Winter Folk Festival Recordings, 1976

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Summary

Creator:
Winter Folk Festival (1976 : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Abstract:

Audio recordings related to the 1976 Winter Folk Festival, a folk music festival held 20-24 January 1976 in Chapel Hill, N.C. The festival featured concerts, workshops, films, and jam sessions of folk music and traditions of the southern United States, including old-time, blues, Cajun, and string band music. Cecelia Conway and Jan Schochet, white graduate folklore students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, conceived of the festival, which was sponsored by UNC's Carolina Union and hosted at various venues across campus as well as the larger Chapel Hill and Carrboro community. The recordings include performances by Tommy Jarrell, Dewey Balfa, Mike Seeger, Howard Armstrong, Peg Leg Sam (Arthur Jackson, 1911-1977), Big Chief Ellis, John Cephas, Fred Cockerham, the Red Clay Ramblers, Hazel Dickens, and Alice Gerrard, among others. It is unclear who created or donated the recordings to the Southern Folklife Collection, although white folklorist and performer, Joan Fenton, is credited for recording select items. The collection also contains supporting documentation prepared by former library staff, consisting of handwritten and typed tape logs and tape index. Tape logs include song titles and performer names when known.

Extent:
25 items
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

The 1976 Winter Folk Festival was a folk music festival held 20-24 January in Chapel Hill, N.C. The festival featured concerts, workshops, films, and jam sessions of folk music of the southern United States, including old-time, blues, Cajun, and string band music. Cecelia "Cece" Conway and Jan Schochet, white graduate folklore students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, conceived of the festival, which was sponsored by UNC's Carolina Union and hosted at various venues across campus as well as the larger Chapel Hill and Carrboro community.

According to the Daily Tar Hell, the festival schedule was as follows:

Thursday, January 22, 1976: 12pm: Gallery display of traditional folk items in the Union's South Lounge; 1 and 3pm: Films, Spent it All and This World is Not My Home, in the Great Hall; 7:30pm: "Folksongs in Transition", a discussion and mini-concert led by Mike Seeger in the Great Hall

Friday, January 23, 1976: 11:30am: Informal music on the indoor Union balcony; 12:15pm: Cajun workshop led by Tommy Thompson in the Union South Lounge; 1pm: Banjo Workshop: "Black White Interchange" led by Tommy Thompson on the Union balcony; 2:30pm: dance workshop: Clogging and Country Dance in the Great Hall; 7:30pm: Concert with Mike Seeger and Alice Gerrard, Tommy Jarrell, Big Chief Ellis and John Sephus, Red Clay Ramblers, Apple Chill Cloggers and the Balfa Brothers; 10pm: Festival party and informal jamming

Saturday, January 24, 1976: 1pm: Fiddle workshop "Introduction to Various Fiddle Styles" and "Rural Folk and Urban Apprentices" on the Union balcony; 2:30pm: Singing workshop led by Hazel [Dickens] and Alice [Gerrard] in the Union Music Gallery; 3pm: Blues workshop in the Union South Lounge; 3:30pm: Mini-fiddlers convention in the Great Hall; 7:30pm: Concert with Roberts & Barrand, peg Leg Sam, Alice and Hazel, Mike Seeger, Mt. Airy musicians, Balfa Brothers, Red Clay Ramblers, Green Grass Cloggers, Martin, Bogan and the Armstrongs

Sunday, January 25, 1976: 6:30 and 9pm: Films, Spent it All, This World is Not My Home, and premiere of Musical Holdouts by John Cohen in Great Hall.

Scope and content:

Audio recordings related to the 1976 Winter Folk Festival, a folk music festival held 20-24 January 1976 in Chapel Hill, N.C. The festival featured concerts, workshops, films, and jam sessions of folk music and traditions of the southern United States, including old-time, blues, Cajun, and string band music. Cecelia Conway and Jan Schochet, white graduate folklore students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, conceived of the festival, which was sponsored by UNC's Carolina Union and hosted at various venues across campus as well as the larger Chapel Hill and Carrboro community. The collection includes recordings of concerts and workshops in dance, banjo, Cajun music, and fiddle, as well as an interview with one of the performers. Included are Cajun music from Louisiana; old-time country music from Lexington, Va.; blues from Union County, S.C.; blues piano from Alabama; blues guitar from Bowling Green, Va.; old-time country guitar music from Madison County, N.C.; traditional music from Orange County, N.C.; old-time country music from West Virginia and Virginia; ballads, Irish music, shape note singing, tale telling; and other performances. The recordings include performances by Tommy Jarrell, Dewey Balfa, Mike Seeger, Howard Armstrong, Peg Leg Sam (Arthur Jackson, 1911-1977), Big Chief Ellis, John Cephas, Fred Cockerham, the Red Clay Ramblers, Hazel Dickens, and Alice Gerrard, among others. Recordings are on 1/4" Open Reel Audio. It is unclear who created or donated the recordings to the Southern Folklife Collection, although white folklorist and performer Joan Fenton is credited for recording select items. The collection also contains supporting documentation prepared by former library staff, consisting of handwritten and typed tape logs and tape index. Tape logs include song titles and performer names when known.

Acquisition information:

Acquisitions information unknown (Acc. 20210310.1).

Processing information:

Processed by: Anne Wells and Meredith Kite, February 2021

Encoded by: Anne Wells, February 2021

In 2017, we began using "white" as an ethnic and racial identity for individual and families, in addition to "Black," "African American," "Jewish," and other familiar identity terms that we have used for decades in collection descriptions. We use this identity term so that whiteness is no longer the presumed default of the people represented in our 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 Winter Folk Festival Recordings was made possible through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

Access to audio materials may require production of listening copies.

Restrictions to use:

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 Winter Folk Festival Recordings #70088, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu