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Featured Film
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From Shore to Shore |
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"Is There an Ecological Unconscious?" http://bit.ly/cdxh3u
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"People are able to recognize negative sounds, like expressions of disgust, across cultures, say scientists" http://bit.ly/b7iW4E
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"Streaming Music from UNC’s Southern Folklife Collection" http://bit.ly/7jf3TI
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Museums tap collective energy of the web to build collections. NYTimes http://bit.ly/8MJMtz
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Folklorists in the war in Afghanistan. Listening to the tribes. Washington Post. http://bit.ly/7zaQxy
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Adirondack Minstrel
Lawrence Older [1912-1982] is a relaxed, direct and engaging performer who spent the majority of his life working in the woods. His songs and fiddle tunes are mostly from his family tradition and are representative of the local melodies and the rich musical tradition of America's northeastern states. Music, Work, Regional / Northeast / 1976
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| Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison |
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Almeda Riddle: Now Let's Talk About Singing
This video tells how and where Arkansas ballad singer Almeda Riddle began her 10 year stint of singing old ballads all over the country. In an informal manner, folk musician Starr Mitchell chats with Riddle about her singing tours and her commitment to preserving the past for the future.
Music, Women, Festivals/Customs, Folkmusic Revival / South / 1985
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Appalachian Journey
Alan Lomax travels through the Southern Appalachians investigating the songs, dances, and religious rituals of the descendents of the Scotch-Irish frontiers people who have made the mountains their home for centuries.
Arts & Crafts, Traditional, Dance, Music, Narrative & Verbal Arts, Religion, Aging / Appalachia / 1991
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The Ballad of Frankie Silver
In 1833 Mrs. Frances Silver was hanged in Morganton, North Carolina, for the ax murder of her husband Charles. Tom Davenport's film explores the case through the singing and stories of Bobby McMillon and the comments of North Carolina Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Gray and others.
Narrative & Verbal Arts, Women / Appalachia / 1996
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| Banjo Spirits |
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Battle of the Guitars
This is one of three short films in the Living Texas Blues series. Battle of the Guitars shows the influence of Aaron "T-Bone" Walker through the performance of Pete Mayes and Joe Hughes at the Doll House Club in Houston.
Music, African American Culture / South / 1985
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| Black Delta Religion |
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Black on White, White and Black
An intimate and humorous look at the life and career of the legendary blues pianist Alex Moore, a native of Dallas, was the first African American Texan to receive a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. The film shows his mastery of the piano at a tribute held in his honor at the famous Majestic Theater - his last public performance.
Music, African American Culture / West / 1990
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Les Blues de Balfa
A portait of Southwestern Louisana's Balfa Brothers, ambassadors of traditional Cajun music to the world. Filmed in Louisiana between 1978 and 1981, the film focuses on the surviving brother fiddler Dewey Balfa and his efforts to continue playing and performing his family's traditional music after the sudden death of his brothers and bandmembers in a traffic accident.
Music, Rural Life / South / 1983
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Born for Hard Luck: Peg Leg Sam Jackson
A film portrait of the last Black medicine-show performer, Arthur "Peg Leg Sam" Jackson, with harmonica songs, tales of hoboing, buckdances, and a live medicine-show performance.
Healing & Medicine, Music, Narrative & Verbal Arts, Aging, African American Culture / South / 1976
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Cajun Country
Alan Lomax's wonderful documentary about the bayous of Louisiana which have combined French, German, West Indian, native American and hillbilly ingredients into a unique cultural gumbo.
Dance, Foodways, Music, Festivals/Customs, Play, Regional, Rural Life / South / 1991
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Cajun Visits: Visites Cajuns
A series of five musical portraits of traditional Cajun master musicians at home in rural southwestern Louisana. The film, where the language spoken is an ever shifting mix of English and Cajun French, is a loving tribute to these musicians and their unique musical culture.
Music / South / 1983
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Catching the Music
An hour-long WETA-TV documentary on musician Stephen Wade. Catching the Music describes the passing of the banjo from one player to the next. The film includes footage of Kirk McGee, Hobart Smith, Fleming Brown, Doc Hopkins, Roscoe Holcomb, Pete Steele, Uncle Dave Macon, and Virgil Anderson.
Music, Narrative & Verbal Arts, Folkmusic Revival / Middle Atlantic / 1987
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Cigarette Blues
This is one of three short films in the Living Texas Blues series. Cigarette Blues features Sonny Rhodes and the Texas Twisters performing at Eli's Mile High Club in Oakland, California.
Music / South / 1985
04 minutes | Read More
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The Cradle is Rocking
George "Kid Shiek" Cola and the Olymbia Brass Band are featured in this rare film about New Orleans Jazz, directed by Frank DeCola.
Music, Religion, African American Culture / South / 1968
12 minutes | Read More
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| Deep Ellum Blues |
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Dreadful Memories: The Life of Sarah Ogan Gunning, 1910-1983
Born in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky, Gunning suffered a life of bitter poverty which became the fuel for dozens of moving songs about working people, the mines, and the great coal strikes of the twenties and thirties. Gunning's a cappella roots music is intercut throughout the interviews and archival footage.
Music, Women, Work, Social Justice/Protest / Appalachia / 1988
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| Dreams and Songs of the Noble Old |
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Every Island has its Own Songs: The Tsimouris Family of Tarpon Springs
Nikitas Tsimouris (1924 - 2001) brought the complex music of the tsabouna, a type of Greek bagpipe, to Tarpon Springs. In 1991, Tsimouris became the first Floridian to receive a National Heritage Fellowship.
Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Music, Festivals/Customs / South / 1988
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Fannie Bell Chapman: Gospel Singer
Film of the singer/faith healer and folk artist Fannie Bell Chapman from Centreville, Mississippi. Footage includes Chapman and her family singing and praying during church services and at home, a healing service at the Chapman home, and Chapman "speaking in tongues" after
healing.
Healing & Medicine, Religion, Women, African American Culture / South / 1975
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Free Show Tonight
Presents a nostalgic tribute to the American medicine shows of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Shows a re-creation of a typical medicine show by veteran performers, as well as archival stills and film footage.
Customs, Drama, Healing & Medicine, Music, Narrative & Verbal Arts, Regional, African American Culture / South / 1983
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From Shore to Shore
A film on Irish immigrant musicians and their offspring, tracing the influences of family and community, ethnic identity, and American popular culture on the traditional music played in contemporary New York City. Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Music, Urban Life / Northeast / 1993
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| Gandy Dancers |
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Give My Poor Heart Ease: Mississippi Delta Bluesmen
A 1975 account of the blues experience through the recollections and performances of B.B. King, James "Son" Thomas, Shelby "Poppa Jazz" Brown, James "Blood" Shelby, Cleveland "Broom Man" Jones, and inmates from Parchman prison.
Music, African American Culture / South / 1975
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Gravel Springs Fife and Drum
Othar Turner, a fife-maker and musician, owns his farm in the Gravel Springs community in northwest Mississippi. The rhythmical music he and his friends play is called "fife and drum." A 1971 film by Bill Ferris, Judy Peiser, and David Evans from the Center for Southern Folklore.
Arts & Crafts, Traditional, Customs, Music, African American Culture / South / 1972
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| In the Rapture |
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It Ain't City Music
It Ain't City Music was filmed at the National Country Music Contest at Lake Whippoorwill in Warrenton, Virginia, in 1972. "Any country song you hear nowadays, the guy's either in jail or just got divorced," notes a man who continues, "but it's their lives and they write songs about it." On DVD from davfilms@crosslink.net.
Music, Costume/Dress, Festivals/Customs, Play / South / 1973
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Jazz Parades: Feet Don't Fail Me Now
Alan Lomax's overview of the Jazz scene in New Orleans with
interviews and performances by Majestic Band, the Preservation Hall Band (Willie Humphrey, James "Sing" Miller, Emmanuel Sayles, Alonzo Stewart, Kid Thomas Valentine and Chester Zardis) and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (Greg Davis, Charles Joseph, Kirk Joseph, Roger Lewis, Jenell Marshall and Ephrem Townes) at the Glass House and participating in a funeral parade.
Dance, Music, Costume/Dress, Festivals/Customs, Play, Urban Life, African American Culture / South / 1990
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Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden
A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden was the first film to document the
klezmer revival, tracing the efforts of two founding groups, Kapelye and Boston's
Klezmer Conservatory Band, to recover the lost history of klezmer music. A Michal Goldman film.
Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Music, Urban Life, Folkmusic Revival / Northeast / 1987
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| The Land Where the Blues Began |
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Madison County Project: Documenting the Sound
This video examines the tradition of unaccompanied ballad singing in Madison County, North Carolina and how both documentary work and the power of family and community have influenced that tradition.
Music, Women, Regional / Appalachia / 2005
24 minutes | Read More
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Medicine Fiddle
Fiddlers and dancers from Native and Metis families of the northern United States and Canada carry on the musical traditions passed down from early settlers. The film weaves tunes, dance, and oral history together to reveal an older and broader vision of America.
Dance, Music, Regional, Native American / Midwest / 1991
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| Mouth Music |
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The Music District
The Music District is a one-hour documentary profiling four African American traditional music groups practicing and performing for fans and congregants in the neighborhood churches and nightclubs of Washington, D.C. The film features the Orioles (r&b quartet); Junk Yard Band (go-go); The Kings of Harmony (United House of Prayer shout band); and The Four Echoes (jubilee quartet). A film by Susan Levitas from California Newsreel.
Drama, Music, Religion, Urban Life, African American Culture / Middle Atlantic / 1996
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Music Masters and Rhythm Kings
A celebration of the rich heritage of southern traditional music and the people who created it. This performance documentary focuses on three different styles of blues, stringband music, and AfroCuban bembe drumming. The production explores the contributions of their root cultures African, British Isles, and Caribbean and weaves the music together with memories, history and music.
Music, Regional / South / 1993
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New England Fiddles
This 1984 film by John Bishop presents seven of the finest traditional musicians as they play in their homes and at dances and contests, passing their styles to younger fiddlers, and commenting on their music. Featured are Ron West (Yankee), Paddy Cronnin (Irish), Ben Guillemette(Quebecois), Wilfred Guillette (Quebecois), Harold Luce (Yankee), Gerry Robichaud (Maritime), and the Cape Breton style of Joe Cormier
Dance, Music, Regional / Northeast / 1983
28 minutes | Read More
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Old Believers
Hixon's film documents a real-life wedding in the Old Believer settlements of Marion County, Oregon, in the years 1979 and 1980. The film briefly touches on a wealth of traditional arts (embroidery, clothing construction, weaving, vernacular architecture, folk song and foodways) and beautifully presents a whole series of rituals -- the "devichnik" (engagement party), "selling" the bride and her braid, the wedding feast, the bargaining over the dowry, and the ceremony of bestowing gifts and advice to the newlyweds. In English and Russian with subtitles or voice-over translations.
Arts & Crafts, Traditional, Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Religion, Women, Costume/Dress, Family, Festivals/Customs / West / 1981
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Painted Bride
This 1990 video features the exquisite mehndi body painting tradition as it is practiced among Pakistani immigrants living in Queens, New York City. The film follows a mehndi artist, Shenaz Hooda, as she prepares a henna paste and paints intricate designs on the hands and feet of a bride-to-be, while the bride's friends sing humorous songs mocking the groom and the future in-laws.
Arts & Crafts, Traditional, Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Women, Festivals/Customs / Middle Atlantic / 1990
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The Popovich Brothers of South Chicago
Filmmaker Jill Godmilow (with folklorists Ethel Raim and Martin Koenig) made this film in 1977 when there was a community of 1100 Serbian-Americans families in South Chicago. They worked in steel mills, drove trucks, taught school, played tennis and golf, watched television, and went to church on Sunday. But what connected them to their family, church and community and provided the deepest expression of their identity was their traditional Serbian music and the Popovich Brothers were a constant source of that music.
Ethnic & Immigrant Cultures, Music, Family / Midwest / 1978
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Powerhouse for God
Powerhouse for God is a portrait of an old-fashioned Baptist preacher John Sherfy, his family, and their church in Virginia's northern Blue Ridge Mountains. Audiences who were born and raised among old-time southern Baptists say this film captures the fierce preaching, determined singing, autobiographical witnessing, and stern doctrine that characterizes these religious communities.
Religion / Appalachia / 1989
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Remembering The High Lonesome
Profiles filmmaker, photographer, artist, and musician John Cohen. The film examines the birth of a new artistic ethic and counterculture through John Cohen's involvement with the Beat Generation, abstract expressionist painters, and the Folk Music Revival, and it explores the role of an outsider documenting the life and arts of an Appalachian community.
Music, Narrative & Verbal Arts, Folkmusic Revival / Appalachia / 2003
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| The Shakers |
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A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle
The story of a gifted African American family from the rural South. With interviews and stories, and scenes from daily life, reunions, gospel concerts, and church services, the film traces the history of the Landis family of Granville County, North Carolina, over the lifetime of its oldest surviving member, 86-year-old Mrs. Bertha M. Landis.
Music, Religion, Women, Family, Aging, African American Culture, Social Justice/Protest / South / 1986
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Sonny Ford, Delta Artist
B/w 16mm documentary film based on fieldwork Ferris conducted with Leland, Mississippi, bluesman and folk artist James "Son" Thomas. Included is footage of Thomas performing at juke houses, his wife preparing dinner, and Thomas making skulls out of clay.
Music, Family, Rural Life, African American Culture / South / 1969
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Sonny Terry: Shoutin' the Blues
Shot in 1969, SHOUTIN' THE BLUES is a one shot, one story and one song short film of harmonica great, Sonny Terry. Seated in a motel room on Broadway in Oakland, California where we filmed him while he was on tour with Brownie McGhee, Sonny, with one small harmonica in his hand, creates a complex and soulful blues solo out of his whooping and hollering, after telling us the story of the context that gave birth to that solo.
Music, Narrative & Verbal Arts, African American Culture / South / 1969
05 minutes | Read More
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Sonny Terry: Whoopin the Blues
Seated in a motel room on Broadway in Oakland, California where he was filmed while on tour with Brownie McGhee, Sonny, with one small harmonica in his hand, creates a complex and soulful blues solo out of his whooping and hollering, after telling the story of the context that gave birth to that solo
Music, Narrative & Verbal Arts, African American Culture / South / 1969
13 minutes | Read More
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Sweet Is the Day: A Sacred Harp Family Portrait
The story of the Woottens of Sand Mountain, Alabama, one of the key singing families who have helped Sacred Harp music survive and flourish for more than 150 years. The video explores how Sacred Harp singing is about more than just music - it is a life-shaping force, reflected by tradition, deep spiritual belief, and the community that embraces it.
Music, Religion, Family / South / 2001
59 minutes | Read More
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Texas Style
"Texas Style" is an intimate look at rural Texas culture and the traditional fiddle music played on its back roads. With spirited rhythms and guitar accompaniment, Texas fiddling is a crowd pleaser that has influenced western swing and folk music across the country. This film centers on three generations of Westmoreland family fiddlers. From the elder H.D. Westmoreland to his grandson Wes III, already a state champion, we see the evolution of Texas fiddling.
Music, Festivals/Customs / Southwest / 1986
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| Zydeco: Creole Music and Culture in Rural Louisiana |
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