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Portrait of Bessie Jones
Bessie Jones on the set of the “Music of Williamsburg” film, Williamsburg, Virginia, April 28, 1960. (Photo by Alan Lomax. Alan Lomax Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress)

Halloween Songs and Stories on the Folklife Today Podcast AND in No Depression!

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Time is getting short before Halloween, so we’re combining two announcements in this one blog post! First of all, as our readers may remember, we’ve been working with No Depression, The Journal of Roots Music, which is published by the nonprofit Freshgrass Foundation. They’re publishing a column called Roots in the Archive, featuring content from the American Folklife Center and Folklife Today. Find the series at this link, over at their website! We’ve published a new column over there featuring Bessie Jones, singer and National Heritage Fellow, who among many other things was an expert on supernatural folklore about witches, magic, Death, and the Devil. Find that newest “Roots in the Archive” column here!

Our second order of business is to announce the third annual Halloween episode of the Folklife Today Podcast! It’s Episode 20 (or Season 3, Episode 1). Find it at this page on the Library’s website, or on Stitcher, iTunes, or your usual podcatcher.  As usual, I’ll use this blog post to direct you to fuller audio and video of the items we mentioned in the podcast, and to give you more background on the topic.

But first:

Get your podcast here!

In the episode, John Fenn and I are joined by Jennifer Cutting to introduce more of our favorite haunted songs. We talk about their history and background, and mention other versions in our collections. Luckily, as of yesterday they’ve all been featured on the blog, so I can just provide links here to their earlier appearances, which also link to supplementary versions.

Jean Ritchie and Duncan Emrich converse. Emrich has a note pad and pencil. There is a microphone suspended from the ceiling between them.
Jean Ritchie speaks to Duncan Emrich during her 1951 visit to the Library of Congress, when she recorded “The Unquiet Grave.” Library of Congress Photo.

Here goes:

Jean Ritchie’s “The Unquiet Grave” and I. G. Greer’s “The Three Babes” (a version of “The Wife of Usher’s Well”) were both presented in our 2017 post “Ghost Stories in Song for Halloween.”

A. L. Lloyd’s version of “Polly Vaughan,” Lena Bare Turbyfill’s chilling rendition of “Bolakins” (A version of the ballad known as “Lamkin” or “Long Lankin”), and Seamus Ennis’s “A Bhean Úd Thíos (The Woman Of The Fairy Mound)” (An Irish-language ballad sometimes called in English “The Stolen Bride”), were all featured in last week’s post “Haunting Songs for Halloween 2020.

“Tom Devil,” sung in the podcast by a group of men incarcerated at Parchman Farm, including James Carter, was featured in yesterday’s post “Devil Songs for Halloween.”

Close up of James Carter's face
James Carter swings an axe at Parchman Farm in 1959. Photo by Alan Lomax. Alan Lomax Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

So there you have it! If you want to know more about any of the songs in the podcast, or hear any of the alternate versions we talked about, you’ll find all that in the blog post associated with that song. But first, you’ll have to listen to the podcast! So what are you waiting for?

Here’s that podcast link again.

And in case you’ve forgotten, here’s the No Depression link too.

Happy Halloween–we’ll see you in November!

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