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Archive: 2017 (114 Posts)

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

Caught My Eye: The Mystery Bass Player

Posted by: Stephen Winick

To the right, you’ll see a photo of the front door to AFC’s administrative office. If you missed the name plaque, it’s to the right of the door! As you can see, these official name plaques are a little small, especially for the grand doorways of the Thomas Jefferson Building.  For that reason, AFC made a …

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

Pics of the Week: NEA National Heritage Fellow Eva Ybarra!

Posted by: Stephen Winick

As part of the American Folklife Center’s celebration of the 2017 NEA National Heritage Fellowships, we featured a concert yesterday with awardee Eva Ybarra, a Texas conjunto bandleader known as the “Queen of the Accordion.” Her instrument is a beautiful three-row diatonic button accordion which she plays with great dexterity, making it sound almost chromatic. During the show I got …

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

Postcards of World War I

Posted by: Lisa Taylor

The following is a guest post by Irene Lule, a Library of Congress Junior Fellow who worked with the Veterans History Project (VHP) this summer. Of all the types of material contributed to the Veterans History Project, World War I-era postcards are among my favorites. Postcards sent and kept by veterans are striking in their …

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

Reel Folk: Cultural Explorations on Film Screening and Discussion Event

Posted by: Michelle Stefano

On September 29th and 30th, 2017, the Library of Congress is hosting “Reel Folk: Cultural Explorations on Film,” a series of free film screenings and discussions organized by the American Folklife Center. The films feature fascinating explorations of traditional culture in the U.S., focused particularly on cultural communities, traditional artists and their cultural practices in …

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

A Bonus Story: Billy Bragg and the Healing Power of Folksong

Posted by: Stephen Winick

In late July, the American Folklife center was privileged to host a book talk by Billy Bragg, who spoke about his book, Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World.  A new blog post over on the Library of Congress blog tells the story of how we came to get the well known English singer/ …

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

From “Mule-een” to New Orleans: Just What Was Lead Belly Saying?

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Introduction The great American songster Lead Belly, first recorded by John A. and Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1933, is a towering figure in global popular music. In some cases, his influence can be clouded, or hard to understand, because of his own enigmatic personality and because of the fragmentary nature of …

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

Tracking Lomax’s 1952-53 Spain trip

Posted by: John Fenn

Ascensión Mazuela-Anguita is the current scholar in the Jon B. Lovelace Fellowship for the Study of the Alan Lomax Collection, and has been using her time at the Library of Congress to explore materials held at the AFC related to Lomax’s 1952–53 field recording trip to Spain. In this recent guest post on the Kluge …