It is said that Bascom Lamar Lunsford would "cross hell on a rotten rail to get a folk song"—his Southern highlands folk-song compilations now constitute one of the largest collections of its kind in the Library of Congress—but he did much more than acquire songs. He preserved and promoted the Appalachian mountain tradition for generations of people, founding in 1928 the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, an annual event that has shaped America's festival movement. Loyal Jones pens a lively biography of a man considered to be Appalachian music royalty. He also includes a "Lunsford Sampler" of ballads, songs, hymns, tales, and anecdotes, plus a discography of his recordings.
The adventures of Jason and the Argonauts, with poetic tales of Heracles, Theseus, Perseus, and other legendary characters that enchant audiences of all ages. 40 illustrations.
This book argues that Romantic-era writers used the figure of the minstrel to imagine authorship as a social, responsive enterprise unlike the solitary process portrayed by Romantic myths of the lone genius. Simpson highlights the centrality of the minstrel to many important literary developments from the Romantic era through to the 1840s.
Life in the early 1900s was quite different from today. The pace was slower (or so we believe in retrospect). The music was sweeter. And, one learned life by the living. Then came the roaring Twenties. The pace quickened. The music became more upbeat, spiked with heady mixtures of jazz, ragtime and blues. By the early 1930s the entire country had metamorphosed. Entertainers like Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante and Sophie Tucker were the rage, and country and western was just beginning to come into its own. Sitting back in his Missouri home and absorbing it all was a young man named Al Fike. Born in 1912, and a schoolteacher by trade, he listened to the sounds of the country growing around him, absorbed them, and made them his own. This collection period continued until the late 1940s when, to the surprise of family and friends, he announced a career change, and the legend of Al Fike the Entertainer was born! After that, Al Fike, The Modern Minstrel Man, regaled audiences from coast to coast. Whether dressed in candy-striped jacket and straw hit reprising the classics of George M. Cohan or mimicking such greats as Ted Lewis, Durante and Jolson, Al Fike single-handedly kept the traditions of vaudeville alive in this country. He also introduced new music and new stars to his routines so that his show was a virtual performance library of American music, idioms, composers, and styles. In short, Al Fike was a living legend, preserving and enhancing the traditions of the American musical stage as no other performer has ever done. Seeing The Al Fike Show was a rare opportunity to see an entertainers entertainer perform.
Wandering minstrel, Martin Pippin, encounters a lovelorn ploughman who begs him to release his beloved by entertaining the six young women sworn to guard her. This Martin Pippin does - telling beautiful tales of heartbreak, betrayal and everlasting love. But will the imprisoned Gillian ever be freed? This delightful collection will be loved by adults and children alike - a perfect introduction to sophisticated fairy tales. 'She is one of the few who can conceive and tell a fairytale . . . Before I had read five pages of Martin Pippin, I had forgotten who I was and where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight and humour. And I lived and took my joy in that rare world, until all too soon my reading was done.' From J. D. Beresford's Foreword to the first American edition of 1922.
