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Category: Folk Music

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

Cecil Sharp, Nagra Decks, Tony Barrand, and Mick Moloney on the Folklife Today Podcast

Posted by: Stephen Winick

We're back with another episode of the Folklife Today podcast! In this episode, John Fenn and I talk about some of our favorite items in the archive, including a Nagra IV-S portable tape recorder, and invite Jennifer Cutting along to talk about commercial recordings of traditional folk dance tunes collected by the English folklorist Cecil Sharp. We used the opportunity to honor folklorists  Tony Barrand, who built upon Cecil Sharp's dance scholarship, and Mick Moloney, who made some great recordings on our Nagras. Barrand and Moloney both passed away in the last year. As usual, I'll present more complete recordings of the music and other related collections in this blog post, along with links to download the podcast itself.

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

Music and Dance collections at the American Folklife Center

Posted by: Todd Harvey

Music and dance have such prevalence in American Folklife Center collections that, appropriately, we announce guides to these cultural expressions in the same Folklife Today post. The resource guides “Music in the United States” and “Dance” provide descriptive access to more than 1000 AFC collections. Music and dance are intangible cultural expressions that lend themselves …

man seated in wheelchar singing next to a podium

From Conflict to Creativity: The Journeys of Matthew Gill and Teresa K. Howes

Posted by: Lisa Taylor

The following is a guest blog post co-authored by U.S. Navy veteran Matthew Gill and U.S. Army/Army National Guard veteran Teresa K. Howes. This is the second in a four-part guest series featuring military veteran artists who are members of Uniting US, a veteran-focused nonprofit arts organization. Go here to read part 1. In recognition …

A woman plays the hammered dulcimer

Homegrown Plus Premiere: Chinese Hammered Dulcimer with Chao Tian

Posted by: Stephen Winick

We're continuing the Homegrown Plus Premiere series with Chao Tian, a master of the yangqin, or Chinese hammered dulcimer, as well as a sound designer and visual artist. For her concert, Chao Tian is joined by Tom Teasley, a multidimensional percussionist, performer, and composer. As is usual for the series, this blog post includes an embedded concert video, an interview video, and a set of related links to explore!

ceramic cups sitting on shelves

From Conflict to Creativity: The Journeys of AnnMarie Halterman and Ehren Tool

Posted by: Lisa Taylor

The following is a guest blog post co-authored by U.S. Air Force veteran, AnnMarie Halterman, who is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Uniting US, and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Ehren Tool. This is the first in a four-part guest series featuring military veteran artists who are members of Uniting US, a veteran-focused nonprofit arts …

A man plays a Ukrainian Bandura

Homegrown Plus Premiere: Ukrainian American Bandura Master Julian Kytasty

Posted by: Stephen Winick

We're continuing the Homegrown Plus Premiere series with Julian Kytasty, a third generation player of the bandura, a Ukrainian stringed instrument with similarities to the lute and the zither. Julian also sings beautifully and composes for the bandura and other instruments. In this blog you'll find an embedded concert video, an interview video, and a set of related links to explore!

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

Remembering the Life and Work of Tony Barrand: The 2003 Interview [Part 4]

Posted by: Stephen Winick

In this post, we continue presenting Jennifer Cutting’s 2003 interview with Tony Barrand, a singer, dancer, academic, writer, teacher, historian, folklorist, curator, producer, and festival organizer, who died on January 29. Barrand donated the Anthony Grant Barrand Collection of Morris, Sword, and Clog Dancing (AFC 2003/005) to AFC in 2003. This post is the fourth in a series of four posts, each of which will present a portion of the interview. In this post, Cutting and Barrand discuss the effect multiple sclerosis had on Barrand’s life and work, as well as his career from the mid 1980s until 2003 when the interview took place. It is being published on April 3, 2022, which would have been Barrand's 77th birthday.

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

Remembering the Life and Work of Tony Barrand: The 2003 Interview [Part 1]

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The American Folklife Center mourns the passing of Anthony Grant "Tony" Barrand, a singer, dancer, teacher, and folklorist who donated the Anthony Grant Barrand Collection of Morris, Sword, and Clog Dancing (AFC 2003/005) to AFC in 2003. In addition to making this collection, Barrand has been a proponent of English folk traditions in America for more than 50 years. He was a longtime dancer as well as a singer and musician with the John Roberts and Tony Barrand duo, and with the quartet Nowell Sing We Clear. Barrand, who was born in Lincolnshire and continued growing up in Buckinghamshire, England, died on January 29, 2022 at age 76 in his adopted home of Marlboro, Vermont. The interview was recorded to audio and video tape and is in the AFC archive. This post is the first in a series of posts, each of which will present a portion of the interview in transcribed form.

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

“A Central Thread of Our History”: African American Heritage Lasts Longer than a Month

Posted by: Guha Shankar

“In the case of American Negroes, their labor founded the nation and was prime cause of the industrial revolution and the capitalist system of the modern world:  their slavery, revolt, escape, protest and emancipation is a central thread of our history: and without their music and laughter American art and literature would never have attained …