Vernacular Music from the American Memory historical collections at the Library of Congress

April 14, 2003 12:43 PM

"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943
Approximately one hundred sound recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia. The documentation was created by John Wesley Work III in 1941 and by Lewis Jones and Willis Laurence James in March, June, and July 1943. Also included are recordings made in Tennessee and Alabama by John Work between September 1938 and 1941. Audio Title Index

The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip
Folk singers and folksongs documented during a three-month trip through the southern United States. Audio Title Index

California Gold: Northern California Folk Music From the Thirties
Materials from the WPA California Folk Music Project Collection, including sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in Northern California. The collection comprises 35 hours of folk music recorded in twelve languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians. Audio Title Index (As Always, More Inside)
posted by y2karl (12 comments total)

Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1937-1942. Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections is an ethnographic field collection documenting African-American, Arabic, Bahamian, British-American, Cuban, Greek, Italian, Minorcan, Seminole, and Slavic cultures throughout Florida. Recorded by Robert Cook, Herbert Halpert, Zora Neale Hurston, Stetson Kennedy, Alton Morris, and others in conjunction with the Florida Federal Writers' Project, the Florida Music Project, and the Joint Committee on Folk Arts of the Work Projects Administration, it features folksongs and folk tales in many languages. Audio Title Index

Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection. Traditional fiddle tunes performed by Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia. Recorded by folklorist Alan Jabbour in 1966-67, when Reed was over eighty years old, the tunes represent the music and evoke the history and spirit of Virginia's Appalachian frontier. Many of the tunes have passed back into circulation during the fiddling revival of the later twentieth century. Audio Title Index

Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection. Documentation of religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Audio and Transcription Title Index
Omaha Indian Music.
This multiformat ethnographic field collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985 Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress. Audio Title Index. Pow-Wow Audio in Sequence Index.

Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection
An online presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. This collection consists of audio recordings, photographs, manuscript materials, publications, and ephemera generated during two separate documentation trips supported by the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center). Audio Title Index

From the Collections and Special Presentations Available Online of the American Folklife Center which is part of the American Memory historical collections (All Collections) of the Digital Library of the Library of Congress.
My hundredth post.
posted by y2karl at 12:44 PM on April 14, 2003

[this, of course, is good] - and congratulations.
posted by plep at 12:59 PM on April 14, 2003

*gasp*

...an astounding wealth of riches here, y2karl, you spoil us! Thanks for this post and for the last 99...great heaping doses of quality links, meticulous research and intelligent commentary, the y2karl signature style. I look forward to your next 100 posts!
posted by madamjujujive at 1:19 PM on April 14, 2003

I've actually seen the three mentioned in the front page part of this post before, but for my money, you can never have too many field recording mp3 sites. Thanks, karl!
posted by arto at 2:26 PM on April 14, 2003

Karl - thanks again for such a superb post. Once again you have saved me from returning to College to get an Ethnomusicology Degree. The freed up money can now be spent on more worthwhile endeavors - such as CDs, blank CDs, beer, and more CDs. Wait, I just bought a house, so I guess this means just beer and CDs (and no skittles) for me.
posted by TomSophieIvy at 2:37 PM on April 14, 2003

Wow, great stuff, as soon as my Abba-Teens album finishes, I'll check it out. Really great stuff, thanks.
posted by patrickje at 2:55 PM on April 14, 2003

Just great y2. Too bad yer such a political lefty, 'cause I could way see partying w/ you some night - drinkin' Kentucky sippin' bourbon, smokin' some cubans, and listening to old scratched recordings of righteous music.
posted by MidasMulligan at 3:04 PM on April 14, 2003

Excellent stuff. Congratulations on the century mark!

The Library of Congress audio files are awesome. I spent a lot of time listening to the Lomax recordings recently. Great stuff. I'm going to have to expand my perspective after your post.
posted by bragadocchio at 3:30 PM on April 14, 2003

hey, is this the new moby cd?

There is barely a klinker here and too many to call out but this and this stand out while this might have a familiar name to old hippies.
posted by victors at 3:40 PM on April 14, 2003

for once, y2karl, you justify your existence. kudos.

this is a very nice compilation i bought last week from the library of congress field recordings (well, from rasputins to be honest) that some of you might be interested in. i don't really know much about it, but damn there are some great songs.

i can't believe all of these songs are at the loc site. wowsers. it'll take me weeks.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 10:23 PM on April 14, 2003

Simply wonderful. I know I'm living in the future when I compare the technology I'm listening on with the machines used to record the songs. And these bits of the past aren't sculptures that any Taliban can blow up, nor carvings that looters can steal. Everyone who downloads one of these old songs does just a little bit more to preserve them for future generations.
posted by Guy Smiley at 10:54 PM on April 14, 2003

this is a very nice compilation i bought last week from the library of congress field recordings (well, from rasputins to be honest) that some of you might be interested in. i don't really know much about it, but damn there are some great songs.

Everything in that series is nice--they are very well programed compilations.

Worried Life Blues by David Honeyboy Edwards, is also on one of the original Library of Congress vinyl collections, Negro Blues And Hollers, which is out on Rounder. William Brown's Mississippi Blues and Ragged and Dirty are worth the price alone. Edwards is the only one on that record still alive and performing.
posted by y2karl at 12:21 AM on April 15, 2003