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Posted by: Stephanie Hall
May Eve, April 30th, and May Day, May first, have long been part of the celebration of spring in Europe. The flowering of fruit trees and sowing season were important to agriculturalists in the hope of a good harvest. Lambing, kidding, and calving season had passed, so animals could be allowed out to more remote …
Posted in: Dance, Folk Music, Folksong, Holidays, May Day
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Yesterday, I posted the recording and a lot of background information on “Colorado Morton’s Last Ride,” a cowboy poem recited by Fred Soule at the Visalia FSA Camp in 1941. The recitation is based on a poem published by Leonard Bacon in a 1927 book, and before that, in the Saturday Review of Literature, …
Posted in: Charles Lafayette Todd and Robert Sonkin, Cowboys, Poetry
Posted by: Stephen Winick
For National Poetry Month, I thought I’d tell a little story about a poem. This piece of verse was recited by a man named Fred Soule at the Farm Security Administration (FSA) camp in Visalia, California on September 2, 1941. The camp was one of several such migrant worker camps in California, established by the …
Posted in: Charles Lafayette Todd and Robert Sonkin, Cowboys, Poetry
Posted by: Stephen Winick
The following is a guest post by Nancy Groce, Senior Folklife Specialist at the American Folklife Center. It originated as opening remarks for the forum Coffeehouses: Folk Music, Culture, and Counterculture, which was held last week in the Library’s Montpelier Room. Webcasts of the event will eventually be added to the Library’s website and accessible …
Posted in: Uncategorized
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
Jewish vocal music culture in the United States reflects the variety of the many different parts of the diaspora from which the Jewish immigrants originally came, as well as different song traditions among Jewish denominations. This essay will examine some of the Jewish folksongs curated by the Recorded Sound section, the Music Division, and the …
Posted in: Folksong, Jewish American History, Jewish Americans
Posted by: Stephen Winick
In my last post, I discussed the more serious side of songs about Noah’s ark. As I mentioned, though, there are other songs too, often with more celebratory messages–or even silly ones. We’ll look at some of those Noah songs in this post. Celebratory songs tend to focus on the joy felt by Noah when …
Posted in: African Americans, Alan Lomax, Animals, Folk Music, Folksong, Languages and Dialects, Uncategorized
Posted by: Megan Harris
In a letter dated November 16, 1918, an Army Private First Class stationed near Verdun, France, wrote to his mother, Dear Mother: By firelight on the fought-over ground of this stricken country I pause to rush word to you of my safety + well being. The last three weeks were terrible + of them I …
Posted in: Uncategorized, Veterans History Project
Posted by: Stephen Winick
The tale of Noah and the ark is one of the Bible’s perennially popular stories. Children’s books, novels, comics, TV shows, and even movie novelizations are forever emerging onto the scene, depicting the story of the great flood. There’s even a motion picture out right now, featuring a modern take on the story. It may not …
Posted in: AFC Events, African Americans, Alan Lomax, Folk Music, Folksong
Posted by: Nicole Saylor
During a recent trip to the University of Iowa at the invitation of the Digital Studio for Public Arts and Humanities, I took the opportunity to show off some of our recently digitized recordings made by folklorist Harry Oster (1923-2001), who was on the English faculty at Iowa for 30 years. The American Folklife Center …
Posted in: Folk Music, Folksong, Uncategorized