National Folk Festival Research Articles

Gjirokastra’S Promotion as a Branding & Marketing City

The sustainable development of the tourism phenomenon and the impact that it produces it is important not only for the enterprises receiving tourism but also for the economic sectors correlated with the structures above as handicrafts, trade and services, turning tourism in a primary factor for the economic development of a region or a country. To talk about tourism in a city very rich in "contrasts" such as Gjirokastra, is an issue that goes beyond simple economic aspect, generating significant consequences in terms of geography and especially in social level. This is because Gjirokastra is a city with a glorious history since the fifteenth century, rich in culture, archaeology, enogastronomia (Food and wine) and several endless natural beauties. Although is the capital of the most important cultural event, the national folk festival which perform the tradition through the art. Shortly, Gjirokastra is a genuine multidimensional brand; the promotion of it would increase the income, the employment, the consumption and most of all it would transform into in an international city. Certainly to promote this brand it is needed a coordination between decision-maker institutions and local businesses but above all is necessary an efficient and comprehensive marketing plan that promote "brand " pointing at the same time in the centre of the universe "tourist".Based on this affirmation, this paper requires just to give some modest idea on the development of the city image through qualitative and quantitative analysis of data obtained from a sample of tourists visiting various cities in the world and recently have visited the Gjirokastra.

Stories from the Anne Grimes Collection of American Folk Music (review)

Stories from the Anne Grimes Collection of American Folk Music. By Anne Grimes. Compiled and edited by Sara Grimes, Jennifer Grimes Kay, Mary Grimes, and Mindy Grimes. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010. [xii, 188 p. ISBN 9780821419083 (hardcover), $59.95; 9780821419434 (paperback), $34.95.] Music examples, transcriptions, map, photographs, bibliography, indexes, compact disc. Too few presses publish too few studies covering the pioneers of folklore and ethnomusicology. When such a work arises, it becomes essential in filling out our understanding not only of the lives, methods, and motivations of these pioneers, but also in revealing the foundation upon which all of our studies are based. Stories from the Anne Grimes Collection of American Folk Music is essential for just these reasons. It is also a delight to read on several accounts, not the least being its simple and accessible layout. The book begins with a clear, interesting introduction by the editors providing the details of Grimes' life and the genesis and development of her folk song and dulcimer collecting passion. Forty chapters follow the introduction, each featuring a performer, collector, or craftsman (and they were all men) who contributed to her impressive interview/ song archive and dulcimer collection. Concluding the book are full sections of notes, profiles of the performers and other interview contributors, bibliography, and acknowledgments. Anne Laylin Grimes (1912-2004) was not a degreed ethnomusicologist, nor did she begin or end her undergraduate or graduate education studying folk culture or folk music. Raised in a family that regularly gathered to sing songs around the piano, she was an accomplished pianist and vocalist from an early age, pursuing classical music studies in college and obtaining an M.A. in music history in the 1930s. She was a music and dance critic for a local newspaper in Ohio, and she hosted a radio music show on WOSU (Columbus, Ohio) in the early 1940s. This early activity, though, centered on classical music, a conventional focus for anyone in higher education in the 1930s and 1940s. She grew up appreciating the songs of her family, and that background proved to be her breakthrough into folk music. On one of her radio shows the featured guest did not arrive, so Grimes improvised by singing her grandmother's songs while accompanying herself on piano. The listener response to that show was overwhelming, which made her realize that a huge popular interest existed for exactly that kind of music-traditional music, of whatever stripe. Members of her radio audience sent her their own stories about the songs she had sung, as well as their variations on them. From that moment, Grimes began documenting the traditional music of Ohio, first by notating the songs and interviews she conducted, and then by taping, beginning in 1953, on a reel-to-reel Magnecorder. Over time, she recorded hundreds of people and songs-in the 1950s, while raising her family of five children, she recorded 170 people. Nearly all were from Ohio, but she also recorded performers, dulcimer collectors, and luthiers when she traveled to several National Folk Festivals (such as in St. Louis in 1953) or to Bascom Lamar Lunsford's Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, notably in 1952. That was the year she was introduced to the dulcimer and to the preeminent dulcimer maker, Wade Martin. Ultimately acquiring forty-two dulcimers, mostly from Ohio but also from Kentucky and other areas of the Upper Ohio River Valley, her dulcimer collection began with Wade Martin. Others she interviewed and collected songs from-her contributors, as she called them-included a vast array of traditional singers and musicians from Ohio as well as from across the country, coupled with scholars (like Francis Lee Utley) and odd familiar names-Carl Sandburg, Branch Rickey-who had an interest in traditional songs or, in Branch Rickey's case, traditional narrative. Grimes capitalized on her social engagements and gatherings to collect from her contributors-she collected from Sandburg at the 1953 National Folk Festival in St. …

Volunteering at the stock camp: Negotiating social positions

The Stock Camp is a regular attraction at the National Folk Festival (NFF), a premier annual tourist event in Canberra, Australia. It relies heavily on the “authenticity” of its Australian food, bush entertainment, and “authentically Australian” volunteers for ongoing popularity. Using an auto-ethnographic approach (Saukko, 2002), this paper explores the extent to which new Stock Camp volunteers are prepared to accept the social positioning (Harré & van Langenhove, 1991, 1999) imposed on them by established Stock Camp volunteers. Findings from this study suggest that the social positioning of new Stock Camp volunteers imposes a strictly prescribed “authentic” Australian collective social identity, a gendered division of roles, and hierarchical power structures that make it difficult for new volunteers to accept the social positions imposed by established volun; teers. Inflexible positioning may be a barrier to further volunteering commitment. Auto-ethnography is shown to be a valuable research methodology, especially in socio-cultural leisure research as it enables the researcher to identify the processes through which better sense can be made of familiar and unfamiliar experiences within specific socio-cultural contexts.

The importance of being valued: Solo ‘grey nomads’ as volunteers at the National Folk Festival

The national Folk Festival (NFF) is a premier annual tourist event in Canberra, Australia. The NFF management team of six paid and six volunteer workers relies on over 1400 volunteers to provide the services required at the NFF. Many of these are regular volunteers who combine volunteering at the NFF with a vacation. Using an interpretive research perspective and a process of narrative inquiry, this study explores the motivational factors of a group of solo female ‘grey nomads’ who are regular volunteers at the NFF and also members of the solo grey nomads group. Data was obtained from loosely structured in‐depth interviews, overt personal observation during two NFF festivals, and content analysis of the Solo Grey Nomads online forum. The data indicated that there are a number of key themes related to motivational factors among this group of volunteers that apply both to their membership of the solo grey nomads group and to volunteering at the NFF. These were the social benefits provided by the camaraderie and security in being part of a larger, supportive group; the self‐esteem provided by being a valued participant in activities of the group; ‘insider enjoyment'; and pride in achievement.

Staging Tradition: John Lair and Sarah Gertrude Knott (review)

Reviewed by: Staging Tradition: John Lair and Sarah Gertrude Knott Ned Quist Staging Tradition: John Lair and Sarah Gertrude Knott. By Michael Ann Williams. (Music in American Life.) Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. [xiv, 221 p. ISBN-10 0-252-03102-4; ISBN-13: 978-0-252-03102-1. $60.] Bibliographic references, index. Staging Tradition tells two stories of two very different and little-known figures in traditional American music. Both came from Kentucky, and neither were musicians [End Page 83] but they left a lasting legacy in the field of traditional American music. John Lair created Renfro Valley, and Sarah Gertrude Knott established the National Folk Festival. Respectively, they devoted their lives to these institutions, which survive today still promoting traditional American music, although using somewhat different approaches. John Lair began his music career in the army during World War I, where he became involved in the production staff of an army musical. But it was his work in Chicago for radio station WLS where Lair began his career as a talent scout and artist's manager, finding talent on his home turf in Rockcastle County, Kentucky. The most famous of these finds was probably Clyde "Red" Foley, but also included, Lily Mae Ledford, Myrtle Cooper (aka Lulu Belle), and Linda Parker. Lair began working with WLS part-time while continuing to work for a large insurance company. In 1935, WLS finally hired Lair as their music librarian, a position from which he was able publish several songbooks and carry out his own research on the origins of many traditional songs, although his ability to find talent and then frame it within the context of a radio show was clearly part of his job description. Lair's greatest legacy, though, was "Renfro Valley," initially only used by Lair as a semi-mythical scenario for the WLS radio shows "Mountain Memories," "Coon Creek Social," and the nationally broadcast "Pine Mountain Social." Lair left WLS in 1936 to freelance for radio station WLW in Cincinnati where he began the broadcasts of the "Renfro Valley Barn Dance" during a fortuitous time when WLW was, temporarily at least, the most powerful radio station in the country. It was during his time there that Lair began construction of his real Renfro Valley complex off U.S. Route 25, south of Berea, Kentucky. With the creation of Renfro Valley, including a barn, tourist lodge, restaurant, tourist cabins, and trading post, Lair moved his operations and substantial stable of performers to the new complex from which he began a series of broadcasts including the "Renfro Valley Barn Dance," "Monday Night in Renfro Valley," and the "Sunday Morning Gathering." By the early 1950s Lair's failure to capitalize on the market for recordings caused much of his talent to drift away. Although Lair had a brief fling with a television show sponsored by Pillsbury Foods in 1956, it lasted for only fourteen shows (a brief clip from one can be seen in the Anne Johnson film Lily Mae Ledford [Appalshop Films, 1988]). Further competition from Nashville's increasing hegemony over the country music field and Lair's failure to market his traditionalist approach to the urban folk revival caused further financial deterioration until Lair finally sold the complex including his music collection and radio station WRVK to Hal Smith in 1967. Lair, who lived next door to the complex, remained involved as its manager, finally arranging to repurchase the complex in the late 1970s. After Lair's death in 1985, his daughters ran Renfro Valley until they sold it in 1989. Like Lair, Sarah Gertrude Knott began in the world of the theater, although in her case, theater was part of her education at Chowan College where she worked with Frederick Koch (creator of the Carolina Playmakers) and the playwright, Paul Green. After moving to St. Louis in 1929 she continued her theatrical work by promoting amateur drama. Although it is not entirely clear how and why she moved from theater to festivals of traditional music and dance, she enlisted the aid of Green, folklorist/ novelist Zora Neale Hurston, and scholars George Pullen Jackson and Benjamin Botkin to put on the first National Folk Festival in...

Staging tradition: John Lair and Sarah Gertrude Knott

Based on extensive archival research and oral history, Michael Ann Williams's Staging Tradition traces the parallel careers of the creators of the Renfro Valley Barn Dance and the National Folk Festival. Through their devotion to staging of traditional culture, including folk, country, and bluegrass music, John Lair (1894-1985) and Sarah Gertrude Knott (1895-1984) became two of the mid-twentieth century's most notable producers. Lair and Knott's discovery of new developments in theater and entertainment during the 1920s led them to the producing careers that fed their own needs to be center stage. Inspired by programs such as WLS's Barn Dance and the success of early folk events, Lair began promoting Kentucky musicians and Knott staged her own radically inclusive festival, which included Native and African American traditions, and continues today as the National Folk Festival. Through extensive original research, Williams shows how Lair and Knott fed the public's fascination with the art of the common man, and were in turn buffeted by cultural forces that developed around and beyond them.

Anne Grimes (1912-2004)

Anne Grimes, Ohio folk singer and scholar, died of natural causes at age ninety-one on January 14, 2004, at her Kendal residence in Oberlin, Ohio. Formerly of Columbus and Granville, Ohio, Grimes was a classically trained vocalist and an accomplished pianist. In the early 1950s, Grimes began to travel from her home in Upper Arlington throughout Ohio to collect hundreds of traditional songs, which she tape-recorded, researched, and sang in performance. She also became an expert in the lore and techniques of the plucked, lap or Appalachian dulcimer; the Anne Grimes Dulcimer Collection of these rare folk instruments at the Smithsonian Institution ranks among the nation's finest. In 1997, Grimes and her long-time friend Joe Hickerson, folklorist at the American Folklife Center, performed traditional songs in a presentation of her dulcimer collection at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Her 1957 Folkways recording of "Ohio State Ballads: History through Folk Songs: Anne Grimes, with Dulcimer" was reissued in 1991 on tape cassette by the Smithsonian. "Everybody thinks you find folk music in the hills; you don't_._._._it's in people's heads," Grimes told a reporter for the Columbus Citizen-Journal in 1971 before performing at Governor John Gilligan's inaugural gala at the Ohio Theater in Columbus. "In the folk music field, the technical term is 'informants'; I prefer to think of the people as contributors." The songs of her contributors—people from all walks of life, including Carl Sandburg, the poet—are preserved in her audiotape collection housed in the Ohio Historical Society and the Library of Congress. At the time of her death, Grimes was working on a book honoring both the songs and the people who sang them, many of whom became her close friends. Born May 17, 1912, in Columbus, Grimes attended North High School, graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with both bachelor of arts and bachelor of music degrees, and did graduate work in music history at Ohio State University. From 1942 to 1946, she worked as the music and dance critic of the Columbus Citizen. She served as a judge from 1961 to 1993 at the national competition Dulcimer Days, in Roscoe, Ohio. Grimes served as president and editor of the Ohio Folklore Society, was a member of the advisory board of the National Folk Festival, and was an archivist of the National Federation of Music Clubs. Her awards included a Distinguished Career in Music Award presented in 1993 at the Ohio State University School of Music honors convocation; and the Alumni Awards Distinguished Achievement Citation in 1994 from Ohio Wesleyan University. She held honorary life memberships in the Ohio Historical Society; Delta Kappa Gamma, the educational honorary; and the Ohio Folklore Society. Her husband, James W. Grimes, chair of the art department at Denison University until his retirement in 1969, died in 1981. Anne Grimes is survived by five children: Stephen Grimes, Sara Grimes, Jennifer Grimes Kay, Mary Grimes, and Mindy Grimes; a grandson, Sean Kay; and three great-grandchildren, Cria Anne, Siobhan Mattie, and Alana Rose.

The National Folk Festival

Book Review| July 01 2002 The National Folk Festival The National Folk Festival, National Council for Traditional Arts Michigan State University City of East Lansing. Laurie Kay Sommers Laurie Kay Sommers Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of American Folklore (2002) 115 (457-458): 478–480. https://doi.org/10.2307/4129192 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Laurie Kay Sommers; The National Folk Festival. Journal of American Folklore 1 January 2002; 115 (457-458): 478–480. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/4129192 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of American Folklore Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2002 American Folklore Society2002 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Whole Work, Whole Play, Whole People: Folklore and Social Therapeutics in 1920s and 1930s America

During the first third of this century, several movements working for reform in American education and culture used folklore as the key ingredient for remedying especially troublesome social problems. Active in those movements, Allen H. Eaton, Percival Chubb, Constance Rourke, and Sarah Gertrude Knott-who were brought together by the first National Folk Festival over 60 years ago-championed folklore's therapeutic value through their exhibitions, festivals, and writings about such events. Their thoughts and work place these four reformist educators squarely in the ancestral line of contemporary public folklorists, but the deep impression their work has made on the public mind continues to shape the broad understanding and reception of allfolklorists' work.

Folk Culture in America: On Stage at the National Folk Festival in Lowell, Massachusetts

Folk Culture in America: On Stage at the National Folk Festival in Lowell, Massachusetts

The National Folk Festival, United States

The National Folk Festival, United States

National Folk Festival

National Folk Festival

The National Folk Festival after Twelve Years

The National Folk Festival after Twelve Years

America's National Folk Festival, 1934

America's National Folk Festival, 1934