Restrictions to Access

Access to audio materials may require production of listening copies.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Peter Kennedy Folktracks Collection #70085, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Acquisitions information unknown (Acc. 20210218.2).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

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.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Africa--Songs and music.
• Appalachian Region, Southern--Songs and music.
• Ballads, English--England.
• Ballads, Scots--Scotland.
• Blues (Music)--England.
• Coal miners--Wales--Interviews.
• Cornish--Social life and customs.
• Country dancing--England.
• Dance music--Great Britain.
• Dancers--England--Social life and customs.
• Fiddle tunes--Ireland.
• Folk music--Africa.
• Folk music--Great Britain.
• Folk music--Ireland.
• Folk music--United States.
• Games--England.
• Games--Ireland.
• Games--Kenya.
• Great Britain--Songs and music.
• Ireland--Songs and music.
• Kennedy, Peter, 1922-2006.
• Mumming--England.
• Romanies--Great Britain--Social life and customs.
• Sailors--England--Social life and customs.
• Sea songs--England.
• Southern States--Songs and music.
• Storytelling--Africa.
• Storytelling--Great Britain.
• Work songs--Scotland.

• British Library, Peter Kennedy Collection
• Southern Folklife Collection Field Notes #30025

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.

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 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.

• Audiocassettes (FS-100-199; FS-249-305)
• Field Notes (Folders 1-7), Southern Folklife Collection Field Notes #30025