Alabama Arts - Folklife


Home Page SEARCH FOLKLIFE MAIN PAGE About the Center About the Staff Folklife Program Folklife News Heritage Awards Folkways Articles Waterways In the Garden Newsletters Folkways Radio Musics CD vol.1 Musics CD vol.2 Musics CD vol.3 Musics CD vol.4 Musics CD vol.5 Alabama Arts Radio Spirit of Steel Workshop Pottery Symposium FOLKLIFE ASSOCIATION AFA Products		ALABAMA FOLKLIFE PROGRAM NEWS Joey Brackner Executive Director Alabama Center for Traditional Culture Folklife News Benjamin Lloyd’s Hymn Book: A Primitive Baptist Song Tradition is a book of essays with a CD recording documenting the history and current use of an historic hymn book. (click for example in RealAudio) Joyce Cauthen under the auspices of the Alabama Folklife Association has coordinated and edited this effort. Contributors include John Bealle, Joey Brackner, Joyce Cauthen, William T. Dargan, Beverly Bush Patterson and Oliver C. Weaver, Jr.. Primitive Hymns was first compiled in 1841 by Benjamin Lloyd and has never been out of print. The hymn book is still in use throughout the country in Primitive Baptist churches. The project was supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alabama Folklife Program. Order from the Alabama Folklife Association c/o Jackie Ely, Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, 410 North Hull St., Montgomery, AL 36104, 334/242-3601, $25.00 or at the Alabama Folklife Association web site. Spirit of Steel: Music of the Mines, Railroads and Mills of the Birmingham District includes essays and a 21 song CD exploring gandy-dancer tunes, fiddle music, blues, labor songs and gospel quartet singing in the context of industrial Birmingham in the early twentieth century. This book and CD are not for sale but will be given to interested schools and libraries while the supply lasts. The project was supported by the Alabama Folklife Program, the Alabama Humanities Foundation and the Birmingham Regional Arts Commission. For more information contact Paige Wainwright at Sloss Furnaces 205/324-1911 or Joey Brackner 334-242-4076, x-225. The State's community of Sacred Harp singers led by Jim Carnes, the Alabama Folklife Program, the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, and the State Capitol curators host an annual Sacred Harp singing in the Rotunda of the Capitol. It is held annually on the Saturday before the first Sunday in February and can accommodate 120 singers. The singing celebrates the four shape-note hymnals currently in use in Alabama and complements a similar Montgomery singing held in the summer on the third Thursday in July. The Alabama Folklife Recording Series produced on the Alabama Traditions label includes documentary recordings that have been produced with public support from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The series began with Birmingham Boys: Black Jubilee Gospel Singing from Jefferson County, Alabama (101, produced with the Archive of American Minority Cultures, University of Alabama) and Wiregrass Notes: Black Sacred Harp Singing from Southeast Alabama (102, produced with the Archive of American Minority Cultures, University of Alabama). More recently the Alabama Folklife Program has funded Possum Up A Gum Stump: Home, Field & Commercial Recordings of Alabama Fiddlers (103, produced by Brierfield and Tannehill State Parks) Cornbread Crumbled in Gravy: Historical Field Recordings from the Byron Arnold Collection of Traditional Tunes (104, produced by the Alabama Folklife Association) John Alexander's Sterling Jubilee Singers of Bessemer, Alabama (105, produced by the Alabama Folklife Association), Benjamin Lloyd's Hymn Book (108 produced by the Alabama Folklife Association). and Judge Jackson and the Colored Sacred Harp (109, produced by the Alabama Folklife Association) Other issues in the series were produced directly by the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture. All of these recordings were funded by or produced with ASCA and are available from the Alabama Folklife Association Folkstreams.net is a website that streams folklore documentary films with attendant educational materials. "Sweet is the Day," a film about Sacred Harp singing on Sand Mountain is already available on the website. Two more Alabama documentaries will be added soon. These are "Unbroken Tradition: Jerry Brown's Pottery" and "Gandy Dancers." TOP BACK TO FOLKLIFE PROGRAM MAIN PAGE

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