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Posted by: Stephen Winick
May 3, 2019, would have been Pete Seeger’s 100th birthday. Summing up what Pete meant and still means to us is difficult, but I tried my best in the wake of Pete’s death with the tribute post at this link. Rather than summing up again for his hundredth birthday, I thought I’d highlight one …
Posted in: AFC Events, Obituaries, Pete Seeger
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Episode seven of the Folklife Today Podcast is ready for listening! Find it at this page on the Library’s website, or on iTunes, or with your usual podcatcher. Get your podcast here! In this fascinating episode (we hope!), John Fenn and I, along with Library of Congress staff members Stephanie Hall, Michelle Stefano, and Muhannad Salhi, …
Posted in: Hidden Folklorists, Podcasts
Posted by: Stephen Winick
A look at a book talk and interview with Billy Bragg, which occurred at the Library on July 21, 2017. Billy came to the Library of Congress to talk about his book, Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World. While he was here, I teamed up with the award-winning radio personality Mary Sue Twohy of Sirius/XM Radio to do a deep-dive oral history on Billy's life and career. Both videos are right here on this page--just scroll down!
Posted in: Botkin Folklife Lectures Plus
Posted by: Stephen Winick
In the Homegrown Plus series, we present Homegrown concerts that also had accompanying oral history interviews, placing both together in an easy-to-find blog post. (Find the whole series here!) We’re continuing the series with the 2017 Archive Challenge Sampler concert in the Coolidge Auditorium. It’s a little different from the other Homegrown concerts in that it featured …
Posted in: AFC Events, Archive Challenge, Archive Challenge Sampler Concert, Concerts with Archive Challenge Content, Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus
Posted by: Stephen Winick
If you happen to have seen the recent documentary Creative Feds, about federal workers who have musical careers which complement their federal jobs, you might have noticed a familiar face or two. One of the main characters in the film is AFC’s own folklife specialist Jennifer Cutting, who works here as a Research and Programs …
Posted in: Uncategorized
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Episode four of the Folklife Today Podcast is ready for listening! Find it at this page on the Library’s website, or on iTunes, or with your usual podcatcher. Or, hear it in the player below! Our latest podcast episode, “Kumbaya: Stories of an African American Spiritual,” presents some of the background to this classic old song, …
Posted in: Podcasts, Uncategorized
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
If asked her about her profession, Ruby Pickens Tartt (1880-1974) would say that she was a painter. In an era when Alabama women rarely attended college, she graduated from the Chase School of Art in New York and painted and taught painting for much of her life. But folklorists consider her one of their own. She was …
Posted in: Folklorists, Women's History
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This is a guest post from one of the 2019 Folklife Interns at the American Folklife Center, Tali Gelenian. This internship program was launched in the summer of 2018 through a generous gift from the late Peter Bartis, a long-time staff member at the AFC and a tireless proponent of folklife–as well as a fieldworker …
Posted in: Internship program, Podcasts