Folk Music
Humanities > Music History & Studies> Folk Music
19th-Century California Sheet Music
"A virtual library of some 2,000 pieces of sheet music published in California between 1852 and 1900, together with related materials such as a San Francisco publisher's catalog of 1872, programs, songsheets, advertisements, and photographs."
By Mary Kay Duggan, Dept. of Music; School of Information Management & Systems, University of California, Berkeley.
AFSCME LaborLinks: Women's Labor History
Sections include: General Links ; Women's Trade Union League ; Mother Jones and Other Women in the Mines ; Women and Labor in the Textile and Garment Industries ; Wobbly Women ; Other Famous Women in Labor History ; Women's Labor Songs - Lyrics.
American Federation of State, Country and Municipal Employees.
Alegria : The Mexican Folklorico Home page
"Site contains links to Los Danzantes de Alegria, Grupo Folklorico Mexico Tenochtitlan, Dance Directory, Calendar of Events, Regional Dances of Mexico, Links to related Sites and a Bulletin Board"
California Gold: Northern California Folk Music From the Thirties
"...a multi-format ethnographic field collection that includes 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."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
[Earle, Steve] Artists Network of Refuse & Resist
"Artists dedicated to creating a Culture of Resistance"
Ethnomusicology Online
Peer-reviewed e-journal
Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier
The Henry Reed Collection
- American Memory, Library of Congress
Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1937-1942
"...is a multiformat 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 folktales in many languages, including blues and work songs from menhaden fishing boats, railroad gangs, and turpentine camps; children's songs, dance music, and religious music of many cultures; and interviews, also known as "life histories." The online presentation provides access to 376 sound recordings and 106 accompanying materials..."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
Folk Music - An Index to Recorded Resources
Entries total over 50,000
By Jane Keefer
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande:
The Juan B. Rael Collection, 1940.
"...is an online presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado...to document alabados (hymns), folk drama, wedding songs, and dance tunes...In addition to these recordings, the collection includes manuscript materials and publications authored by Rael which provide insight into the rich musical heritage and cultural traditions of this region
- American Memory, Library of Congress
I Hear American Singing
"This Web site invites visitors to experience the diversity of American performing arts through the Library of Congress's unsurpassed collections of scores, sheet music, audio recordings, films, photographs, maps, and other materials."
- Performing Arts Reading Room, Library of Congress
Lift Every Voice : Music in American Life
Includes: Ballads ; Hymns & Spirituals ; Patriotic Odes ; Minstrels & Musicals ; Protest Songs ; Virginiana ; Audio Clips."
- University of Virginia Library
[Lomax] Alan Lomax (1915-2002)
"...is intended to provide information on Alan Lomax's life, published work, the holdings and ongoing working of the Alan Lomax Archive, Alan's research papers on performance style, and the work of the Association for Cultural Equity."
Max Hunter Folk Song Collection
"...is an archive of almost 1600 Ozark Mountain folk songs, recorded between 1956 and 1976. A traveling salesman from Springfield, Missouri, Hunter took his reel-to-reel tape recorder into the hills and backwoods of the Ozarks, preserving the heritage of the region by recording the songs and stories of many generations of Ozark history."
"Please note: This site is currently under development. We have only a fraction of the entire Collection available at this time."
A joint project of the Southwest Missouri State University Department of Music and the Springfield-Greene County Library in Springfield, Missouri, where the permanent collection is housed.
Musical Instruments Described
"Here are definitions/descriptions of a bunch of musical instruments. Most of these are early (i.e. pre-Baroque), non-Western, or obscure, but I've included some that should be familiar to most readers for comparison, because they have an interesting history, because they're mentioned on one of my other pages, or just because I felt like it. Give me enough time and it might grow into an encyclopedia..."
By D. Glenn Arthur, Jr.
"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals (1938-1943)
"consists of 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 (including six Sacred Harp songs) by John Work between September 1938 and 1941. These recording projects were supported by the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center). Song lists made by the collectors, correspondence with the Archive about the trips, and a special issue of the Fort Valley State College student newsletter, The Peachite: Festival Number, are also included. One interesting feature of this collection is the topical rewording of several standard gospel songs to address the wartime concerns of the performers."
- American Memory Project, Library of Congress
Save Our Sounds
A Joint Project of the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress
"The collections include thousands of recordings from every state of the union and include every genre of spoken word and music -- speeches, tales, biographical narrative, poetry, blues, gospel, jazz, folk, ethnic, country, bluegrass and old time, polka and contra, western swing and conjunto, pow wow and sacred song -- providing a documentary aural history of the nation from the late 19th century to the present."
An extraordinary work in progress!
Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM)
Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip
"...is a multiformat ethnographic field collection that includes nearly 700 sound recordings, as well as fieldnotes, dust jackets, and other manuscripts documenting a three-month, 6,502-mile trip through the southern United States...recorded approximately 25 hours of folk music from more than 300 performers. These recordings represent a broad spectrum of traditional musical styles, including ballads, blues, children's songs, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, religious dramas, spirituals, and work songs."
American Memory, Library of Congress
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