The following is a guest post by Stephen Winick, American Folklife Center. Staff members from the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center (AFC) have identified a one-minute-long segment of silent color footage as film of David “Honeyboy” Edwards, shot by Alan Lomax for the Music Division in 1942. Although the meeting between Edwards and Lomax …
Archive for the ‘Musicians’ Category (85 posts)
Posted in: Guest bloggers, Musicians, Pic of the Week
People sometimes ask if Library of Congress programs are available to view online. Copyright and other issues prevent us from making everything available online, but highlights from the Music Division’s great concert and lecture season are available on the Library’s webcasts page, including the lecture “Bernstein meets Broadway,” the late Jack Gottlieb’s revealing talk “Working …
Posted in: Concerts, Musicians, Pic of the Week
Sometimes it’s hard not to get lost in our collections here at the Library, and when the National Jukebox launched about a year ago, I had a whole new resource full of wonderful early 20th-century recordings to explore. After writing a blog post last month on popular music in World War I-era England, I featured …
Iconic tenor Enrico Caruso was born on February 25, 1873 in Naples, Italy. Over a career spanning 25 years, he performed at the world’s great opera houses, including nearly 900 appearances at New York’s Metropolitan Opera alone. In this age of the mp3 we take recorded music for granted, but Caruso was one of …
Posted in: Birthdays, Musicians, Pic of the Week
Known as the Texas Troubador, Ernest Tubb was born on February 9, 1914 in Ellis County, Texas. His best known song is probably “Walking the floor over you,” but owing to my heritage I am partial to “My Filipino baby.” In September 1947, Tubb led the first Grand Ole Opry in New York’s Carnegie Hall, …
Posted in: Birthdays, Composers, Musicians, Pic of the Week
Considered one of the world’s finest gambists, Paolo Pandolfo offers a free master class in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium, working with three exceptional young students: Amy Domingues (known in indie-rock circles for her band Garland of Hours), Niccolo Seligman, and Lucine Musaelian. This 90-minute event is open to the public, no tickets required. Seating is …
Today we remember the birthday of one of bebop’s pioneers, captured in a classic portrait by photographer William P. Gottlieb. Drummer Max Roach was born on January 10, 1924 in North Carolina. He was not only a pioneer of the new form but was active in the Civil Rights movement with his We Insist! Max …
Posted in: Birthdays, Collections, Musicians, Pic of the Week
Head of Acquisitions and Processing Denise Gallo recently pointed out the ingenuity of her staff’s Christmas tree, festively adorned with photocopied highlights from the Music Division’s deep coffers. The elves who assembled this holiday centerpiece were the music specialists and technicians who work in the archival processing section. Gallo notes that the tree is also constructed …
Posted in: Collections, Composers, Holidays, Musicians, Pic of the Week, Staff
The following is a guest post by Acquisitions Specialist and Curator of the Gerry Mulligan Papers, Loras John Schissel. We were fortunate to have Bob Brookmeyer and members of Gerry Mulligan’s band when the Music Division celebrated the acquisition of the Mulligan Papers with a gala concert in the Coolidge Auditorium in 1999. I’ve met …
Posted in: Composers, Musicians, Pic of the Week
In the Muse has been under the weather lately, and would have otherwise paid timely homage to one of the twentieth century’s greatest entertainers. Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey on December 12, 1915. His long and storied career invited imitation and parody alike, but it’s hard to imagine popular music without …
Posted in: Birthdays, Collections, Musicians, Pic of the Week
