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Category: Alan Lomax

Two men seated, one playing guitar, the other playing fiddle.

“No One Can Ever Forget It”: Stavin’ Chain’s Performance of “Batson”

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: This is the second in a series of posts about the murder ballad “Batson.” This one discusses the performance recorded by John A. and Alan Lomax from a trio of musicians including Wilson Jones, a.k.a. Stavin’ Chain, in 1934. A little while back, I presented for the first time anywhere a version of the …

A man on a horse, accompanied by the caption "'General' Harrison at the Grand Canyon."

“Oh, Mama”: A Mother’s Love and the Murder Ballad “Batson”

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: This is the first in a series of posts about the murder ballad “Batson.” This one discusses previously unpublished versions of the song from manuscript collections at AFC. The ballad “Batson,” collected by John and Alan Lomax from Wilson Jones (whose nickname was “Stavin’ Chain”) and two accompanists, has long been a well-known and …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Beyoncé, Paul Bowles, and More: Current GRAMMY Nominees with AFC Connections on the Library of Congress Blog

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: This is just a teaser for a fuller post over at the Library of Congress Blog. Read the full story there! This year the GRAMMY awards promise to be exciting for music fans everywhere, but especially fans of the American Folklife Center.  At least four of the nominees have connections to the AFC archive: …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Nearly 300,000 Lomax documents now accessible online

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by the American Folklife Center’s Alan Lomax curator Todd Harvey. Fans of folk music fire up your browsers! The second—and largest—phase of the Lomax family papers has just gone online at this link. This set of manuscripts joins ca. 25,000 items that went online last fall. Researchers now have access to nearly …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Jon B. Lovelace Fellowship for the Study of the Alan Lomax Collection

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress invites qualified scholars to apply for a post-doctoral fellowship for advanced research based on the Alan Lomax Collection. The Lovelace Fellowship, established in 2015 for the study of the Alan Lomax Collection, pays tribute to the 60-year friendship between philanthropist Jon B. Lovelace and James …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

“Trench Blues”: An African American Song of World War I

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

This post is also featured on the Library of Congress Blog  as “World War I: ‘Trench Blues’ — An African American Song of the War.” Head over there to find more WWI stories from the Library’s collections honoring the centennial (2017-2018).   There is  another Folklife Today post about an African American World War I song …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

The Candidate’s a Dodger: An Electoral Folksong from Oral Tradition to Aaron Copland

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: this is the first in a series of posts about a classic item from the AFC archive, “The Dodger.” [See the first post here.] [See the second post here.][See the third post here.] Second note: we’ve also created a podcast version of these stories. Download our “Dodger” podcast here! As Election Day draws near, …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

The American Folklife Center: 40 Years of Change

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The following post is part of a series of blog posts about the 40th Anniversary Year of the American Folklife Center. Visit this link to see them all! This year the Library’s American Folklife Center (AFC) turns 40. Detailed histories of AFC are available elsewhere [1], so we thought we’d do something different in this …