Feb 4 2017 Message

As you're aware, we came terribly close to abandoning DoukhoborMusic - the website. It was your donations and your enthusiasm and encouragement that pulled us through. Not just the donations, but your heart-felt emails and observations were what motivated us again, and we wish to sincerely thank each of you.

The last two site additions we made (The Penal Survivors) along with the new tracks in the USCC tab brought us over a thousand new visitors over a short period of time from all over the world.

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This site was developed always in mind, to have the most pristine sound and as accurate information as possible, for it was really meant to be an historic record of a past era - which is why we'll not see CD's or newer productions on this site. (Though we considered featuring new CDs in a paid-advertising scenario, but we didn't want to 'monetize' the site). Another thing you may have [or not] noticed is that this site is 'ad-free' - no banners, no annoying ads that interrupt the experience - and we apologize for those annoying popups we had to place on every page. But there was no other way to get the point across while making sure there were no surprises if the closure occurred.

We wish to clear up something (though it is mentioned in the faqs) about the material found on this site. Some expressed fear of it forever being lost should we shut down, but fear not! It was by intentional design that should this site ever reach an 'end-of-life', or the site went down for any reason, all the materials - the over eight hundred music tracks and videos, would still be available outside this portal. Everything on this site was placed on a cloud-based philanthropic site (archive.org) and in essence, DoukhoborMusic simply acts as an index to easily find those materials. One could find them if they spent the time; the difference is, we put those materials there to begin with, so we know exactly where everything is and through DoukhoborMusic, so do you. But they won't be lost. And with over 40,000 downloads of the MP3's that we made available, surely someone would share, freely, once again like we have. Should DoukhoborMusic ever cease to exist, it will simply mean the end of our collecting these old gems, digitally restoring them when we can, and archiving any newly found old gems for you - and there are lots, and lots more.

Because DoukhoborMusic seems to acquire these 'nuggets of old', we have a number of raw materials to which each, could make interesting online archives. Now, we have our own 'wish list' of projects we'd like to share with you - and better than that, we'd like to have your participation in knowing what you thought would be the best that we could attend to, and try to get funding for. We've always maintained that this is 'your site' and you proved that with your support. So we've made it easy for you to help vote - and then we'll try find funding for the project(s) that wins the most support.

Before we share our ideas, we wanted to mention that we've had more than a few emails over the past years asking us to finish the Tovarischi tab. There are 21 records (42 sides) in all, and the source materials are becoming less and less abundant as time passes. This archive is particularly daunting because in some cases we had to use up to three record sources to make one because one would have scratches or skips in one place, while another skips/scratches in another place. So editing these pieces would yield one full recording - and that process alone is very time consuming. We don't have three of the records in this collection - but we know that eventually, they'll emerge - they always do. Though a laborious task, we have nearly half the collection done now and online - but this archive will be done thanks to a generous donation by Lydia Kabatoff! (And this is how we can complete the following projects we have materials for).

We've made this easy to participate and let us know what you think is important to start on. You can remain anonymous or sign your email name (we won't share that) but we will post the results of popularity. Here are the projects we have in mind (in no specific order):

~~USCC tab~~:

Done There are another 10 sides (5 x 78 RPM records) on the USCC label of the Youth Choir. These pioneers were the ones that really pushed the recording era and by that fact alone, these should be on the site. One would assume that there should be an interested party/organization in having these paticular tracks showcased, out of sheer recognition of the pioneers who sparked the recording phenomenon of the 50's via these 78 RPM recordings.

Vote

Vladimir Koochin Collection:

Mr. Koochin resides in Russia, in the city of Rostov on the Don and has had a great interest in Doukhobor singing of Psalms, hymns, and songs (pesni). Between 1975 to 2000, whenever he visited the villages of Petrovka, Hlebadarnoe, and Vesyolovka of the Tselina Region, he would always bring his cassette recorder. The recordings are not studio quality but this collection comprises of a 12 cassette set of interesting and some rare material that was made available for this archive. See preview here:

Vote

Millie & Bernie Voykin:

In the 70's, Millie & Bernie Voykin were a household name in Doukhobor homes. We've recently received 8 tracks of rare studio and non-studio recordings along with permission to put these on the site. But they need some attention and work to build the small but impressive archive. Short sample here:

Vote

Rezansoffs/Markins:

The Rezansoff/Markins of Grand Forks (and of Quartet fame) recorded some 26 songs onto cassette in the 60s because they felt that while the tunes weren't popular, the songs should be recorded so their descendants wouldn't forget them. That cassette was given to a relative (who now passed), and the cassette eventually found its way to DoukhoborMusic. Albeit not in the quality of most other recordings on the site, because of the nature of the recordings and the wishes of the artists that people didn't forget them, we wanted to offer this archive option to be included on DoukhoborMusic.ca. A short sample here:

Vote

Albums with instruments: 7 Albums

(over 70 tracks from the 60's and early 70's)... by Frank & Ruby (from two albums) and five albums by Peter Gritchen. We all know of Frank & Ruby's contributions, but Peter Gritchen was a motivating force in music production as well.These albums weren't put on the site because at the time, it was designed to pay tribute to the accapella albums only, and... we didn't at that time have any worthy of restoration. Peter was an equally worthy contributor to the songs-with-instruments like Tovarischi - and there are a heck of a lot of old songs in his collection. But judging from the interest in the Tovarischi collection and how many people commented that the archive should be completed, these too would no doubt be popular. This archive is a large undertaking so it wouldn't be done quickly - but we could do them one by one, with something to look forward to.

Vote

The Cassette Era:

We don't have a complete list of the Doukhobor cassettes that were released, but there were more than a couple. Since this is quickly falling into the 'vintage media' genre, we have considered the possibilty of building a selection list and going from there. If anyone has any information on cassettes that were released, we'd like to at least start building a database of these releases and their songs. If this is something you think warrants its own archive, please vote!