Top of page

Category: Alan Lomax

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

AFC Junior Fellow April Rodriguez on Lomax’s Choreometrics

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The American Folklife Center is very grateful to April Rodriguez, one of this year’s 36 Library of Congress Junior Fellow Summer Interns.  April has been working with Alan Lomax’s choreometrics materials, a lesser-known but crucial aspect of his research. Her work has revealed aspects of the collection our own staff didn’t know about, and will …

A man speaks at a podium

James P. Leary and Folksongs of Another America

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The following installment in Botkin Folklife Lectures Plus post introduces James P. Leary, a distinguished folklorist and researcher who has published extensively on Library of Congress collections in the American Folklife Center. In addition to his lecture video, it includes photos, audio, and video from AFC's collections of Midwestern folk music, including Croatian, French, Scandinavian, Oneida, English, Welsh, and other ethnic groups. Most of the quotations from Leary in this article come from an email interview we did in July 2015, but I also quote occasionally from the lecture itself, which is also here as an embedded video.

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

Treasures of the AFC Archive Banner #2

Posted by: Stephen Winick

This is the second in a series of six posts presenting AFC’s new traveling exhibit Treasures of the American Folklife Center Archive. The exhibit takes the form of lightweight, colorful vinyl banners containing information about AFC, the Library of Congress, and (as the title suggests) some of the treasures found in our archive. We’ll be …

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

Jean Ritchie, 1922-2015

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: The whole AFC staff was saddened by the death of Jean Ritchie earlier this month.  We paid tribute to her immediately in a Facebook post, which you can see here, and the Chairman of our Board of Trustees, C. Kurt Dewhurst, made a moving statement about Jean at the Board’s June meeting.  However, I …

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

Treasures from the AFC Archive Traveling Exhibit

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce the arrival of our new traveling exhibit, Treasures from the American Folklife Center Archive. The exhibit is a series of lightweight, colorful vinyl banners containing information about the American Folklife Center, the Library of Congress, and (as the title suggests) some of the treasures found in our …

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

Alan Lomax in Italy: a letter to Goffredo Plastino

Posted by: Stephen Winick

At the American Folklife Center, researchers come from around the world to study our unparalleled documentation of traditional culture. But sometimes, they don’t even have to come here. Occasionally, new discoveries by our staff are so exciting or so curious that we feel prominent researchers need to know. For this reason, our reference librarians keep …

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

Lead Belly, Alan Lomax and the Relevance of a Renewed Interest in American Vernacular Music

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The following is a guest blog post by Dom Flemons, a musician and singer who currently tours and records as “The American Songster.”  Dom was one of the founders of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, with whom he has played at the Library of Congress’s Coolidge Auditorium, and with whom he won a GRAMMY Award.  Dom …

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

Honoring Vernacular Sounds: AFC Recordings on the National Recording Registry

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Last week, the Library announced this year’s inductees to the National Recording Registry.  There, along with classics by The Doors, Radiohead, Steve Martin, and Joan Baez, was a fascinating AFC collection: The Benjamin Ives Gilman Collection Recorded at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago. This collection of 101 wax cylinder recordings was created by …