In this Issue Newsletter of the Mills Music Library
University of Wisconsin-Madison Edited by Steve Sundell with generous assistance from Geri Laudati, Ryan Sedgwick and David Dies Published twice yearly in the Fall and Spring Semesters Mills Music Library 728 State Street Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1494 (608) 263-1884 music.library.wisc.edu Email Mills Music Library ______________ Web Design by Nicole Saylor |
Wisconsin Folk Music 1937The first government folk music recordings from Wisconsin are featured on a new website, and soon the sound recordings will be available online, too. The site highlights the 1937 recording trips of collector Sidney Robertson Cowell. Copies of the recordings, deposited at the Library of Congress, are digitized and available through the Mills Music Library. In all, Cowell captured nearly fifty songs from in and around the Crandon and Rhinelander areas. She recorded a trove of lumberjack tunes as well as rare French-Canadian fiddle tunes and dramatic historical ballads about everything from the sinking of the Titanic to the end of prohibition. Permissions were recently secured from most of the performers’ descendants to mount the recordings online. A searchable database of tunes, much like the Helene Stratman-Thomas Wisconsin Folksong Database, is expected to be available soon. To find out more about the recording trips, the collector, and the performers, log on to http://csumc.wisc.edu/src. |