UNC Chapel Hill campus is closed today due to the weather, but thanks to the great work by the Audiovisual Preservation and Access Team, online access to SFC collections has never been easier. The now has well over 10,000 streaming audio files of digitized archival recordings. Recent additions have been made possible through support from a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
We’ve shared streaming recordings from the William R. Ferris Collection (20367), Goldband Recording Corporation Collection (20245) and the Mike Seeger Collection (20009), Alice Gerrard Collection (20008), Bob Carlin Collection (20050), and Tom Davenport Collection (20025) in the past, but we have since more than doubled the amount of streaming content. We’d love to hear your favorites, but as an introduction, we pulled a few recordings from recent additions that we found particularly fascinating. Click on the link to go directly to a streaming audio file:
- First up from the Andy Cahan Collection (20018), some fantastic tunes performed by musician and folklorist Andy Cahan and Carlie Marion recorded during a July, 1998 visit to Marion’s home in Elkin, NC. There are seven tapes total, any and all are excellent listening but tape 2, side 1 is a great place to start.
- From the Tom Carter and Blanton Owen Collection (20029), stories and twin fiddling by Luther Davis and Huston Caudill recorded in Dalhart, Grayson Co., VA in February 1974. [* note you can also hear a number of recordings of Davis streaming via the Alice Gerrard Collection (20008)]
- Finally, from the Dan and Beverly Bush Patterson Papers (20026), recorded songs and interview with Sister R. Mildred Barker in the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, in August of 1973. Patterson edited two LP collections of Early Shaker Spirituals that featured Sister R. Mildred Barker and other members of the church, including Sister Frances Carr, one of the last remaining members of the Shaker community who passed away on January 2 of this year. The LPs are highly recommended, and so is this interview conducted by Dr. Patterson. [*note around 7:00 where Patterson crosses over into the role of participant by demonstrating the pitch pipe on the recording!]
If you have any questions or comments about accessing streaming media, be sure to contact the Southern Folklife Collection at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu. Stay warm and safe out there!