ALABAMA  FOLK
E-News
                    Winter 2011

Alabama Folklife Association

Happy Holidays

Alabama Folklife Collections

Web Page Launched!

 

Approximately 50 complete performances from the Alabama Folk Sampler, City Stages and Alabama Folklife Festival collection have been posted on the Alabama Department of Archives and History website.  In the coming weeks more than 125 more will be posted.  These performances, representing a cross section of traditional music from Alabama and the South, can now be accessed and listened to on the website.

 

http://www.archives.state.al.us/folklife/

 

Photographs and selections from the program guides with information on the performers will also soon be posted.

 

Work continues on the digitization of the Primitive Baptist collection.  This is the fieldwork that led to the publication of the AFA funded Benjamin Lloyd's Hymn Book in 1999.  The collection contains many outstanding "Dr. Watts" style lined out congregational hymn singing.  Most of the recordings are from the Sipsey River Primitive Baptist Association in west central Alabama, but there are also recordings from south-west Georgia documenting the singing traditions of the Primitive Baptist churches in that area.  The songs were captured on cassettes and digital audio tapes (DAT). While cassettes are a relatively stable medium, DATs have proven to be fragile and require immediate attention.  DAT players and tapes are no longer in production, so locating useful equipment presents challenges during the course of transferring the material. 

 

From Kevin Nutt, Archive of Alabama Folk Culture

 For more information on the

Archive of Alabama Folk Culture visit:

http://alabamafolklife.org/content/archive-alabama-folk-culture


Alabama in the Making:
Traditional Arts of People and Place 
Upcoming Traveling Exhibit to Tour Alabama

With grant support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alabama Humanities Foundation, the Alabama Folklife Association is excited to announce that we will be spending the first six months of 2012 planning, designing, and producing a traveling exhibit that will be coming to a venue near you between June 1, 2012 and May 30, 2013.  We are very pleased to feature the research conducted by the Alabama Community Scholars of 2004, 2006, and 2008 in addition to the photographs, interviews, and videos collected by fieldworkers to facilitate the Smithsonian project. 

 

The exhibit panels will provide an overview of the context and traditions of the Tennesse Valley, Southern Appalachians, Black Belt, Wiregrass, and Gulf Coast regions of Alabama.  Listening stations will provide opportunities to view slideshows of folk and traditional artists while hearing primary accounts about their work and experiences.  We will keep you posted through the Alabama Folk E-News, AFA web site, and AFA facebook as to touring dates, locations, and associated products and programs.  We look forward to coming to see you soon. 

15th Annual Rotunda Singing
February 4, 2012
9:30 a.m.- 3:00 p.m.

Foyer, Alabama Department of Archives and History

Montgomery, Alabama  

Come and sing from all four oblong shape-note hymnals currently used in Alabama ... 

Barbecue Lunch ($5 donation is requested)  

 Handicap accessible entrance is from Adams Street

Contacts:  Bill & Nancy Hogan (334)514-9742, [email protected] or

Joey Brackner (334) 242-4076, x-225; 

email [email protected] 

Sunday Singings, February 5th

For the Central Music Convention, Traveler's Rest Church, go south down US 231 to Troy, SR87 to Samson, right on SR52 right on CR-17 / Traveler's Rest Rd or Drive north to Jacksonville, AL, for the Burnham and Brown Memorial Singing.   

Alabama Roots Music

 

During the months of February through September, 2011, folklorist Fred C. Fussell surveyed Barbour, Henry, Dale, Houston, Russell, Lee, and Chambers counties in search of public venues that feature live presentations of music that is traditional to Alabama.  Conducted on behalf of the Alabama Roots Music Documentation Project with funding from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and Alabama Folklife Association,  this collaboration with the Historic Chattahoochee Commission (HCC) in Eufaula, Alabama also resulted in the identification of a number of traditional music venues in other Alabama counties.  It is hoped that this work, along with additional research to be conducted later, will contribute to the publication of a comprehensive guidebook and related web site that identifies and describes Alabama's many live traditional music venues. The University of Alabama Press has tentatively agreed to publish the completed guidebook.   From Fred C. Fussell

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.  These are updates since the last E-News.
RENEWALS       PATRONS
Cherokee Public Library                Joey Brackner, Montgomery
James Huckaby, Prattville            Sherry Loper, Hoover
Elliott Knight, Tuscaloosa            
Stacy Morgan, Birmingham        
Debbie Pendleton, Montgomery
Deborah Rankins, Thomasville
 
                          Join the AFA Online
Like us on Facebook
 
Contents

The Archive of Alabama Folk Culture (AAFC) is located in the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery.

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alabama State Council on the Arts fund the AAFC.

 

      

The AFA also continues the AAFC with funding from the Alabama State Tag Legislative Committee's Support the Arts, tags.  Consider purchasing a tag through your local probate office.  These funds go directly towards the arts in Alabama. 

 

  

 Alabama in the Making:
Traditional Arts of People and Place
Lebron Batey, fiddle making
Lebron Batey, fiddle maker
 Photograph by Jim Cauthen
Rotunda Singings  Photos by Steve Grauberger
ROTUNDA SINGING
Photographs by Steve Grauberger
  Rotunda Singings  Photos by Steve Grauberger
 
Alabama Roots Music Survey
Music Venue:  Okra Festival
Burkville Community

Okra Festival by Fred Fussell

Alabama Bluesman

Willie "Sonny Boy" King

Photograph by Fred C. Fussell 

 

Arts Advocacy Day in Montgomery:
A "Call to Action" and
"Gathering of the Troops"
 Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m.  Alabama Shakespeare Festival Theatre 

 Join Al Head, Executive Director of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, to prepare for the upcoming legislative session and discuss ways to 

"make the case for public support for the arts." 

For further information visit AFA web site page:

http://www.alabamafolklife.org/content/arts-advocacy-call-action