonderful female piano players particularly, and male.

And he would make these wonderful little tapes for me and, you know, write just in his handwriting, it's very distinct handwriting.

He would put just what you wanted to know, who it was and the name of the song.

And it would be just exactly what I needed.

And in a way, I feel like he sort of mentored me without me even knowing it.

And some of the people were like this woman named Cleo Brown, who's a blues boogie woogie player from the ''40s.

Cleo Patra Brown was her name.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ George Varga: And the number of people who benefited from him, here and beyond San Diego, was really formidable.

And if you look at who the clientele was for Folk Arts Rare Records, the fact that you had everybody from Orville Redenbacher, the popcorn King.

I'm going in there to Jessica Sanchez, who nearly won American Idol decades later.

I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

Kent Johnson: Even Art Crumb used to come in to Lou's store-- Liz Abbott: As a record collector.

Kent Johnson: To search as a record collector and searching things, and he even drew--did some drawings, I think that Lou had up on the wall.

Mojo Nixon: Lou was kind of, you know, he was kind of funny in a sneaky way.

And he was also, you know, he didn't--he wouldn't tell you right out.

It was kind of like a--it was like he was giving you some kind of parable from the Bible, you know.

He would lead you down a path and take you there.

He wouldn't really, you know, come right out, you know, tell you A, B, C. He had a, you know, he had a story.

He had a story he wanted to tell in kind of a crazy indirect way.

So, you had to wait, you know, you had to wait.

You couldn't just run in and get the information.

You had to hang around for a while.

Hell, he was probably lonely too.

Maybe he wanted somebody to come.

Maybe he was, you know, waiting for me to come.

♪♪♪ Patty Hall: So, I sent a little reel to reel tape to Lou just kind of like a cold call.

Somebody had given me his name.

And lo and behold he called me and said, "I'd like you to come perform at my store called San Diego Folk Arts."

And I had no idea what folk arts was, but I got on the Greyhound bus.

I was, you know, at UCLA from LA to San Diego.

And Virginia picked me up at the bus station and took me to, let's see if I can remember the address, 3743 5th Avenue, which is where a beauty salon now is, and it was the most amazing experience to lay eyes on that store.

Not one inch of unadorned wall space.

Covered with album covers and hand lettered posters.

Lou was his own calligrapher, so he did these wonderful handbills.

And it was kind of a shotgun space and there stood Lou with his arm up on a bin of old records and he said, "Oh, hi Patty," as though we've known each other for years.

Lou: And associated men's students never did anything, but they had a budget they had to justify.

So, he said, "I got $350 from the Associated Men's Students, and would you like to put on a festival?

Folk festival?"

So, I said, "Sure."

I took 250 of it.

I got Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys on a Thursday night and Bess Hawes and Sam Hinton, a couple other people and that was the first festival for $350.

♪ Early early one sweet day, the sun had ♪ ♪ not yet shown.

♪ ♪ I chanced upon a maiden fair who made ♪ ♪ a heavy moan.

♪ ♪ Why make you yell this heavy moan.

♪ ♪ And what does all this mean.

♪ ♪ But all that she would ever say was John ♪ ♪ of Hazelgreen.

♪♪ ♪ There's a man by my side walking.

♪ ♪ There's a voice inside me talking.

♪ ♪ There's a word, one word that needs a saying.

♪ ♪ Carry it on.

♪ ♪ Carry it on.

♪ ♪ Carry it on.

♪ ♪ Carry it on.

♪ Lou: You get in contact with traditional people, you had to have a a background where you've been around where they were, and I went to the Newport Folk Festivals.

I went to--I worked at the Ashgrove in Los Angeles during my summers in the '60s.

And got to know Ed Pearl who owned the Ashgrove quite well.

And that was the traditional place.

Anybody come to the West Coast played the Ashgrove.

♪♪♪ ♪ Free train, free train, run so fast.

♪ ♪ Free train, free train, run so fast.

♪ ♪ Please don't tell what train I'm on.

♪ ♪ They won't know what route I am on.

♪♪ Jack Tempchin: The other thing that Lou did which changed my life and the lives of a lot of people, is he created the San Diego Folk Festivals that were put on at San Diego State College.

And he would have all kinds of people come and play for several days.

And every hour, a bunch of people were playing of all different kinds of music.

He had Elizabeth Cotton, he had Joelle Sauler in some Little Room playing Cajun music.

He had all the Blues people and it was just an incredible education.

Then he'd have somebody doing sea shanties and somebody doing shape note hymns.

All things I had never heard of, gorgeous music from all time periods and over the world, everyone who is still alive.

And he did that for years and every year was a fantastic education in all kinds of music.

And of course, for some reason, like a lot of musicians, I just lived for music.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ George Winston: I first heard the San Diego Folk Festival in 1973 on KPFK the rebroadcast.

And I said, "Boy, I've got to go to this at some point."

I couldn't get off work in '74, but '75 I went.

And that's when I met Lou and started going to a store and he would have me--I've done the first record for Tacoma Records, John Fahey's label in '72, and he knew about that.

And he had me sometimes at the store playing guitar and playing piano.

He had various menus around town that he would have different people at during the year.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ And he also had a great library of books about music and I didn't know anything about these books.

So, I started like buying these books from bookstores.

So, just--Lou was such a treasure, just available to give you the information you need that he knows.

Alison Brown: One of my other very, you know, special San Diego recollections of like starting out in this music was going to the San Diego Folk Festival.

And I know--now I know that that was Lou like pulling the strings behind the scene.

But I was--had just become acquainted with Stuart Duncan.

The great like super amazing fiddle player who was just about my age.

And his--he had a band that was opening for Doc Watson.

His band was called "Pain In The Grass."

And they were opening for Doc.

So, he invited me to come down and go backstage and actually like see Doc sitting on a couch playing his guitar.

It was transcendent and then to watch the show was just really amazing.

I mean, that's one of the experiences that really drove me to wanna learn how to play flat pick guitar.

female: From 1974, from the San Diego Folk Festival, won the songwriter's workshops.

Here is Tom Waits.

♪♪♪ ♪ Well, all my friends have married every Tom ♪ ♪ and Dick and Harry.

♪ ♪ You must be strong if you're to go in alone.

♪♪ Kent Johnson: The Jack Timson and Tom Waits played together in Lou's store in-- Liz Abbott: '73 or '74.

Kent Johnson: '73, I believe it's '73.

And they played this song called "Tijuana" about losing their car down in Tijuana, going down and getting drunk and losing their car.

And that never made it on any album or anything like that.

So, for me to have a tape of that song playing it's like gold.

Liz Abbott: Lou made it for you.

Jack Tempchin: I had gotten together with Tom and we wrote a song called "Tijuana."

"I got lost on my way home from Tijuana.

I didn't think the main road went that far.

Somehow, yeah.

Oh, but I had to stop someplace to get directions and I guess that's how I wound up in this bar.

Now I'm stuck in this bar and I can't find my car.

And I'm wishing on a star like a fool.

I need a dime for the phone.

Boy, I wish I was home.

The lonesome night can be so cruel."

♪ And I'm stuck in this bar and I can't find my car.

♪ ♪ And I'm wishing on a star like a fool in the night.

♪ ♪ In my mind things keep changing.

♪ ♪ Early outside it just keeps raining.

♪ ♪ The lonesome night can be so cruel.

♪♪ Curt: So, just another and completely unrelated thing.

Lou had influence on people in L.A. All of the people, David Lindley and Ryan Cooder and all those people.

They all knew about Lou.

Anybody who's anybody on the West Coast knew Lou Curtiss.

For a while, he had a magazine that he published that I wrote a few piddly articles for called "The Khrome Kazoo" with K's.

And just, I mean, he was prolific and relentless in his interest and pursuance of traditional music.

And he eventually ended, of course, with a radio program.

And he did it all.

Jack Tempchin: And then as you look at the life of Lou Curtiss, you keep finding out he was moving and doing things all the time like for I don't know how many years.

Every Sunday he had a radio show and on the radio show he'd play something from a certain era or he'd play bawdy songs from a certain time or certain kind of Blues or he'd play some other--and he would name everybody who played on each record and the history of the record.

And that's part of his legacy.

♪ Well, Jesus is my airplane.

♪ ♪ He holds this world in his hands-- ♪ ♪ He don't ever fall.

♪ ♪ Jesus is my airplane.

♪♪ male: Little bit of sanctified gospel music, "Jesus Is My Airplane" from Mother McCollum recorded in the late '20s.

Weird Buddy Boy Hawkins with "Awful Fixed Blues" from September 1927.

Way back to 1903, Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan, "Hooray For Baffin's Bay," song from the original stage play of "The Wizard of Oz."

And down in the Caribbean we heard "Attila the Hun" from the mid-1930s seeing eclipso about Professor Carver, that's George Washington Carver.

Next up is the Dixieland Jug Blowers, the one called "Don't Give All the Lad Away."

♪♪♪ ♪ Jazzbo Green was a wise, wise boy from ♪ ♪ down in my hometown.

♪ ♪ He always wondered why his ma had ♪ ♪ lots of company around.

♪ ♪ The folks would borrow ♪ ♪ everything, Jazzbo thought it hard.

♪ ♪ When Deacon Moses came around ♪ ♪ one day, tried to borrow the lard.

♪ ♪ Jazzbo tried to figure out why ♪ ♪ the deacons crawl round each day.

♪ ♪ Now ol' Jazz knows everything.

♪ ♪ To his ma he say, ♪ ♪ Oh mama don't give all the lard away.

♪ ♪ Save some mo' for a rainy day.

♪ ♪ He's good looking, true enough.

♪ ♪ Take yo' time and know yo' stuff.

♪ ♪ Don't let him hold yo' hand.

♪ ♪ You know he's not yo' man.

♪ ♪ He's from the East save the grease.

♪ ♪ Mama don't give all that lard away.

♪♪ Brendon Boyle: So, when he was organizing his festivals, say, you know, one year, two of the biggest acts in the festivals were Man Lipscomb, famous Texas Bluesman, and Bill Monroe, the king of Bluegrass.

And through Lou's sheer willpower, the two of them played together.

And then he would complain to me that, "Oh, we don't have any recordings of that unfortunately.

We were recording everything else at the time, but just that one jam we missed the recording."

But it was really special to have these two musicians, you know, play together.

And yeah, that's the kind of energy that Lou brought into a room and the musicians just loved him, absolutely loved his energy and his passion for them.

And he was of a different generation, different mindset, and it was almost like a religion to him to have that kind of old time, small town mindset.

George Varga: Also in the pre-digital era, you could go there and he would make you a cassette tape and you could pick so that you would have the Boswell Sisters followed by Hank Williams followed by Louis Armstrong, followed by people you had never heard of, but who were great.

And that was pretty invaluable.

So, he was making, if you will, mix tapes before anyone had ever heard the term.

Everything got digitized later on.

And the other thing is that, you know, Jack Tenshin told me his life was formidably altered in a really good way by the fact that he could go to folk arts, he could hear not only the recordings that Lou had, but all the great performers that Lou would bring in.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ A.J.

Croce: I wondered whether Lou actually ever wanted to sell any of the records in his store.

I couldn't count the number of times that I went there looking for something and he would say, "Yeah, I've got it, but it's not for sale.

If you want, I'll make you a tape," and I'd go, "Great," you know.

And like six months later, you know, I'd be back from touring or whatever and I'd get a call and he'd say, "Oh, I got that tape," you know, I think and "I put a few other things on there I think you'll like," and that was--I still have some of those tapes because they were so great.

Gregory Page: If I went into Lou Curtiss's record shop and I asked him about a particular crooner.

And he would say, "Well, if you like Al Bowlly, you're going to absolutely love."

And then there would be this new cassette that would be--he'd call me up a few days later and he says, "I put together a compilation of some of my favorite crooners that I think that you would love since you love, you know, the early Bing Crosby 78 records."

And so yeah, he was--you could also have him customize you a cassette if you're looking for something a comedy novelty, songs about, you know, your dog.

And he would find all these obscure songs about a dog and you could pay him $10 or whatever it was, you know, he wouldn't even take your money half the time.

Virginia: Yeah, Lou was never one for the bottom line, unfortunately.

I mean, he really had trouble raising, you know, some of the shops would sell records for very high prices and Lou just really couldn't do that.

I mean, if it was really rare and he put it on an auction list, you know, the most we ever made on a record that way was I think $400 which was really big money for us, but, you know, he really had trouble raising prices from five to seven or from, you know, seven or eight to ten, you know, that just didn't happen.

Mostly what he did was if the tag was already on it, he'd leave it there, you know, which did not make us a lot of money, you know.

I mean, if your base thing is a $5 record, it's hard to make it up as the rent went up as different--at different shops and as eventually the rent went really high the last several years.

male: Tonight we're gonna look at L.A. in the 1940s sort of jazzlore, start off with a little of the theme from a movie called "The Killers," 1946, Micklos Miklos Rozsa.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ male: Hey, did you have a copy of "Donovan's HMS"?

Lou: What's that?

male: "Donovan HMS."

It was a kids', like, album he did in the '70s.

Lou: There's a Donovan section down there.

It's right on the floor level underneath the soul and-- male: Underneath the what?

Lou: Underneath the soul of and rhythm and blues.

It's right in front of it.

female: Lou, this lovely lady here, she wanted to-- Lou: This is mostly all classical, and I really--it's great, it's good music and--but it's not the kind of stuff that I can do anything with.

♪♪♪ ♪ Two little children lying in bed lying in bed, ♪ ♪ one of them sick and almost dead.

♪ ♪ Called for the doctor and the doctor said, ♪ ♪ "Feed those children on shortly bread."

♪♪ Curt: In a way, Lou Curtiss was just sort of the still point, the lodestone around which all the musical things in San Diego happened.

He didn't receive a lot of accolades, a lot of--even a lot of recognition at the time, but people were aware of him even when they weren't interacting with him.

Every time someone wanted to do something in San Diego with music, eventually they would bump up against Lou Curtiss.

Mojo Nixon: You know, when I first moved here, I didn't know that many people.

You can only go by yourself to Roberto so many times.

I--when I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, I would go there and hope that Lou would impart some wisdom on me.

Lou: In 1994, I've done some concerts in between there, but Scott Kessler of the Adams Avenue Business Association came up to me and said, "Would you like to help with our street fair?"

I said, "Yeah, if I could do a festival of my own in the spring."

And so, the Adams Avenue Roots festival was born in '94, and I did that for the next 15 years.

♪♪♪ ♪ When I saw you, sittin' there, ♪ ♪ eyes are shining, hard to stare.

♪ ♪ What's happening with you.

♪ ♪ You know just what to do.

♪ ♪ When I am drinking-- ♪ ♪ I can't see you very clear.

♪ Mojo: Y'all help me out there.

♪ When I am drinking-- ♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪ She got very big legs and she got ♪ ♪ that shocker on.

♪ ♪♪♪ ♪ Very big legs and she got that shocker on.

♪ ♪ I'm gonna ride all night with a girl ♪ ♪ I don't know.

♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Gregory Page: The Adams Avenue Roots Festival was really important for our city and for our community.

It really was because Lou Curtiss could--and had access to bring down from the mountain old timers and practically nearly forgotten, you know, country blues, high lonesome, you know, bluegrass musicians.

And somehow, he just could get them on the phone and convince them to drive their tractor into San Diego so they could perform at his roots festival.

And he just has--they just all loved Lou and they respected him so much that they would come, some of the most famous, I mean, some of the most famous folk and bluegrass country musicians that we ever knew about would--Lou could get at this roots festival.

And it was a free event for the community to come out and he also supported many local artists along the way.

So, it wasn't--when that was taken from out--from underneath of him, it was again the same kind of experiences when the radio station had kind of--it was just a very sad moment, but realizing that, you know, you weren't gonna quiet Lou by taking away a folk festival or perhaps not giving him a radio program.

He found other avenues to be able to kind of impart his wisdom.

Brendon Boyle: His Facebook page was also pretty legendary because when the--when social media and the internet and the YouTube sensation formed, Lou was like a kid in a candy store because he knew about all this music and he just wanted to just listen to these recordings all day long.

So, he embraced it wholeheartedly and was just listening to songs on YouTube all day long and being his personality, he wanted to share it with people.

And so, he acquired thousands and thousands and thousands, I forget the exact number, but thousands of Facebook friends for the simple reason of sharing music with people.

And so, he'd share an obscure bluegrass recording and Steve Martin, the actor, would comment and ask Lou a question because he was curious about the music and then Lou would answer Steve Martin's question and that was just kind of the environment that he created.

Jack Tempchin: And then when you think of through his column, his radio show, his folk festivals, plus countless people that just came into the store, like Gregory Page would go in there.

All kinds of people later became famous.

We'd go in there and he would turn them on to music.

A.J.

Croce: His complete understanding of certain artists, certain genres, certain recordings, you know, it was unrivaled.

There're few people in the country had that sort of knowledge, you know.

George Varga: There would be any number of times that I would be working on an article and, you know, trying to pinpoint whatever date or record label, talking about non-mainstream.

I would call Lou, he would know immediately.

He knew what was on the B side.

He knew where it was recorded.

He could tell you the catalog number of the record.

I mean, he knew everything and he was this kind of, you know, bear of a man.

If you walked by him, you wouldn't know you were walking by a living, breathing encyclopedia of music.

Gregory Page: Watching Lou Curtiss perform was just such a wonderful experience because he had such a dry sense of humor and he had these wonderful novelty songs that would have you crying laughing and yet he was just deadpanned just up there playing.

♪ When I was a little boy around the table at home.

♪ ♪ I remember very well when company would come.

♪ ♪ I would have to sit right still the whole crowd ate.

♪ ♪ Mama always said to me, "Lou take the catering way."

♪♪ Gregory Page: He loved to make you laugh and he loved to do that in song.

And he just had a--he had this kind of a style of autoharp playing.

He had this one lick that he would just play almost in every song...

It would always appear.

If you listen to some of the songs that he had, he'd play a song and it'd be this... ♪ Then the preachers, they would come to stay ♪ ♪ a while with us.

♪ ♪ Ma would always mess around and raise a little ♪ ♪ fuss and fear that I would spill the beans or ♪ ♪ break a china plate.

♪ ♪ Ma always said to me, ♪ ♪ "You take a tater and wait."

♪♪ Alison Brown: I mean, I think that as you go through your life, you're really fortunate, or at least in the music world, to, you know, cross paths with a variety of different people.

And sometimes, I think that you're not at the maturity place really to have like the depth of an interaction that you could have with that person later.

And I really feel like Lou Curtiss is one of those people for me.

Curt: Folk Arts was a place of surprises.

It was like Aladdin's cave, you know.

But you know it's gonna be Aladdin's cave, you know.

You know there's gonna be rubies and riches beyond belief in this place.

You just don't know which ones are gonna show up that day.

Mojo Nixon: Well, I think what Lou does, Lou turns you on to the great records, the great artists of the last century, right?

And so, and some of those artists are hillbilly and some of them are blues and some of them are rhythm and blues and some of them are just crazy.

But there, I always felt--I felt this way about my producer Jim Dickinson and I felt this way about Lou, that I was being transmitted some secret history.

Had a secret history of what's really good, not what's written in the books, not what's up on the statue.

A secret history of the greatness of American music is being transferred forward.

And that's, you know, that's the kind of lesson I felt, you know, Lou was teaching me.

"Oh, you like this?

Listen to this," you know.

This is where he got the idea.

This is where he got the idea and this is even better, right?

So, I always felt like there's a secret history of American music that is being secretly transferred from generation to generation.

Lou is one of those prophets, one of those, I don't know what word I should use.

I'm finally out of words.

[laughing] Gregory Page: And I went into his record shop one afternoon and he was playing on the old gramophone, a beautiful singer who I'd never heard of, a woman named Lee Morse.

And so, I learned one of her songs called "If You Want A Rainbow You Must Have The Rain," and it was one of the last songs that I had learned right before they closed the door, before Lou finally just kind of turned the light out and locked the door for the last time on his record shop.

So, it was kind of fitting to think that, you know.

We had this letting go, if you will, of this wonderful just schoolhouse that we had such an education going into every day.

♪♪♪ ♪ Take your share of trouble, face it and don't complain.

♪ ♪ 'Cause if you want a rainbow, you must have the rain.

♪ ♪ What if your love affair should break up ♪ ♪ as they sometimes will?

♪ ♪ Then you kiss and you make up.

♪ ♪ Oh boy, what a thrill.

♪ ♪ Be a cheerful loser.

♪ ♪ You know you've got the world to gain.

♪ ♪ Because if you want a rainbow, you must have the rain.

♪ ♪ If you want the rainbow, you must have the rain.

♪♪ Lou: And I was listening, yeah, it is.

I was listening to some Joe Hill records this morning or album Song to Joe Hill and that was, you know, he died in 1916 and before that, there were people busking on the streets.

You have the Salvation Army would be on one side of the street and playing an old hymn and they'd say, "Well, you've heard that tune about we'll meet in the sweet by and by, but let me tell you of the sweet by and by sure as hell ain't here on Earth.

And let me--we'll use that tune and we'll sing an old song that tells you how things are today."

And they'd say, "You get pie in the sky when you die.

That's a lie."

♪ I'm a boarder and I dwell in that second class hotel.

♪ ♪ If I stay here long I think I'll go insane.

♪ ♪ Oh, I lay here on my bunk and I cannot reach my trunk, ♪ ♪ and the board I pay would break a millionaire.

♪ ♪ Oh the beefsteak it was rare and the butter had red hair ♪ ♪ and the baby has his feet both in the stew.

♪ ♪ Oh the eggs cannot catch, if you broke one it ♪ ♪ would hatch in that hungry in ♪ ♪ that all go hungry hash house where I go.

♪ ♪ And they carried me upstairs one night, ♪ ♪ I had neither gun or knife.

♪ ♪ The thing that they had never done before.

♪ ♪ Oh the fleas they held me down and ♪ ♪ the chiggers scrapped around ♪ ♪ In that all go hungry hash house where I go.

♪ ♪ Oh you feed on chicken pie, if you eat it you will die ♪ ♪ and meat you cannot cut with a sword.

♪ ♪ Well the undertakers hang around for ♪ ♪ work there to be found in ♪ ♪ that all go hungry hash house where I go.

♪ ♪ Now she promised she would meet me when ♪ ♪ the clock struck seventeen ♪ ♪ in the stockyards that were just outside of town ♪ ♪ where the pigs feet and pigs ears ♪ ♪ sell like tough old Texas steers ♪ ♪ and sirloin steaks nineteen cents a pound.

♪ ♪ She's my darling, she's my daisy.

♪ ♪ She's cross-eyed and she's crazy.

♪ ♪ She bow-legged, pigeon-toed ♪ ♪ and she's lame.

♪ ♪ Well I know her breath is sweet, but I'd ♪ ♪ rather smell her feet.

♪ ♪ She's my freckle faced ♪ ♪ consumptive Saroh Jane.

♪ ♪ Now the landlord of the house, he's a dog ♪ ♪ gone drunken louse, ♪ ♪ and he sells things that you can ♪ ♪ smoke or smell.

♪ ♪ Oh his leg is made of tin, and it's filled ♪ ♪ with beer and gin.

♪ ♪ In that all go hungry hash house where I go.

♪ ♪ Oh the biscuits there are wooden and they ♪ ♪ have limburger puddin' ♪ ♪ and the cheese that comes ♪ ♪ from someplace on the Rhine.

♪ ♪ When they open up the gates, ♪ ♪ here come chickens on roller skates ♪ ♪ In that all go hungry hash house where I go.

♪♪ ♪♪♪ female: Yay!

[applauding] female: Lou, they just don't write them like they used to.

Lou: No, they don't.

[female laughing] male: We're just about out of time here.

We'll be back next week with another version of "Jazz Roots."

You'll be here too.

Be real good to each other and we'll see you all next time.

Bye-bye now.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jack Tempchin: Well, let's talk about the real Lou Curtiss, freedom fighter, CIA guy, mountain climber, and music collector.

No, I'm making all that up.