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Posted by: Douglas D. Peach
The state of Minnesota is home to many traditions, communities, and forms of expressive culture. In this post, we highlight collection materials from the American Folklife Center pertaining to the folklife and cultural heritage of the North Star State.
Posted in: Cultural Heritage, Fieldwork, Folk Art, Folksong, Foodways, Minnesota, Norwegian Americans, Photographs
Posted by: Stephen Winick
The latest items to catch my ear in the Archive of Folk Culture are two reels of recordings of Eunice Yeatts McAlexander, a ballad singer who was recorded in 1978 as part of AFC's Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project. McAlexander, who passed away in 1990, had many wonderful versions of traditional ballads brought over to Appalachia from Britain, and she's a great source for unusual ballad texts. In addition to traditional ballads like “The Two Sisters,” “Little Massie Grove,” and “Lord Bateman,” she also sang nursery rhymes and lullabies for the collector, Wally Macnow. This blog post provides a little background on the singer and her songs, and embeds the digitized reels, photos, and detailed tape logs so you can listen and follow along.
Posted in: Folksong
Posted by: Stephen Winick
In this post, we hear one last farewell shanty from the retired sailor Patrick Tayluer, who sang and told stories for the Archive of Folk Culture in 1942. The song tells the romantic tale of a sailor weighing anchor to leave for the port city of Rio Grande, Brazil. He says goodbye to his sweetheart and asks her to marry him when he returns. This is the final post in a series about the sea shanty singer Patrick Tayluer, and contains links to the entire series where you can find more songs and stories of the sea.
Posted in: Folksong, Patrick Tayluer, Sea Shanties
Posted by: Douglas D. Peach
In 2024, Los Pleneros de la 21--a NYC-based organization whose members specialize in teaching and performing the Puerto Rican musical genres of bomba and plena--were awarded with a Community Collections Grant (CCG) by the American Folklife Center, to document musicians, teachers, and community members involved in bomba and plena music in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. This post is an excerpt of an interview with LeAna López, the primary interviewer for the project, about the group's CCG work. The full interview is accessible on the Library of Congress' Of the People blog.
Posted in: Community Collections Grants, Fieldwork, Folk Music, Folksong, New York, Oral History, Puerto Rican Americans
Posted by: Douglas D. Peach
In this post, the American Folklife Center highlights a July 2024 concert performance and oral history interview with the Swanky Kitchen Band--an ensemble performing fiddle-based kitchen band music from the Cayman Islands.
Posted in: Cayman Islands, Cultural Heritage, Folk Music, Folksong, Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Patrick Tayluer, the retired sailor who recorded 79 sea shanties, ballads, and stories for the Library of Congress in 1942, was fascinated by Australia. In this post we present several of his Australian songs and stories. We also recount his epic 7500 kilometer walk across the continent from late 1929 to early 1931. The post includes audio of two songs, including a bushranger ballad never collected from any other source.
Posted in: Folksong, Patrick Tayluer, Sea Shanties
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This post continues Stephen Winick's series on the sea songs of Patrick Tayluer, and finishes the story of "The Leaving of Liverpool," the lyric lament of a nineteenth-century mariner who leaves his hometown of Liverpool for San Francisco. In this post Steve outlines how the song became a major part of the folk revival, and gives links to versions and adaptations performed and recorded by everyone from the Clancy Brothers to the Kingston Trio and Ewan MacColl to Bob Dylan. He asks what can be learned from Patrick Tayluer's version of the song. Finally, he provides a fragmentary recording of the song from 1942, sung by a woman, and discusses who the mystery singer might be!
Posted in: Folksong, Patrick Tayluer, Sea Shanties
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This post continues Stephen Winick's series on the sea songs of retired sailor Patrick Tayluer, collected in 1942. One of the songs William Doerflinger collected from Tayluer was "The Leaving of Liverpool," the lyric lament of a nineteenth-century mariner who leaves his hometown of Liverpool for San Francisco, through the treacherous seas around Cape Horn. Doerflinger had previously collected it from another retired sailor, Richard Maitland. Years later, based on Doerflinger's publications, the song became a major part of the folk revival, with versions and adaptations performed and recorded by everyone from the Clancy Brothers to the Kingston Trio and Ewan MacColl to Bob Dylan. This post looks at Tayluer and Maitland and their field recordings of "The Leaving of Liverpool."
Posted in: Folksong, Patrick Tayluer, Sea Shanties
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This post in the Homegrown Plus series features the Windborne Trio, a vocal group from New England. Windborne is usually a quartet, but Jeremy Carter Gordon was prevented from performing at this show. Luckily, before Jeremy joined the group, Windborne toured as a trio, so they had the repertoire, arrangements, and experience to put together a stunning show without him. Consequently, for this concert Windborne was Lynn Mahoney Rowan, Will Thomas Rowan, and Lauren Breunig. In their concert they performed a mix of old and new favorites, including American, English, Georgian, Corsican, and Basque songs. Just like other blogs in the Homegrown Plus series, this one includes a concert video, a video interview with the musicians, and connections to Library of Congress collections.
Posted in: AFC Events, Folksong, Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus