Folk music.

Abstract Ed Ward was a private record and tape collector, poet, prose writer, and community historian who lived at Bledsoe in Harlan County, Kentucky. The digitized material in this collection includes recordings of interviews with Ed Ward, his reading from his writings such as Tall Tales of the Hills, musician interviews he recorded, and selected tape copies from Ward’s record collection of commercial recordings of Kentucky old time and early country music...

Abstract Jean Ritchie (1922-2015), was a Kentucky singer and song writer. She recieved a Fulbright scholarship in 1952 and 1953, to study the links between her family's music traditions and those from England, Ireland, and Scotland. She tape recorded many hours of performances and interviews. Irish performers include Con O'Shea, Lilly Moore, Sarah Makem, Maggie Hughes, F. Keating, John Hoare, Michael Cronin, Micheal Reagh, Sean O'Tuama, Elizabeth Cronin, and Seamis Ennis. Instrumentation includes...

Abstract Growing up in low country South Carolina in the 1930s and 1940s, Jim Smoak immersed himself in the music of his family and of the live radio broadcasts to which they listened.  Smoak especially admired the innovative banjo playing of Snuffy Jenkins, whom he heard daily on Columbia’s WIS Station.  Jenkins would become a family friend and mentor, inspiring Smoak to pursue work as a banjo player.  Smoak would become one of the first generation of banjo players to bring three-finger style to...