Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946 (Language and Folklore of the Upper Midwest)

James P. Leary

ISBN 10: 0299301508 ISBN 13: 9780299301507

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015

Synopsis

America's Upper Midwest is a distinctive region wherein a staggering array of indigenous, immigrant, and enslaved peoples have collectively maintained, merged, and modified their folk song traditions for more than two centuries. During the 1930s and 1940s, Sidney Robertson Cowell, Alan Lomax, and Helene Stratman?Thomas set up field studios in homes, hotels, community halls, church basements, and parks throughout Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to record roughly 2000 folksongs and tunes. Since the late 1970s, working incrementally with many generous individuals, partners, and organizations, folklorist Jim Leary has been part of a movement bent on bringing this body of extraordinary folk music of the Upper Midwest to the attention of the larger public. Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946, to be published in fall 2014 by the University of Wisconsin Press, combines five compact disks, a DVD, and a book. Focusing on 175 representative performances by more than 200 singers and musicians - and including biographical sketches and photographs of performers, as well as transcriptions, translations, and annotations for songs in all twenty-five languages.

About this title

Review:

"The astonishing range of music collected here reveals the deeply hued cultures of the Midwest before and after World War II, when these field recordings were made. "Folksongs of Another America" deftly combines dynamic media--CDs, a DVD, and a richly annotated book to go with them--to tell a multifaceted story. Though brimming with scholarship, the book's crisp, clear prose reveals the music and the people who made it."--Henry Sapoznik, author of "Klezmer! Jewish Music from Old World to Our World"

About the Author:

James P. Leary is the Birgit Baldwin Professor of Scandinavian Studies, a professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and Folklore Studies, and a cofounder of the Centre for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was born and raised in Rice Lake, a farming and logging town in northern Wisconsin. His field and archival research since the 1970s regarding the cultural traditions of the Upper Midwest's diverse peoples have resulted in numerous media productions, museum exhibitions, and publications. Leary is co-editor of the Journal ofAmerican Folklore, and a co-founder and the current director of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0299301508
• ISBN 13: 9780299301507
• Binding: Audio CD
• Number of pages: 300