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This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
Archival processing of the Peter Kennedy Folktracks Collection was made possible through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Size | 175 items |
Abstract | Audio recordings of folk music and traditions from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Africa, and the United States, originally released on audiocassette by Folktracks, a commercial record label founded by white English folklorist, Peter Kennedy (1922-2006). Audiocassette recordings consist mostly of field recordings of traditional music and ballads, storytelling, stringed instruments, and children's songs and games, as well as interviews. The collection also contains supporting documentation consisting of photocopies of tape logs and brochures produced by Folktracks Recordings and the United Kingdom's National Centre for the Oral Tradition. Tape logs include song titles, often accompanied by contextual information on the recordings. |
Creator | Kennedy, Peter, 1922-2006. |
Language | English ; Gaelic |
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Peter Kennedy (1922-2006) was a white folklorist, music collector, and founder of the Folktracks record label (sometimes referred to as Folktrax), which issued recordings of folk music, stories, and traditions. Born and raised in London, England, Kennedy is the editor of The Fiddler's tune-book (1951), Films on Traditional Music and Dance: A First International Catalogue (1970), and Folksongs of Britain and Ireland: A Guidebook to the Living Tradition of Folksinging in the British Isles and Ireland (1975). The British Library holds the Peter Kennedy Collection, which includes select photographs and field recordings by Peter Kennedy.
Back to TopAudio recordings of folk music and traditions from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Africa, and the United States, originally released on audiocassette by Folktracks, a commercial record label founded by English folklorist, Peter Kennedy. Recordings from England include storytelling; traditional music and ballads; country dance, melodeon, concertina, and fiddle tunes; sea shanties; songs, stories, and customs of bargemen and Morris dancers; performances of mumming, soul-caking, and plough plays; Cornish songs and May Day customs; Skyport's London blues musicians; Old English minstrel songs; children's songs and games, including Pace-egg customs and plays; and an early phonograph recording made by Percy Grainger in 1906 of Lincolnshire singer Joseph Taylor (b. 1832 or 3). Recordings from Scotland include folk music, ballads, and storytelling in both English and Scottish Gaelic, children's rhymes, Scots tinker tales, fairy songs and charms, mouth music, and work songs. From Wales there are Welsh Romani harp and hornpipe tunes, Welsh penillion songs and stories, and a 1953 interview with Welsh coal miners in the Rhondda valley. Recordings from Ireland consist of folk tales and fiddle tunes, reels, and jigs, Belfast children's street songs and games, an Irish street-singer balladeer, and Jack tales. From Africa, there are field recordings of storytellers, including translations, about animals and people; Kenyan children's songs and games, and recordings of music, including stringed instruments such as harps, lutes, lyres, musical bows, and zithers from central and southern Africa, small plucked reed instruments, played widely throughout the continent, and performances of complex drum rhythms, flutes, pentatonic and hexatonic xylophones, and guitars. Recordings from the United States feature discussion and performances of various folk songs, including collected folk songs of English origin from the southern Appalachian Mountains. All recordings are on audiocassette. The collection also contains supporting documentation consisting of photocopies of tape logs and brochures produced by Folktracks Recordings and the United Kingdom's National Centre for the Oral Tradition. Tape logs include song titles, often accompanied by contextual information on the recordings.
Back to TopArrangement: In order as received.
Processing information: Titles and descriptions compiled from SFC database.
Processed by: Anne Wells and Meredith Kite, February 2021
Encoded by: Anne Wells, February 2021
Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.
Archival processing of the Peter Kennedy Folktracks Collection was made possible through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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