Smithsonian Folkways
Encyclopedia
Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution
. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch
, founder of Folkways Records
, donated the entire Folkways Records label to the Smithsonian. The donation was made on the condition that the Institution continue Asch's policy that each of the more than 2,000 albums of Folkways Records remain in print forever, regardless of sales. Since then, the label has expanded on Asch’s vision of documenting the sounds of the world, adding six other record labels to the collection, as well as releasing over 300 new recordings. Some well-known artists have contributed to the Smithsonian Folkways collection, including Pete Seeger
, Ella Jenkins
, Woody Guthrie
, and Lead Belly. Famous songs include "This Land Is Your Land
", "Goodnight, Irene
", and "Midnight Special
". Due to the unique nature of its recordings, which include an extensive collection of traditional American music, children's music, and international music, Smithsonian Folkways has become an important collection to the musical community, especially to ethnomusicologists
, who utilize the recordings of "people's music" from all over the world.
, a successful author, made enough money to move the family to Paris in 1912. In 1914, Sholem left Paris for work in New York City and, a year later, sent for his family. The experience at Ellis Island
was traumatic for 10-year-old Moe, and, based on his own account, memory was seared into his mind. Sholem believed in educating his fellow man through his literature, and Moe showed that same passion through his chosen career of audio engineering.
In the mid-1920s, Asch studied radio engineering in Germany, a center for the new science. When he returned to the United States, he worked for various electronic firms before opening his own radio repair business, Radio Labs, during the Great Depression
. In this business, Moe built equipment for radio stations and installed recorders for air use. Asch wrote in a 1961 article, “Forming one of the first independent record companies it was natural for me to want to record folk music and people’s expression of their wants, needs and experiences.”
In 1940, Sholem invited his son with him to New Jersey to meet physicist and humanitarian Albert Einstein
, who encouraged Moe to record and document the sounds of the world, which Asch took to be his life calling. Soon after that meeting, in early 1940, Asch founded Asch Records with a small staff and studio located in downtown Manhattan, New York. He allowed any artist to come and record at no charge, in contrast to bigger studios that charged artists fees for using recording equipment. Because of his open-door policy, Asch attracted many young and/or unique "would-be" artists. Due to the American Federation of Musicians
’ 1942 strike against major record labels, small labels such as Asch’s filled the void in sales for distributors. The label grew and became more successful through deals with other producers, including Norman Granz
. This partnership proved successful, leading to the concept of recording live concerts. These recordings came close to Asch’s vision of documenting “real” sound, and, because there were no studio fees, were less expensive to produce. Around this time, Asch began another record label, Disc Records, though this fell through in a short time. Asch received recordings from Granz of an up-and-coming pianist named Nat Cole
, which he decided to issue on a record in fall 1946. He invested a large amount of money in publicity and advertising, for the first time attempting to break into the pop charts. Due to a snowstorm, shipping was delayed past the holiday rush, causing Asch Records to fall into bankruptcy
. As one of the terms of his bankruptcy, Asch was barred from starting another label. To get around this, in July 1948, Marion Distler, Asch’s longtime assistant, became the president of a new label, Folkways Records and Service Corporation. Asch was hired as her “consultant,” and Folkways Records was created. It was at this time that Asch created his plan for keeping all of the Folkways records in print, regardless of demand. In this way, he figured that demand, though small, would continue for decades. He famously remarked, “Just because the letter J is less popular than the letter S, you don’t take it out of the dictionary.”
Folkways Records released over 2,000 recordings between the years 1949 and 1987, spanning many genres, including jazz, folk
, classical
, avant-garde
, and world
music. Over the years of Folkways Records, Asch recorded some of the biggest names in music, including Woody Guthrie
, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger
, Duke Ellington
, James P. Johnson
, Dizzy Gillespie
, John Cage
, and Charles Ives
. Reissues of the early blues and folk recordings from Folkways, such as Harry Smith's
well-known Anthology of American Folk Music
, fueled several generations of folk revivals, inspiring young musicians such as Dave van Ronk
, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Bob Dylan
.
, who was then artistic director of the Smithsonian’s annual Folklife Festival
. Asch saw that the Smithsonian had the power to keep the collection alive and keep the sounds of the world in the people’s hands. Asch stipulated one main condition: that every recording was to remain "in print" forever, regardless of its sales. It was the way that he began the label, and he felt that the people deserved to have the sounds of the world preserved. There was opposition to the transfer, with some members of the Smithsonian citing the Folkways collection’s “uneven quality” and “balance of repertory.” Despite these criticisms, Rinzler persevered, and negotiations with Asch continued. Asch died in 1986 before the deal was completed, but his family finished the passing of the Folkways Records to the Smithsonian in 1987. The collection became known as the Moses and Frances Asch Collection, part of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
housed in the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The recordings on other labels, including Paredon, Cook
, Collector
, Dyer-Bennet, Fast Folk
, Monitor
. M.O.R.E. and The Mickey Hart Collection have since been added to the collection. After the creation of the collection in the Smithsonian Archives, only two full-time positions were funded. Rinzler recruited Anthony Seeger, well known in the ethnomusicology community as director of the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University
, as director, and a full-time archivist, Jeff Place. The Smithsonian also stipulated a condition regarding the transfer: if they accepted the label, it would have to support itself through its sales. Seeger and Place had no experience running a record label, but took on the project. Though they could not retain all of Asch's business practices, they managed to preserve the essence of Folkways Records while creating the new label, Smithsonian Folkways. The label now relies on a small team of full-time staff, part-time staff, interns, and volunteers to continue the mission of Smithsonian Folkways.
. The entire collection was made available online, at the cost of $0.99 per track. Smithsonian Folkways pays royalties to all the artists (and if the artists cannot be found, the money is put in escrow
). The purpose of the brand name Smithsonian Global Sound has been altered to provide the entire collection online for streaming
for subscribing institutions, such as universities, via the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries service, a co-production with Alexander Street Press
.
and FLAC
format. In addition, Smithsonian Folkways distributes digitally via outlets such as iTunes
and eMusic
.
, Smithsonian Folkways is helping to create a “national centre of musical and cultural excellence,” as a part of the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology. The mission is to create a research center for the music of the cultures of Alberta and western Canada, as well as cultures from around the world. The center invites local and visiting musicians and artists to present lectures and workshops. More extensive information can be found at the folkwaysAlive! website.
, began a project called “Save our Sounds” that aims at preserving the sounds vital to our nation’s history which are deteriorating, such as Thomas Edison
’s recordings made on wax cylinders and others done on acetate disc
s in the early 20th century. The Save America’s Treasures program initiated by the White House Millennium Council awarded a matching grant of $750,000 for the project. The goal of the project is to expose the nation to the need for sound preservation, and to protect the most important and “priceless” records from the combined collections.
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch
Moses Asch
Moses Asch was the founder of Folkways Records. Asch ran the label from 1948 until his death...
, founder of Folkways Records
Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...
, donated the entire Folkways Records label to the Smithsonian. The donation was made on the condition that the Institution continue Asch's policy that each of the more than 2,000 albums of Folkways Records remain in print forever, regardless of sales. Since then, the label has expanded on Asch’s vision of documenting the sounds of the world, adding six other record labels to the collection, as well as releasing over 300 new recordings. Some well-known artists have contributed to the Smithsonian Folkways collection, including Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Ella Jenkins
Ella Jenkins
Ella Jenkins is an American folk singer. Dubbed “The First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song” by the Wisconsin State Journal, Jenkins has been a leading performer of children’s music for fifty years.-Family and personal life:...
, Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, and Lead Belly. Famous songs include "This Land Is Your Land
This Land Is Your Land
"This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. Its lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 based on an existing melody, in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America", which Guthrie considered unrealistic and complacent. Tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on...
", "Goodnight, Irene
Goodnight, Irene
"Goodnight, Irene" or "Irene, Goodnight," is a 20th century American folk standard, written in 3/4 time, first recorded by American blues musician Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter in 1932....
", and "Midnight Special
Midnight Special (song)
"Midnight Special" is a traditional folk song thought to have originated among prisoners in the American South. The title comes from the refrain which refers to the Midnight Special and its "ever-loving light" ....
". Due to the unique nature of its recordings, which include an extensive collection of traditional American music, children's music, and international music, Smithsonian Folkways has become an important collection to the musical community, especially to ethnomusicologists
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
, who utilize the recordings of "people's music" from all over the world.
History
The Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label arose when the Smithsonian’s acquired a vast collection of recordings from Folkways Records, maintained by Moses Asch. The original 2,168 titles produced by Folkways Records now make up the bulk of the label's collection.Folkways Records
In 1905, Moses "Moe" Asch was born in Poland. His father, Sholem AschSholem Asch
Sholem Asch, born Szalom Asz , also written Shalom Asch was a Polish-born American Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language.-Life and work:...
, a successful author, made enough money to move the family to Paris in 1912. In 1914, Sholem left Paris for work in New York City and, a year later, sent for his family. The experience at Ellis Island
Ellis Island
Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. It was the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the...
was traumatic for 10-year-old Moe, and, based on his own account, memory was seared into his mind. Sholem believed in educating his fellow man through his literature, and Moe showed that same passion through his chosen career of audio engineering.
In the mid-1920s, Asch studied radio engineering in Germany, a center for the new science. When he returned to the United States, he worked for various electronic firms before opening his own radio repair business, Radio Labs, during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. In this business, Moe built equipment for radio stations and installed recorders for air use. Asch wrote in a 1961 article, “Forming one of the first independent record companies it was natural for me to want to record folk music and people’s expression of their wants, needs and experiences.”
In 1940, Sholem invited his son with him to New Jersey to meet physicist and humanitarian Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, who encouraged Moe to record and document the sounds of the world, which Asch took to be his life calling. Soon after that meeting, in early 1940, Asch founded Asch Records with a small staff and studio located in downtown Manhattan, New York. He allowed any artist to come and record at no charge, in contrast to bigger studios that charged artists fees for using recording equipment. Because of his open-door policy, Asch attracted many young and/or unique "would-be" artists. Due to the American Federation of Musicians
American Federation of Musicians
The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada is a labor union of professional musicians in the United States and Canada...
’ 1942 strike against major record labels, small labels such as Asch’s filled the void in sales for distributors. The label grew and became more successful through deals with other producers, including Norman Granz
Norman Granz
Norman Granz was an American jazz music impresario and producer.Granz was a fundamental figure in American jazz, especially from about 1947 to 1960...
. This partnership proved successful, leading to the concept of recording live concerts. These recordings came close to Asch’s vision of documenting “real” sound, and, because there were no studio fees, were less expensive to produce. Around this time, Asch began another record label, Disc Records, though this fell through in a short time. Asch received recordings from Granz of an up-and-coming pianist named Nat Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, which he decided to issue on a record in fall 1946. He invested a large amount of money in publicity and advertising, for the first time attempting to break into the pop charts. Due to a snowstorm, shipping was delayed past the holiday rush, causing Asch Records to fall into bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
. As one of the terms of his bankruptcy, Asch was barred from starting another label. To get around this, in July 1948, Marion Distler, Asch’s longtime assistant, became the president of a new label, Folkways Records and Service Corporation. Asch was hired as her “consultant,” and Folkways Records was created. It was at this time that Asch created his plan for keeping all of the Folkways records in print, regardless of demand. In this way, he figured that demand, though small, would continue for decades. He famously remarked, “Just because the letter J is less popular than the letter S, you don’t take it out of the dictionary.”
Folkways Records released over 2,000 recordings between the years 1949 and 1987, spanning many genres, including jazz, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, avant-garde
Avant-garde music
Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....
, and world
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
music. Over the years of Folkways Records, Asch recorded some of the biggest names in music, including Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson was an American pianist and composer...
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
, and Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
. Reissues of the early blues and folk recordings from Folkways, such as Harry Smith's
Harry Everett Smith
Harry Everett Smith was an American archivist, ethnomusicologist, student of anthropology, record collector, experimental filmmaker, artist, bohemian and mystic...
well-known Anthology of American Folk Music
Anthology of American Folk Music
The Anthology of American Folk Music is a six-album compilation released in 1952 by Folkways Records , comprising eighty-four American folk, blues and country music recordings that were originally issued from 1927 to 1932.Experimental filmmaker and notable eccentric Harry Smith compiled the music...
, fueled several generations of folk revivals, inspiring young musicians such as Dave van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
.
Smithsonian Institution
In 1984, looking for someone to continue the Folkways Records collection after him, Asch found Ralph RinzlerRalph Rinzler
Ralph Rinzler was the co-founder of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall every summer in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a curator for American art, music, and folk culture at the Smithsonian....
, who was then artistic director of the Smithsonian’s annual Folklife Festival
Smithsonian Folklife Festival
The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, launched in 1967, is an international exhibition of living cultural heritage presented annually in the summer in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is held for two weeks around the Fourth of July holiday...
. Asch saw that the Smithsonian had the power to keep the collection alive and keep the sounds of the world in the people’s hands. Asch stipulated one main condition: that every recording was to remain "in print" forever, regardless of its sales. It was the way that he began the label, and he felt that the people deserved to have the sounds of the world preserved. There was opposition to the transfer, with some members of the Smithsonian citing the Folkways collection’s “uneven quality” and “balance of repertory.” Despite these criticisms, Rinzler persevered, and negotiations with Asch continued. Asch died in 1986 before the deal was completed, but his family finished the passing of the Folkways Records to the Smithsonian in 1987. The collection became known as the Moses and Frances Asch Collection, part of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is housed in the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Washington, D.C., United States.The Ralph Rinzler Archives consist of two major collections...
housed in the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The recordings on other labels, including Paredon, Cook
Cook Records
Cook Records was a record label founded by Emory Cook . Cook was an audio engineer and inventor. From 1952 to 1966, Cook used his Sounds of our Times and Cook Laboratories record labels to demonstrate his philosophy about sound, his recording equipment, and his manufacturing techniques.- Recording...
, Collector
Collector
Collector may refer to:In popular culture:* Collecting, a type of hobby* Collector , a fictional character in the Marvel Comics universe* Collector , a 2011 Indian Malayalam film...
, Dyer-Bennet, Fast Folk
Fast Folk
Fast Folk Musical Magazine , was a combination magazine and record album published from February 1982 to 1997...
, Monitor
Monitor Records
Monitor Records is a Hong Kong-based music shop selling various rare and alternative CDs and music items. Monitor Records is also a distributor of Hong Kong indie bands and independent musicians such as the Pancake, Elf Fatima and Alok...
. M.O.R.E. and The Mickey Hart Collection have since been added to the collection. After the creation of the collection in the Smithsonian Archives, only two full-time positions were funded. Rinzler recruited Anthony Seeger, well known in the ethnomusicology community as director of the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
, as director, and a full-time archivist, Jeff Place. The Smithsonian also stipulated a condition regarding the transfer: if they accepted the label, it would have to support itself through its sales. Seeger and Place had no experience running a record label, but took on the project. Though they could not retain all of Asch's business practices, they managed to preserve the essence of Folkways Records while creating the new label, Smithsonian Folkways. The label now relies on a small team of full-time staff, part-time staff, interns, and volunteers to continue the mission of Smithsonian Folkways.
Projects
Smithsonian Folkways is engaged in several projects dedicated to increasing the awareness and use of their recordings, as well as the preservation of them.Digital Distribution
As part of their mission in spreading the sounds of the world, Smithsonian Folkways has made the recordings of their archives available digitally in various ways, in addition to retail distribution of CDs and LPs.Smithsonian Global Sound
In February 2005, Smithsonian Folkways launched Smithsonian Global Sound, an online MP3 music store, similar to programs such as Apple’s iTunesITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
. The entire collection was made available online, at the cost of $0.99 per track. Smithsonian Folkways pays royalties to all the artists (and if the artists cannot be found, the money is put in escrow
Escrow
An escrow is:* an arrangement made under contractual provisions between transacting parties, whereby an independent trusted third party receives and disburses money and/or documents for the transacting parties, with the timing of such disbursement by the third party dependent on the fulfillment of...
). The purpose of the brand name Smithsonian Global Sound has been altered to provide the entire collection online for streaming
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
for subscribing institutions, such as universities, via the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries service, a co-production with Alexander Street Press
Alexander Street Press
Alexander Street Press LLC is a premier database publisher in the humanities and social sciences . Like Ebsco, Proquest, Gale Cengage, and the Cambridge Information Group, it's engaged in 'born native' digital publishing....
.
Folkways.si.edu
Smithsonian Folkways now offers the entire Folkways collection for digital download through its website, at $0.99 for most songs and $9.99 for most albums, available in both MP3MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
and FLAC
FLAC
FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...
format. In addition, Smithsonian Folkways distributes digitally via outlets such as iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
and eMusic
EMusic
eMusic is an online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. It is headquartered in New York City with an office in London and owned by Dimensional Associates. As of September 2008 eMusic has over 400,000 subscribers....
.
JAZZ: The Smithsonian Anthology
On March 29th, 2011 Smithsonian Folkways released a new Jazz anthology to update their previous release, the 1973 Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz. The anthology includes 111 tracks on six discs, held within a 200-page compilation of historical essays, musical analyses, and contemporary photographs of the musicians.folkwaysAlive!
In a partnership with the University of AlbertaUniversity of Alberta
The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
, Smithsonian Folkways is helping to create a “national centre of musical and cultural excellence,” as a part of the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology. The mission is to create a research center for the music of the cultures of Alberta and western Canada, as well as cultures from around the world. The center invites local and visiting musicians and artists to present lectures and workshops. More extensive information can be found at the folkwaysAlive! website.
Save Our Sounds
In 2003, Smithsonian Folkways, in conjunction with the American Folklife Center at the Library of CongressLibrary of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, began a project called “Save our Sounds” that aims at preserving the sounds vital to our nation’s history which are deteriorating, such as Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
’s recordings made on wax cylinders and others done on acetate disc
Acetate disc
An acetate disc, also known as a test acetate, dubplate , lacquer , transcription disc or instantaneous disc...
s in the early 20th century. The Save America’s Treasures program initiated by the White House Millennium Council awarded a matching grant of $750,000 for the project. The goal of the project is to expose the nation to the need for sound preservation, and to protect the most important and “priceless” records from the combined collections.
See Also
- Folkways RecordsFolkways RecordsFolkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...
- List of Smithsonian Folkways artists
- List of record labels