Archive for March, 2009

Tony Barrand Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Tony Barrand

Tony Barrand

The 2008 CDSS Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Dr. Anthony G. (Tony) Barrand at an event held Saturday, March 28, 2009 in Brattleboro, VT at the Oak Grove School.

Tony is an active teacher, Morris and clog dancer, singer, and scholar based in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA. Currently on the faculty at Boston University, he is part of The University Professors, an unusual and inventive teaching program. His courses include “Stalking the Wild Mind: The Psychology and Folklore of Extra-Sensory Perception and Psychic Phenomena,” “English Ritual Dance and Drama” and “Folk Songs as Social History.”

Tony is probably best known, in folk music circles, as part of the singing team John Roberts and Tony Barrand who have championed traditional song for almost three decades with their “a capella” duets of English folk bawdry and balladry, morris and clog dancing, monologs and storytelling. Their most recent releases are Heartoutbursts: Lincolnshire Folksongs Collected by Percy Grainger and Naulakha Redux: Songs of Rudyard Kipling. Hail Smiling Morn is the 5th recording in a series over 25 years with the Christmas pageant, Nowell Sing We Clear, with Andy Davis and Fred Breunig. Their numerous recordings are available from Golden Hind Records.

Much of Tony’s research and teaching has focused on various forms of the seasonal display dances now known generically as Morris dancing. His most recent work is an edited collection of Longsword Dances from Traditional and Manuscript Sources: As Collated and Notated by Ivor Allsop. (Northern Harmony Publishing Company, 1996)

Our heartfelt congratulations!

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Historic Site Slated to Become National Banjo Center

Joe Thompson to receive a Lifetime Acheivement Award

Piedmont Folk Legacies to recognize Joe Thompson
with a Lifetime Acheivement Award
Photo by Lissa Gotwals

Piedmont Folk Legacies (PFL), Inc., a non-profit group based in Eden,  North Carolina, has received a substantial gift of property appraised at $510,000 as a donation from  D.H. Griffin of neighboring Greensboro and James Klemic of Charlottesville, Virginia. Extending  along Warehouse Street in the heart of Eden’s Spray Industrial National Register Historic District, the site includes two striking early twentieth century textile mill buildings totaling 220,000 square feet.

The gift is key towards the anticipated development of the National  Banjo Center, an exhibition, performance, education and recording complex that would be dedicated  to this uniquely American musical instrument. According to PFL board member Hank Sapoznik, “Few  musical instruments are more closely tied or hold greater significance to American history  than the banjo. From its West African roots, to its birth in the seventeenth century Caribbean, and through  its meteoric rise in nineteenth century American popular culture, the banjo is an iconic instrument  whose impact is woven into the cultural fabric of the American experience.”

Located approximately 35 miles north of Greensboro in Rockingham  County, the small town of Eden has deep ties to America’s banjo legacy as the former home of Charlie  Poole. Back when the town was known as Spray, Poole spent much of his adult life working as a mill  hand while his innovative, three-finger picking banjo style and string band recordings helped pioneer the country and bluegrass sound.

“This is where this should happen, where Poole walked the Earth,”  declared PFL President Louise Price. “Our ultimate goal is to make sure that this music and this heritage  stays alive.”

Piedmont Folk Legacies already honors this native son through its acclaimed Charlie Poole Music Festival. Now in its fourteenth year, the summer festival celebrates  Poole’s international reputation with concerts and competitions in old-time and bluegrass music. Scheduled this year for June 12th through 14th, the festival’s headline act will be Dom Flemon of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an African-American string band. The annual Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to legendary African-American string band musician Joe Thompson.

While the Charlie Poole Music Festival is currently held at the Eden Fairgrounds, PFL’s dream is to one day host the event at the National Banjo Center. With this recent property gift, that dream just took a giant leap towards becoming reality.

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