Thought I would drop some great music on you for your long holiday weekend. This is from one of my favorite Detroit artists Big Tone's new album The Art of Ink. This is his second album and it is the first collection of songs entirely composed of Tone’s actual written poetry. You may recall Big Tone from the track It's Like That off of Dilla's (known then as Jay Dee) album Welcome To Detroit. Tone is an incredibly talented musician, emcee and producer in his own right though and this album really solidifies that. He's also the Director of New Initiatives at the J Dilla Foundation, so if you are looking to use Dilla's beats he's the guy to go to, and he just so happens to be one of the nicest people I have met in a minute. So go to iTunes, or Amazon or just click right here and buy the album you will seriously thank me. The album will cost you less than lunch so just buy it. This video was directed by Dwele and features L'Renee on the hook. Enjoy.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Healthcare Remix
Ma Dukes participated in a Healthcare Remix sponsored by the Service Employees Industry Union last July. Phife Dawg from Tribe Called Quest was a panelist as well having just had a kidney transplant due to complications from Diabetes. The SEIU was kind enough to donate the footage to the film so I uploaded a short clip to the website...
Raise It Up For Ma Dukes--Healthcare Remix Clip from Dana Bartle on Vimeo.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
New Website
I redesigned the website for Raise It Up For Ma Dukes today even though it's 75 degrees and sunny outside my window and I haven't stopped working since I got back from Detroit. But I have a picture of the Yancey's above my computer in my editing suite that drives me to keep going. I just got off the phone with Mr. Harry Mackie, the former manager of The Ivies, Mr. Yancey's Doo Wop group. He is so thrilled that their hit Sunshine is being played all around the world now thanks to our good friend Vlada Stojanovic at Global Grooves Collective and Laid Back Radio.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Limelight Film Festival
Blind Faith, a film I co-directed as a member of Profluence Productions, is screening today at 3pm at the Limelight Film Festival in Edmonton. So if you are in the area stop by and show your support!
Blind Faith--clip from Dana Bartle on Vimeo.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Pa Dukes
I spent all day yesterday with the Yancey's. Just sitting around their kitchen table absorbing all the great stories they had to share. It was my first time meeting Dilla's father, Beverly Dewitt Yancey, he was probably the single most influential person in Dilla's musical development. Both he and Ma Dukes had numerous musical groups over the years from their gospel group Positive Force, to their after church group they liked to call the Attitude Adjustment which included a 10 year old Dilla playing snare drum, to their Jazz and Gospel group The Larks, which they just sang with not two years ago. But Mr. Yancey's first group was a Doo Wop group called The Ivies. They were four long time friends from Detroit who sang 4 part harmony, Dewitt being the Tenor. They played together for 25 years and were the halftime group for the Harlem Globetrotters for many years. The Ivies only recorded two songs in 1958 in New York City at the Ed Sullivan Studio for Ivy Records. They are long out of print but you can find a CD Doo Wop compilation called The Best of Ivy and Hanover Records on Amazon and the Ivies are on track 11 Sunshine and track 12 Come On. My Yancey played the CD for me yesterday and his face just lit up as we all sat and listened.
When I came back to my hotel room I somehow found a copy of the song online and posted it on Twitter and Facebook. Then my friend Vlada Stojanovic from the Global Grooves Collective and Laidback Radio in Brussels contacted me and asked if I could send him the track so he could feature it on his radio show. I was already so excited to get back to the Yancey's today and tell Dewitt the news, and then this morning I found a copy of the original 45 The Ivies recorded all those years ago at Ed Sullivan Studios and now I can't wait to get there and give it to him.
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When I came back to my hotel room I somehow found a copy of the song online and posted it on Twitter and Facebook. Then my friend Vlada Stojanovic from the Global Grooves Collective and Laidback Radio in Brussels contacted me and asked if I could send him the track so he could feature it on his radio show. I was already so excited to get back to the Yancey's today and tell Dewitt the news, and then this morning I found a copy of the original 45 The Ivies recorded all those years ago at Ed Sullivan Studios and now I can't wait to get there and give it to him.
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Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Can't Forget the Motor City!
Headed to Detroit to spend a week with Ma Dukes and shoot some footage for Raise It Up For Ma Dukes and it's got me thinking about the history and culture of Detroit. Now a days when you hear about Detroit the media seems to equate the collapse of the auto industry to the collapse of the city.When I tell people I am making a film in Detroit they make jokes about it being such a terrible city that I wonder if any of them have actually ever visited. The Detroit that I visit is a fantastic city and the people are so warm that I love coming back. There is so much culture and history alive in that city that I am often amazed that people don't see the motor city that way.
As I get ready to head to the city that I love so much I thought I would leave you with a piece of history that I think shows the importance and the resonance of Detroit's culture. Of course we all know about Detroit's rich musical history from Motown to Techno, from John lee hooker to The White Stripes, the city is alive with music. Dilla was a student of music and he is well known for incorporating everything he could get his hands on to create his sound. But just like Motown, the Sound of Young America in the 60's, Dilla is both a product of and an agent within the unique, and distinctively urban, cultural landscape of Detroit. It is impossible to understand an intellectual or an artist without understanding their formation. The cultural history of Detroit is just as much a part of Dilla as it was of every artist who hailed from that city before or since.
So back to Motown. On July 23, 1967, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were performing at the historic Fox Theater when they were alerted to the fact that a riot had erupted in Detroit. They addressed the audience telling them to get home safely and they ended the concert. They left Detroit and traveled to Newark, NJ arriving just as the 1967 riots erupted there as well. Eventually they finished their tour in London where they were asked if Dancing in the Streets was a call to riot to which Martha Reeves replied "My Lord, it is a party song." Of course the song was a party song, even today it's infectious and makes you want to jump up and dance. But one year later at the Chrysler plant in the Hamtramck section of Detroit, a group called the Detroit Revolutionary Union Movement, a group a black auto workers who formed a union to fight for the needs of black autoworkers, which were being overlooked by the larger union, it was Dancing in The Streets that blared in the parking lot as DRUM members staged a picket in the parking lot. Sure the song was written as a party song, but "Dancing in the Street" performed in the eye of Detroit's worst urban uprising and again as workers fought for their rights could no longer be seen as just a party song. The song was a symbol of a time when people could use the streets to dance but also to gather, march and struggle for a better life. Detroit has given us a lot, and to love Dilla is to love Detroit.
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As I get ready to head to the city that I love so much I thought I would leave you with a piece of history that I think shows the importance and the resonance of Detroit's culture. Of course we all know about Detroit's rich musical history from Motown to Techno, from John lee hooker to The White Stripes, the city is alive with music. Dilla was a student of music and he is well known for incorporating everything he could get his hands on to create his sound. But just like Motown, the Sound of Young America in the 60's, Dilla is both a product of and an agent within the unique, and distinctively urban, cultural landscape of Detroit. It is impossible to understand an intellectual or an artist without understanding their formation. The cultural history of Detroit is just as much a part of Dilla as it was of every artist who hailed from that city before or since.
So back to Motown. On July 23, 1967, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were performing at the historic Fox Theater when they were alerted to the fact that a riot had erupted in Detroit. They addressed the audience telling them to get home safely and they ended the concert. They left Detroit and traveled to Newark, NJ arriving just as the 1967 riots erupted there as well. Eventually they finished their tour in London where they were asked if Dancing in the Streets was a call to riot to which Martha Reeves replied "My Lord, it is a party song." Of course the song was a party song, even today it's infectious and makes you want to jump up and dance. But one year later at the Chrysler plant in the Hamtramck section of Detroit, a group called the Detroit Revolutionary Union Movement, a group a black auto workers who formed a union to fight for the needs of black autoworkers, which were being overlooked by the larger union, it was Dancing in The Streets that blared in the parking lot as DRUM members staged a picket in the parking lot. Sure the song was written as a party song, but "Dancing in the Street" performed in the eye of Detroit's worst urban uprising and again as workers fought for their rights could no longer be seen as just a party song. The song was a symbol of a time when people could use the streets to dance but also to gather, march and struggle for a better life. Detroit has given us a lot, and to love Dilla is to love Detroit.
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