Folklife Today Podcast

This episode continues our look at songs about summer, from the amorous adventures of young lovers to the backbreaking work done by convicts in the sun. Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, along with guest Jennifer Cutting, present their favorite summer songs. Songs include the English “Sweet Primroses;” the Trinidadian “One Fine Summer’s Morning” and “June Come, You No Marry;” the Tuvan “In Summer Pastures;” the African American work song “Worked All Summer Long;” and the Basque “When the Sun Shines Everywhere, How Good the Shade is!” More information on the songs as well as photos of some the singers and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

This episode looks at songs about summer, from the amorous adventures of young lovers to the backbreaking work done by convicts in the sun. Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, along with guests Nicki Saylor and Jennifer Cutting, present their favorite summer songs. Songs include the Finnish “Kesa Ilta,” the Tuvan “Let The Sun Shine On My Verdant Summer,” the African American work song “Long Hot Summer Day,” the Appalachian nonsense song “On a Bright and Summer’s Morning,” the Anglo-Canadian lament “As I Walked Out One Fine Summer’s Evening,” and the Irish love song “Wild Mountain Thyme.” More information on the songs as well as videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

This episode looks at a “Hidden Folklorist” renowned as a poet and playwright: Langston Hughes. It includes interviews with folklorist Langston Collin Wilkins and Hughes scholar Sophie Abramowitz. Wilkins and Abramowitz show us how Langston Hughes’s folklore work was grounded in song collecting and vernacular expression, and committed to the visionary futurity of Black folkloric creativity. We also explore Hughes’s connections to the American Folklife Center archive, especially correspondence between Hughes and Alan Lomax that preserves perhaps the only known copies of some of Hughes’s collected songs, right here in the Library of Congress.

This episode looks at three “Hidden Folklorists” from Louisiana with special guest Joshua Clegg Caffery from the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. The Hidden Folklorists are Becky Elzy and Alberta Bradford, two spiritual singers who had been born in slavery, but who years later sang over a hundred spirituals for collectors; and E.A. McIlhenny, the head of the Tabasco Sauce company, who first collected their spirituals into a book. We recount details of how a microfilm of unique, unpublished manuscript spirituals by Bradford and Elzy came to be part of the American Folklife Center archive, and how Bradford and Elzy came to be recorded on audio discs for the Library of Congress by Alan Lomax in 1934, with the resulting recordings also coming to the AFC Archive. It’s an amusing story in which the 19-year-old Alan Lomax is forced to leave his father, the seasoned collector John A. Lomax “by the side of the road” and drive 40 miles with the 73 year old Bradford to try to find the 82 year old Elzy so they can sing together for the Library’s recording machine. The episode also presents several of their spirituals, and ends with the very moving recording of two women who had been born in slavery singing “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, got free at last!”

This episode looks at folk poetry, with discussions of four poetry-themed collections in the American Folklife Center. Guest Anne Holmes of the Library of Congress Literary Initiatives Division discusses “Living Nations, Living Words,” the signature project of the Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Harjo, the first Native American Poet Laureate, has curated a collection of poetry by Native American poets, which includes recordings of the poets reading their work. The recordings are part of the American Folklife Center archive. The Literary Initiatives division has also created a Story Map to place the poets and poems in a geographic context. The poet M.L. Smoker reads her work “The Book of the Missing, Murdered, and Indigenous—Chapter 1.” Guest Michelle Stefano of the American Folklife Center discusses “Rhyming the Archive,” an event in which members of the poetry slam team Split This Rock wrote poems inspired by materials in the archive and performed them at an event at the Library of Congress. The poet Marjan Naderi reads her work “The Lessons My Mother Taught Me While Preparing Dinner.” Guest Kerry Ward of the Veterans History Project introduces VHP and discusses VHP’s November, 2019, Occupational Poetry Panel, which brought together four Veteran poets to perform their work. Meezie Hermansen performs her work “Tools of the Trade.” Stephen Winick and John Fenn discuss a poem in the American Folklife Center’s archive called “Colorado Morton’s Last Ride.” It’s a ten-minute narrative poem recited by a man named Fred Soule at the Farm Security Administration (FSA) camp in Visalia, California on September 2, 1941. The poem was recorded on an instantaneous disc by Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin, two fieldworkers collecting folksongs for the Library of Congress. Winick discusses the research that led him to discover that the poem, whose original title was “Colorado Morton’s Ride,” was written by Pulitzer-Prize-winner Leonard Bacon and Montana cowboy Rivers Browne. He also reveals the identity of Soule, a public information officer for the FSA. We hear Soule read an excerpt of the poem, and Winick and Fenn promise to release the full poem as a bonus episode.

This episode Presents the poem “Colorado Morton’s Ride,” also known as “Colorado Morton’s Last Ride.” It’s a ten-minute narrative poem recited by Fred Soule at the Farm Security Administration (FSA) camp in Visalia, California on September 2, 1941. The poem was recorded on an instantaneous disc by Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin, two fieldworkers collecting folksongs for the Library of Congress. It was written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Leonard Bacon and Montana Cowboy Rivers Browne. It’s a great, colorful example of cowboy poetry, and we hope you enjoy it.

This episode presents an interview with Candacy Taylor, whose latest project is documenting sites associated with the Negro Motorist Green Book, a travel guide for African Americans during the Jim Crow era. Taylor discusses the dangers inherent in travel for Black people during an era where racial discrimination was legal and open racism was common. She fills us in on the origins of the Green Book. We discuss sites such as Dooky Chase’s restaurant in New Orleans, where owner Leah Chase slapped the hand of President Barack Obama for adding hot sauce to her famous gumbo, and where she fed a young Michael Jackson her signature sweet potato pies. We also discuss the Historic Hampton House, a Jewish-owned hotel in Miami, where a young boxer named Cassius Clay met Malcolm X and changed his name to Muhammad Ali, and where Martin Luther King, Jr. practiced his most famous speech. We hear parts of interviews with Enid Pinkney, who restored the Hampton House; Jerry Markowitz, whose parents owned the Hampton House; Leah Chase of Dooky Chase’s; and Nelson Malden, Dr. King’s barber in Montgomery, Alabama.

This episode presents an introduction to sea shanties, including a discussion of the word “shanty” or “chantey;” a discussion of the roots of shanties; the history of shanties; the subtypes of short-haul shanties, halyard shanties, and capstan shanties; the importance of the African American and Afro-Caribbean communities to shanties; and the prevalence of women singing shanties. The episode presents six shanties, “Pay Me My Money Down” by the Georgia Sea Island Singers, “Haul the Bowline” by Richard Maitland, “Dead Horse” or “Poor Old Man” by Leighton Robinson, “The Amsterdam Maid” by Charles J. Finger,” “We All Going Ashore” by a group of women from Anguilla, and “Blow the Man Down” by Ship’s Company Chanteymen.

This episode presents the American Folklife Center’s 2020 mummers’ play, “The Peaceful Transfer of Mumming.” Every year, in the week or two before Christmas, staff members of the American Folklife Center put our research and performance skills into play, bringing collections to life in a dramatic performance that tours the halls of the Library of Congress. The performance is based on traditional mummers’ plays. This year, since we can’t perform our mummers’ play live, we present it here as a podcast episode, like an old-time radio play. “Mumming” is an old word for a tradition of getting dressed up in costumes and going from house to house, doing a performance in exchange for food, drink, and money. In Britain, sometime in the 17th century, it took the form of a particular kind of play which includes music, and dance, and rhymes. In the play, several characters get in a fight, one or more are killed, and a doctor arrives and revives the dead characters. This 2020 mummers’ play features Stephen Winick as Father Christmas, Stephanie Hall as Beelzebub, Valda Morris as Linear Feet, Michelle Stefano as Thomas Jefferson, George Thuronyi as John Adams, Hope O’Keeffe as George Washington, Theadocia Austen as Doctor Dolley Madison, and Jennifer Cutting as Abigail Adams. Accordion music is provided by Jennifer Cutting.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick are joined by staff member Jennifer Cutting to discuss and play some of their favorite ballads and songs about ghosts, goblins, fairies, and elves—not to mention the Devil himself. Songs include “The Unquiet Grave” sung by Jean Ritchie; “Polly Vaughan” sung by Albert Lancaster “Bert” Lloyd; “The Three Babes” or “The Wife of Usher’s Well” sung by Isaac Garfield “Ike” Greer and accompanied by Willie Spainhour Greer on a mountain dulcimer; “Bolakins,” also known as “Lamkin” or “Long Lankin,” sung by Lena Bare Turbyfill; “The Stolen Bride” or “A Bhean Úd Thíos (The Woman Of The Fairy Mound)” sung by Séamus Ennis; and “Tom Devil” sung by James Carter, Ed Lewis, Henry Mason, Johnny Lee Moore. All the recordings are from the American Folklife Center archive at the Library of Congress, and the hosts and guests talk about the songs, the singers, and the archive.