Daisy Turner, the shotgun-wielding centenarian, was someone Jane Beck was anxious to meet. Beck, the Executive Director Emeritus and Founder of the Vermont Folklife Center, recounted her first encounter with Daisy […]
Category: folklore
Daisy Turner’s words
Daisy Turner was a woman of many words. The storyteller and poet was a living repository of history. She related the stories of her own family, from the abduction of […]
Survey Says!: It’s a un-livin’ thing
In the temperate zone of North America, June is busting out all over. The tree near the railroad tracks spreads its verdant canopy over lunchtime picnickers. Staff gardener Margo tirelessly […]
Squeeze This! wins SEM award
Squeeze This! A Cultural History of the Accordion in America by Marion Jacobson has won the 2014 Klaus Wachsmann Prize for Advanced and Critical Essays in Organology from the Society for […]
Congratulations to Neil Rosenberg
Tonight, the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) will induct folklorist, musician, bluegrass historian, and University of Illinois Press author Neil V. Rosenberg into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame at […]
Accordionist Weird Al hits #1
For the first time in his 30 year career, singer, parodist and accordionist “Weird Al” Yankovic has a #1 slot on the Billboard charts with his album Mandatory Fun. What’s […]
Vernacular music and learning with Christopher Smith
Christopher Smith, author of The Creolization of American Culture gave a TED talk at Lubbock called “The Homeland of the Mind,” focusing on how people learn. Smith is an associate […]
The Beautiful Music All Around Us awarded by ARSC
Stephen Wade’s book, The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience has been awarded Best History in the 2013 The Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) […]
Happy birthday to Ola Belle Reed
Although there is some slight dispute over her exact birthday, records say Ola Belle Campbell Reed, was born on August 18, 1916, in Lansing, North Carolina. She was the fourth of […]
Kings for Three Days author Jean Muteba Rahier Q&A
Jean Muteba Rahier is an associate professor of anthropology and the director of the African & African Diaspora Studies Program at Florida International University. His book Kings for Three Days: The […]
Journal of American Folklore publishes 500th issue
This spring, the Journal of American Folklore publishes its monumental 500th issue. As the official journal of the American Folklore Society, JAF has been published continually since the Society’s founding in 1888. […]
Stephen Wade on WGN-TV
Stephen Wade, author the recent book The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience, was a guest on the April 8, 2013, edition of WGN-TV’s Midday News. […]