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 |
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The Birmingham Sunlights. Photograph by Steve Grauberger. |
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.
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