Field notes, manuscripts, photographs, booking contracts, correspondence, personal papers, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, interviews, and other research materials primarily relating to the history of American blues music. Collection documents the lives of significant blues musicians Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Mance Lipscomb; insight into the life, writings, and research practices of Robert "Mack" McCormick; and the business side of recording and selling the blues.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents the life, writings, research practices, and business activities of blues scholar Robert "Mack" Burton McCormick who came to serve as a leading authority on the genre. Personal papers include diaries, curriculum vitae, biographical sketches, school papers, employment documents, correspondence, financial records, and an interview transcript. McCormick's writings consist of published magazine and journal articles, plays, essays, television scripts, short stories, and album liner notes. There are complete unpublished manuscripts, drafts with notes and research materials, and ideas for future work. McCormick's research practices and subjects of interest are documented in correspondence, field notes, annotated maps, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, city directories, interviews, photographic prints, negatives, slides, and contact sheets. American blues, Texas blues, and the music of significant blues artists, who McCormick served as an agent and manager for, dominated his extensive research efforts. In addition, the collection documents the recording, distribution and sale, and identification of consumer markets for American music in correspondence, contracts, agreements, music journals, publicity and promotional materials, music manuscripts, and interviews.
Throughout the collection preservation measures were performed to ensure long term use of the materials. Newspaper clippings were photocopied, and the originals were discarded. Audio cassette tapes have been reformatted and the digital copies will soon be available for research use.
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged into fifteen series.
Series 1: Photographic Negatives, Photographs and Slides, 1959-1998, undated
Subseries 1.1: Photographic Negatives and Contact Sheets, 1967-1977, undated
Subseries 1.2: Photographs, 1959-1998, undated
Subseries 1.3: Photographs, Texas Blues (TB), 1961-1964, undated
Subseries 2.11: Business Records, 1941-2006, undated
Series 3: Project Files, 1960-2003, undated
Subseries 3.1: Library of Congress, 1960-1964
Subseries 3.2: Newport Folk Festival, 1965-1969
Subseries 3.3: Hemisfair, 1968
Subseries 3.4: Smithsonian Institution, Festival of American Folklife 1966-1980, undated
Subseries 3.5: Other Blues Project, 2001-2003, undated
Series 4: Manuscripts and Writings, 1952-2015, undated
Subseries 4.1: Almost A Savage Joy, 1959-1980
Subseries 4.2: Another Fine Mess, 1981-1987, undated
Subseries 4.3: Blues: A New Look, 1965-1984, undated
Subseries 4.4: Blues Odyssey, 1971, undated
Subseries 4.5: Death and Tragedy, 1975-1980, undated
Subseries 4.6: Down in Texas Blues, undated
Subseries 4.7: Folk Songs of Men, 1952-1977, undated
Subseries 4.8: Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley, 1958-1976, undated
Subseries 4.9: Henry Thomas, 1975-2002, undated
Subseries 4.10: Ira, George, Edward, and Lee, 1994, undated
Subseries 4.11: The Magic Room, 1961-1962, undated
Subseries 4.12: Origin of Blues, 1991-2004, undated
Subseries 4.13: Snake in the Belly, 1956-1957, undated
Subseries 4.14: Wiley, 1957-1984, undated
Subseries 4.15: Articles, Ideas and Drafts, 1961-2004, undated
Series 5: Artist Files, 1880-2010, undated
Series 6: Texas Blues Research, 1858-2011, undated
Subseries 6.1: Texas Blues Research, 1910-2010, undated
Subseries 6.2: Lead Files, 1962-1980, undated
Subseries 6.3: Trip Notes, 1960-1989, undated
Subseries 6.4: Song Histories, 1920-1982, undated
Subseries 6.5: Music, 1928-2011, undated
Subseries 6.6: Record Catalogs, 1963-2006, undated
Subseries 6.7: Maps, 1958-1989, undated
Series 7: Robert Johnson, 1910-2015, undated
Subseries 7.1: Research Materials, 1910-2015, undated
Subseries 7.2: Who Killed Robert Johnson Manuscript, 1955-2015, undated
Series 8: Office Files, 1938-2000, undated
Series 9: Correspondence, 1959-2015, undated
Series 10: Organizations, Groups and Buffs, 1961-2003, undated
Series 11: Festivals and Living Museums, 1960-2003, undated
Series 12: Music Journals, 1971-2006, undated
Series 13: Subject Files, 1896-2015, undated
Series 14: People Files, 1928-2014, undated
Series 15: Audio Cassette Tapes and Digital Files, 1941-2007, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Burton "Mack" McCormick (August 3, 1930-November 18, 2015) was a self-taught folklorist who spent a lifetime researching, collecting, and writing about vernacular music in the United States. Most of his work focused on the blues and other musical traditions of Black, brown, and white communities living throughout Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. After experiencing a difficult, transient childhood and eventually dropping out of high school, McCormick settled in Houston, Texas and began to work a series of odd jobs while relentlessly pursuing his goal of becoming a successful writer. Although researching and writing about music came to occupy most of his time, he also pursued passions as a screenwriter and novelist. The volume of historical research and personal interviews he conducted from the 1950s through the early 1970s is remarkable, and his published writings during this period about music and the musicians he doggedly studied were lauded by his peers as among the best in the field. Along the way he worked for a time as a manager for the careers of the Texas songsters Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb, and briefly ran his own record label. He made hundreds of hours of field recordings with musicians living throughout the South. He collaborated with colleagues such as Chris Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie Records, and Paul Oliver, with whom McCormick spent over a decade researching and writing a manuscript on the history of Texas Blues. Beginning in the late 1960s, he was contracted by the Smithsonian Institution as a field worker for its annual Festival of American Folklife, and around the same time began researching the life of blues legend Robert Johnson for a manuscript that McCormick wrote and re-wrote but failed to publish in his lifetime.
McCormick's research, along with his personal archive, became the stuff of legend among fellow blues researchers and enthusiasts, particularly after his publishing output dwindled in the 1970s. He lived with a bipolar disorder that drew him into bouts of depression and paranoia. He came to distrust many of those colleagues working most closely with him, and sometimes shared untrue information to throw them off the trail of his research discoveries. He also "borrowed" heirloom photographs from the family members and descendants of blues artists and, in several cases documented in this collection, he refused to return them. Overcome with challenges that lay both within and without his control, he came to describe the massive archive in his Houston, Texas home as "the monster," and spent his final decades attempting with little success to publish his writings.
Related Materials:
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
W. C. Handy Collection, NMAH.AC.0132
Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, Series 3, African American Music, NMAH.AC.0300
Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, Series 16: Country, Western, and Folk Music, NMAH.AC.0300
Duke Ellington Collection, NMAH.AC.0301
Frank Driggs Collection of Duke Ellington Photographic Reference Prints, NMAH.AC.0389
Program in African American Culture Collection, NMAH.AC.0408
Ruth Ellington Collection of Duke Ellington Materials, NMAH.AC.0415
Alan Strauber Photoprints, 1990-1994, 1999, NMAH.AC.0517
Jonas Bernholm Rhythm and Blues Collection, NMAH.AC.0551
Ray McKinley Music and Ephemera, NMAH.AC.0635
Bluestime Power Hour Videotapes, NMAH.AC.0657
Edward and Gaye Collection of Duke Ellington Materials, NMAH.AC.0704
Bill Holman Collection, NMAH.AC.0733
Andrew Homzy Collection of Duke Ellington Stock Arrangements, NMAH.AC.0740
Harry Warren Papers, NMAH.AC.0750
Benny Carter Collection, NMAH.AC.0757
W. Royal Stokes Collection of Music Photoprints and Interviews, NMAH.AC.0766
Fletcher and Horace Henderson Collection, NMAH.AC.0797
Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program Collection, NMAH.AC.0808
William Russo Music and Personal Papers, NMAH.AC.0845
Milt Gabler Papers, NMAH.AC.0849
Leonard and Mary Gaskin Papers, NMAH.AC.0900
Bobby Tucker Papers, NMAH.AC.1141
Floyd Levin Jazz Reference Collection, NMAH.AC1222
Duncan Schiedt Jazz Collection, NMAH.AC1323
Maceo Jefferson Papers, NMAH.AC1370
Jazz and Big Band Collection, 1927-1966, NMAH.AC.1388
Nick Reynolds Kingston Trio Papers, NMAH.AC.1472
McIntire Family Hawaiian Entertainers Collection, NMAH.AC.1511
Native Peoples Musicians and Music Collection, NMAH.AC.1512
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Arhoolie Business Records and Audio Recordings, 1960-2016, CFCH.ARHO
Moses and Frances Asch Collection, 1926-1986, CFCH.ASCH
National Museum of American History's Division of Culture and the Arts
Artifacts acquired as part of the collection include:
Washburn style G guitar, serial number 46472, Accession number 2019.0234.01.
Set of quills (or panpipes) made and played by blues artist Joe Patterson. Accession number 2019.0234.02.
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
Audio recordings acquired as part of the collection are listed in The Guide to the Mack McCormick Audio Tapes Collection prepared by Jeff Place, 2020-2022.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Susannah Nix to the Archives Center in 2019.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Access to original materials in boxes 76-80 is prohibited. Researchers must use digital copies.
Additional materials have been removed from public access pending investigation under the Smithsonian Institution's Ethical Returns and Shared Stewardship Policy.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
106.32 Cubic feet (87.5 cubic feet of papers, 18.82 cubic feet of audio)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographs
Field recordings
Correspondence
Phonograph records
Notes
Business records
Audiocassettes
Photographic prints
Black-and-white negatives
Audiotapes
Date:
1890-2011
bulk 1950-1994
Summary:
This collection, with bulk dates from 1950-1994, documents the life of Ralph Rinzler and his professional activities as Director of Field Programs for the Newport Folk Festival, Director of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (formerly the Festival of American Folklife) and the Office of Folklife Programs (now the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage), and the Smithsonian Institution's Assistant Secretary for Public Service. Includes personal papers, business records, correspondence, notes, photographs, audiotapes and field recordings.
Scope and Contents:
The Ralph Rinzler Papers and Audio Recordings encompasses a wide range of materials from Rinzler's prolific personal and professional life. Predominantly consisting of clippings, collected texts, correspondence, meeting notes, photographs, and production materials, this collection charts Rinzler's role in the mid-twentieth century emergence of community-based and institutional efforts to preserve, sustain, and amplify cultural heritage. As an assemblage of materials from all aspects of his life, the Ralph Rinzler Papers also reflect the many integral relationships he developed throughout the years with his colleagues, contemporaries, family, and friends.
Arrangement note:
The collection is currently arranged in 9 archival series as follows:
1. Biographical
2. Collected Texts
3. Correspondence
4. Events
5. Fieldwork
6. Meetings and Organizations
7. Notable Figures
8. Publishing and Production
9. Audio
The papers and photographs contained in the first 8 series are processed at an intermediate level, which means that all material was rehoused in archival folders, with folder-level arrangements and descriptions. Individual items within folders may not be fully arranged or described, due to the collection's level of complexity when it was deposited in the Archives.
When possible, folders were arranged alphabetically within series and subseries.
Biographical/Historical note:
Ralph Rinzler (1934-1994) was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and was interested in music at an early age. He was given a collection of ethnographic recordings from the Archive of Folk Song of the Library of Congress by his uncle, Harvard University ballad scholar George Lyman Kittredge, and they soon became his favorites. He became actively involved in the Folk Revival while attending Swarthmore College, organizing an annual festival on campus. He received his B.A. in 1956, and did graduate work at Middlebury College and the Sorbonne in French literature and language. Upon his return to the United States, he played mandolin for four years with the Greenbriar Boys, at times touring with singer Joan Baez. During the 1960s, he also studied, recorded, and worked with performers of traditional music, such as Doc Watson and Bill Monroe, both of whom gained international recognition in part through his efforts. In 1964, Rinzler accepted the position of Director of Field Programs at the Newport Folk Foundation, which involved the planning and programming of the Newport Folk Festival.
Rinzler came to the Smithsonian in 1967 as co-founder of the Festival of American Folklife (now the Smithsonian Folklife Festival) with James Morris in what was then the Smithsonian's Division of Performing Arts. After the 1976 Bicentennial Festival, Rinzler became the founding director of the Office of Folklife Programs (now the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage) to establish a center for research, publication, and presentation of programs in American culture and tradition. As Director, he initiated Smithsonian Folklife Studies, a publication series, and did research for the Celebration exhibit, which opened at the Renwick Gallery in 1982. Rinzler was appointed Assistant Secretary for Public Service in 1983 and Assistant Secretary Emeritus in 1990. Ralph Rinzler died on July 2, 1994.
Shared Stewardship of Collections:
The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage acknowledges and respects the right of artists, performers, Folklife Festival participants, community-based scholars, and knowledge-keepers to collaboratively steward representations of themselves and their intangible cultural heritage in media produced, curated, and distributed by the Center. Making this collection accessible to the public is an ongoing process grounded in the Center's commitment to connecting living people and cultures to the materials this collection represents. To view the Center's full shared stewardship policy, which defines our protocols for addressing collections-related inquiries and concerns, please visit https://doi.org/10.25573/data.21771155.
Provenance:
The materials in this collection were deposited into the archives of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage over a number of years by Ralph Rinzler, Kate Rinzler, and Jeff Place in honor of the aforementioned. From the 1980s until Ralph Rinzler's passing in 1994, the Center received the majority of the audio tapes and photographs in this collection directly from Rinzler. With Rinzler's death in 1994, Jeff Place reviewed and deposited the majority of Rinzler's papers at the Center.
Until her passing in 2011, Kate Rinzler donated materials to this collection, with more continuing to arrive via her estate (as of May 2021). Many of these items were rehoused in the Kate Rinzler Papers.
Restrictions:
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.5 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material. Also found is a motion picture film documenting a mural/mosaic project that Packard did with the children at Hillcrest Elementary School in San Francisco, 1956.
Scope and Contents note:
The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.5 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material.
Biographical materials include resumes, personal forms, and certificates. Correspondence is with family, friends, and colleagues, including muralist Anton Refregier, songwriter Malvina Reynolds, and composer John Edmunds. There is one letter from Dorothea Lange. Also found is correspondence with various political and arts organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Russian magazine Soviet Woman. Much of the correspondence discusses personal relationships and political and art-related activities. Additional correspondence with and concerning Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is arranged in Series 6.
Personal business records found within the papers include studio real estate and rent records, insurance records, price lists for artwork, consignment records, and miscellaneous receipts. There is one interview transcript of an interview with Packard for the Radical Elders Oral History Project. The papers include a series of notebooks/diaries, address lists, and other notes.
Packard's reference files and personal papers documenting her professional and close personal relationship with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are arranged into a separate series. They include her research files for a planned book on the two artists, personal letters between Packard and the couple, as well as several interesting photographs. Also found in this series are notes, writings, and printed materials relating to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and other Mexican artists, such as Covarrubius, Juan O'Gorman, and Pablo O'Higgins.
The collection also includes typescripts and additional writings by Packard and others. Artwork consists of orginal drawings and prints by Packard and others not directly associated with projects. Exhibition and project files for many of Packard's commissioned projects are also found within the collection, including her files for the restoration of Anton Refregier's Rincon Annex Post Office mural in San Francisco and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco. Many of the project files contain correspondence, reports, contracts, printed material, photographs, and artwork. Also found is a motion picture film documenting a mural/mosaic project that Packard did with the children at Hillcrest Elementary School in San Francisco, 1956.
The papers also include photographs of Packard, her family, residences, artwork, friends, and colleagues, including Cesar Chavez, Juan O'Gorman, Malvina Reynolds, Charles Safford, Ralph Stackpole, and Tennessee Williams. Two scrapbooks are found, as well as additional printed materials such as clippings and exhibition announcements and catalogs. There are also two artifact items, a vinyl record of Malvina Reynolds and a political campaign button.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged into 15 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1942-1985 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1919-1990 (Box 1-3; 2.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1945-1985 (Box 3; 21 folders)
Series 4: Interview Transcript, 1979 (Box 3; 1 folder)
Series 5: Notes, 1900-1985 (Box 3-4, 10; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 6: Reference Files on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, 1929-1986 (Box 5, 10, OV 11; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 7: Writings by Packard, 1953-1984 (Box 6; 17 folders)
Series 8: Writings by Others, 1955-1984 (Box 6; 19 folders)
Series 9: Artwork, 1921-1976 (Box 6; 10 folders)
Series 10: Exhibition Files, 1950-1964 (Box 6, OV 11; 5 folders)
Series 11: Project Files, 1953-1985 (Box 6-7, 10, OV 11; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 12: Photographs, 1914-1982 (Box 8, 10; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 13: Scrapbooks, 1947-1950 (Box 8, 10; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 14: Printed Material, 1936-1988 (Box 8-9, 10; 1.0 linear foot)
Series 15: Artifacts, 1984 (Box 9-10, OV 11; 2 folders)
Biographical/Historical note:
Emmy Lou Packard was born in Imperial Valley, California on April 15, 1914, to Walter and Emma Leonard Packard. In the late 1920s she lived with her family in Mexico City where she became acquainted with Diego Rivera, from whom she received regular art criticism and encouragement. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and completed courses in fresco and sculpture at the California School of Fine Arts in 1940. That year and the next, Packard worked as a full-time painting assistant to Rivera on his 1,650 square-foot fresco at the World's Fair in San Francisco. During this project, Packard became very close to Rivera and Frida Kahlo and returned to Mexico with them and spent a year living with the couple.
From then on, except for in 1944-1945 working for a defense plant, Packard worked and grew in various aspects of her art. In addition to her work in fresco, Packard is known for her work in watercolor, oil, mosaic, laminated plastic, concrete, and printmaking, both in linocuts and woodblocks. She received numerous commissions that included installations for ships, hotels, and private homes for which she executed large woodcuts and mural panels. During the 1950s and 1960s, Packard was hired to restore several historic murals, most notably the Rincon Annex Post Office mural by Anton Refregier and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco.
Between 1966 and 1967 she was commissioned by architects to design and execute a number of concrete and mosaic pieces, one of which went to the Mirabeau Restaurant in Kaiser Center, Oakland. She also designed and executed a mural for the Fresno Convention Center Theater during that same period. In 1973-1974, she designed and supervised a glazed brick mural for a public library in Pinole, California.
Packard had one-woman shows at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Raymond and Raymond Gallery (San Francisco), Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Mass.), Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, Pushkin Museum (Moscow), and March Gallery (Chicago). Emmy Lou Packard died in 1998.
Related Archival Materials note:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Emmy Lou Packard conducted by Mary Fuller McChesney in 1964.
Provenance:
Emmy Lou Packard donated her papers to the Archives of American Art from 1984-1988. An additional 16mm reel of motion picture film donated in 2023 by Donald Cairns, Packard's son.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Muralists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Topic:
Printmakers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Mural painting and decoration, American Search this
Mural painting and decoration, Mexican Search this
This collection contains open reel recordings made by noted jazz scholar Frederic Ramsey during his tour of the American South in the 1950s.
Scope and Contents:
The collection includes 400? Open reel audio tapes. They are from Ramsey's fieldwork and various projects, many for Folkways Records. The bulk of the recordings come from Ramsey's fieldwork in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in 1954-56.
Arrangement:
The tapes are organized and shelved by accession number.
Biographical / Historical:
Frederic Ramsey Jr. (1915-1995), son of painter Charles Frederic Ramsey, was a jazz scholar and author who worked with a number of musicians in the South and the New York/New Jersey area, notably Lead Belly. After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1953, Ramsey undertook a tour of the South in order to explore and document the African-American music environment. His goal was to record the speech and music of persons at least sixty years of age or older in an attempt to trace the evolution of the musical genre that would become jazz. Ramsey produced a number of recordings for the Folkways label in the 1950s-1960s.
[From Jeff:
Frederic Ramsey Jr. (1915-1995) was a jazz critic, scholar, fieldworker and record producer. He was the author of a number of books on jazz, including Jazzmen (with Charles Edward Smith) and the Jazz Record Book. He became one of the main producers for Moses Asch at Asch, Disc, and Folkways Records of jazz and blues.
Ramsey was one of the first to deploy an open reel tape recorder using it in New York City in 1949 to record Lead Belly in a set of sessions at his apartment, that were to be Lead Belly's last. What was noteworthy about this is that a reel to reel deck allowed one to record a longer recording than the previous 4 minutes on instantaneous discs. This allowed Led Belly to stretch out and do his extended rhymes and longer songs and to tell stories of his life. It was released by Folkways as a 2 LP 2-records each set. Each side was one track so more material could be fit in.
The new LP format allowed for Folkways to create anthologies of music with multiple tracks per side. This allowed Ramsey the ability to create a 11-volume anthology of jazz in the early 1950s. It was the first of many anthologies for Folkways.
He also received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1954-56 to go to Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to record vernacular African American music. This included field hollers, spirituals, and brass bands. It was Ramsey's desire to find the roots of jazz in early African-American music forms. He recorded hundreds of tapes they make up the bulk of Ramsey Tape Collection. A 10 LP set Music from the South was released from these trips. Also, there was a book Been Here and Gone with his magnificent photographs from the trip.
Other notable recordings released by Folkways include an interview album of Baby Dodds, a box set of shape-note singing, and recordings of a, then, teenaged Michael Hurley.
In 1975, with other grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Ford Foundation, he researched the life of Buddy Bolden.
After the death of Frederic Ramsey Jr., folklorist Kip Lornell arranged the donation of Ramsey's tape and record collection to the Smithsonian.]
Shared Stewardship of Collections:
The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage acknowledges and respects the right of artists, performers, Folklife Festival participants, community-based scholars, and knowledge-keepers to collaboratively steward representations of themselves and their intangible cultural heritage in media produced, curated, and distributed by the Center. Making this collection accessible to the public is an ongoing process grounded in the Center's commitment to connecting living people and cultures to the materials this collection represents. To view the Center's full shared stewardship policy, which defines our protocols for addressing collections-related inquiries and concerns, please visit https://doi.org/10.25573/data.21771155.
Related Materials:
Frederic Ramsey's personal papers are available at Rutgers University Institute of Jazz Studies.
Ramsey's photograph collection (many from the same field projects) can be found in the collections of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University.
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Frederic Ramsey's daughter Alida Porter in 1996.
Restrictions:
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Recorded in: Washington (D.C.), United States, July 4, 1975.
Restrictions:
Restrictions on access. Some duplication is allowed. Use of materials needs permission of the Smithsonian Institution.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Sounds of the South a report and selected papers from a Conference on the Collecting and Collections of Southern Traditional Music, held in Chapel Hill, April 6-8, 1989, to celebrate the opening of the Southern Folklife Collection with the John Edwards Memorial Collection in the Manuscripts Department of the Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina edited by Daniel W. Patterson
Author:
Conference on the Collecting and Collections of Southern Traditional Music (1989 : Chapel Hill, N.C.) Search this
Patterson, Daniel W (Daniel Watkins) 1928- Search this
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library Southern Folklife Collection Search this
