Folk-E  NEWS
Fall 2011

Alabama Folklife Association

Friends and partners of the Alabama Folklife Association (AFA): 
Welcome to our new online newsletter.  We hope you enjoy reading the latest information on the programs and projects of the AFA.  Help spread the word and encourage others to sign up and receive this new form of communication. 

In Harmony:

Gospel Quartet Tradition, Teaching, and Training 

Saturday, November 5, 2011 

1:00 p.m. -7:00 p.m.

Discovery Alabama Event Center @

WaterMark Place 

4500 Alabama Adventure Parkway

Bessemer, Ala.  (Exit 110 from I-20/59)

 

Opening Lecture

by Doug Seroff 

 

Film Screening

The Jefferson County Sound:

Alabama's Black Gospel Quartets

by Robert Clem

 

Roundtable Discussion: 

Members of the group The Pillars will share primary accounts of singing traditions, teaching, and training. 

 

CONCERT 

The Pillars and

The Birmingham Sunlights 

  

In Harmony Programs are FREE

For more information visit the AFA web site

www.alabamafolklife.org 

Joyce H. Cauthen Fellowship Fund Request for Proposals
Alabama Folklife Association

Purpose of Award: To support new documentation and research into Alabama music, labor, foodways, crafts, and other folk traditions with the expectation that it will enrich public knowledge of Alabama folklife and create significant digital archival materials for the Archive of Alabama Folk Culture (AAFC).

 

Description of projects supported: Transcribed or logged audio or video interviews on Alabama folklife subjects that may become accessible to the public via programs, festivals, CDs, websites, journal articles, videos, or exhibits.

 

Amount: $500-$3,000
 
 

Deadlines: January 15, 2012 and June 15, 2012  

 

For the Full RFP and further information on how to apply, visit the page on the AFA web site:

http://www.alabamafolklife.org/files/Cauthen%20Fellowship%20RFP.pdf

Tributaries #13

A mouthwatering read just in time for the holiday season, Tributaries #13 will present Alabama's food traditions such as stews, barbecue clubs, gumbo, lacy cornbread, and sweet potato pie as well as other topics that might remind you of some of your favorite home cooked meals or shared experiences with friends and family.  Contributors to the journal include Linda Vice, an Alabama Community Scholar and member of the AFA Board of Directors;  Sylvia Stephens, former Secretary to the AFA Board of Directors and also an Alabama Community Scholar;  and Jessica Lacher-Feldman, another esteemed member of the AFA Board of Directors.  Director Emeritus, Joyce Cauthen, contributed an essay and so did other Alabama Community Scholars, William S. Allen, Emily Blejwas, and Susan Thomas.  Another contributor, Valerie Pope Burnes, Director of the Center for the Study of the Black Belt, University of West Alabama, has worked on contract with the AFA to conduct fieldwork.  Allen, Cauthen, Stephens, and Thomas have also completed research for the AFA.

Archive of Alabama Folk Culture
NEW Birmingham Quartet Anthology

In August, long time WJLD Birmingham DJ Bob Friedman dropped by the AAFC.  Friedman, also the bass singer in the Birmingham traditional gospel quartet, The Pillars, graciously allowed the AAFC to make a high quality transfer of an Ensley Jubilee Singers 78 RPM record from his personal collection.  The Ensley Jubilees were one of the premier Jefferson County Quartets of the 1940s and 1950s, but they only recorded one 78 RPM record. A copy of this record had eluded collectors for decades until Friedman located a one in an area flea market.  Both sides of the disc, "On Mount Olive" and "Glory Hallelujah," will be featured on the New Birmingham Quartet Anthology due out early in 2012 and funded by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

 

After months of processing and finagling, 50 performances from the Alabama Folk Sampler Stage and Alabama Folk Festival Collection are due to go online October 27(!). Over 175 performances will eventually be posted on the server of the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH).

 

The primary function of the Archive of Alabama Folk Culture is to process and house the twenty-five years of fieldwork collected by the Alabama Folklife Association, other private collections, and the the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture (ACTC), a division of the Alabama State Council on the Arts.  Initial planning began recently on organizing and accessioning material from ACTC.  The first ACTC collections to migrate to the AAFC will be the audio recordings made by folklorist Steve Grauberger and the fieldwork produced by Maggie Holtzberg for her documentary on the gandy dancer tradition of railroad section crews.  As a permanent contribution to the collections of ADAH, these resources will be preserved and made available for research and education.
Thank You!  The generous contributions from AFA members allows the AFA to carry out its mission to document, preserve, and promote the folk and traditional arts of Alabama.
RENEWALS       NEW MEMBERS
Nancy Callahan, Tuscaloosa           Denise Benshoof, Snellville, GA
Wayne Flynt, Auburn                        Curtis L. Clark, Tuscaloosa
Philip Foster, Birmingham                Cindy F. Howell, Hamilton
Robert Hall, Jr., Northport                
Bill and Nancy Martin, Gaylesville   NEW SUSTAINING MEMBER-
P.J. and Ken Martin, Birmingham        Shari Kongable, Prattville
Susan Thomas, Mobile                              Join the AFA Online
Contents
The Birmingham Sunlights
The Birmingham Sunlights. Photograph by Steve Grauberger.

 The Pillars

The Pillars.  Photograph courtesy of Bob Friedman 

 Request for Proposals

Joyce Cauthen holding the Resolution establishing the fund during the announcement in Belk, Alabama. 
Photograph by Que The Lights.
Tributaries #13 
Alabama's Food Traditions
 

 

 

Bob Friedman (left) and

Kevin Nutt (right) 

Photograph by Alan Legleiter

 

The AAFC is funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

 

 

 

 

 

The Alabama Folklife Association is a partner program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts and receives funding from the Alabama State Tag Legislative Committee's Support the Arts, tags.  Please  consider purchasing a tag through your local probate office.  This funding goes directly towards the arts in Alabama.