Alan Jabbour (Washington, D.C.)

Alan served as director of the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress during the years 1976-1999. He is a folklorist and fiddler who has specialized in American folk music, particularly instrumental folk music of the Upland South since the 1960s. He has published extensively on this subject and has edited various documentary field recordings. In the 1960s and 1970s he documented the old-time fiddle music of West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina.

His work in the Berea Archives will provide the opportunity to delve deeply in old-time Kentucky fiddling as represented in the recordings of such collectors as Bruce Greene, John Harrod, Barbara Kunkle, and Steve Rice.

One aspect of his study will be tracing and understanding the cultural flow from these collectors to archives and back into present day culture – a process that has been magnified by the multiplying new technologies of the 20th century. More specifically, his study will focus on analyzing the correspondences and divergences between eastern Kentucky fiddling and the fiddling of North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. A secondary focal area will be the Tallmadge and Titon collections of Old Regular Baptist lined-out singing in connection with a book project in the works on the Decoration Day cemetery tradition.

Alan will share his research findings in the form of tune transcriptions and related data assembled for inclusion on the Berea website, an on campus lecture-concert, possible print publication regarding contributions of eastern Kentucky fiddling to American music and the place of lined hymnody in Decoration Day celebrations. Further information about Alan's fellowship research is available on a separate webpage.

Helen is an Irish traditional musician (button accordion, tin-whistle & singing) with a strong interest in the historical relationship of traditional music to the mass media, especially radio. Her Masters of Philosophy thesis at University College Cork, entitled "Shortwaves, Acetates and Journeyworks," concentrates on the transmission of Irish traditional music by Radio Éireann (Irish public radio) from 1926-1960. On previous U.S. visits, she served as artist-in-residence, teaching and performing in Columbia, Missouri, and throughout the midwest.

Her work in the Berea Archives will generally be directed toward widening her research focus to include the historical relationship of radio to traditional music of the American south. Specifically, she will explore Berea’s extensive music related broadcast audio and manuscript material in the John Lair, Reuben Powell, Bradley Kincaid, and WHAS collections.

Of particular concern will be how radio music programming represented musical identities in Appalachia, and the interaction of radio stations and local music community, formulating a more complete history of traditional music programming on WHAS and other Kentucky stations.

Helen will share her research findings through a conference paper (Winter 2008), a scholarly article (Spring 2009), a website presenting collated radio programming information from the Berea archives, and an audio documentary to be submitted for broadcast to public radio in the U.S. and Ireland. Helen's Fellowship Activity Report is available as a pdf file. (Document will open in a new window.)

Carla is a native of Letcher County, Kentucky where she was part of a large extended family in which music of many kinds was a constant. She is a multi-instrumentalist and singer and has a B.A. in Appalachian Studies from the University of Kentucky with a concentration in music and folklore. For the past fifteen years she has been heavily involved in performing, composing, and school-based artist-in-residence programs in Kentucky, other parts of the United States, and internationally.

Her Music Fellowship work (February / April 2008) focused on learning 12-15 new songs around which she developed teaching materials that highlight the diversity of Appalachian music. The result is a one hour show for school presentations and a series of teacher lesson plans disseminated through a website that will include audio links to the songs.

As of November 2008, work on the proposed lesson plan website is under way in collaboration with Flying High Designs of Berea with launch projected February 2009. The school show is coming together in collaboration with banjo and fiddle player, Sarah Woods. They will audition the show for Kentucky teachers live and on KET-ED in March as part of the 2009 Arts Education Showcase program presented by the Kentucky Center for the Arts.

Fellowship derived material from such performers as the Couch Family, Pleaz Mobley, Snake Chapman, and Maude Kilbourne has been well received by adult audiences on recent tours in Ohio and Tennessee. Also, "Lady Isabelle", and likely one other tune from the archives, will be included in a commercial CD being recorded in November 2008.

Eric is a musicology doctoral candidate at the University of Kentucky, with research interests in jazz, popular music, sacred music, and Appalachian ballad and fiddle traditions. His musical roots are in West Virginia where he grew up hearing the fiddle and mandolin playing of his stepfather and other family members. His work in the Berea Archives will center on transcribing and analyzing tune performances of West Virginia fiddlers Melvin Wine and Ernie Carpenter. His approach will be to document not only the tune but the complete performance which will allow future researchers to analyze the constants and variations in each repetition to gain insight into the performer’s characteristic style. Further information about Eric's fellowship research is available on a separate webpage.

Hugo Freund is a folklorist and teaches in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky. He is in the process of writing a book about the notable Appalachian writer Silas House whose writing includes frequent references to a variety of secular and sacred traditional music genres. His research thus far has resulted in several article and conference papers.

His work in the Berea Archives will be directed to achieving a fuller understanding House's relationship to southeastern Kentucky song, music, and culture. Specifically, he will be focusing on older commercial as well as field recordings of traditional ballads, fiddle-playing, Pentecostal singing, and children's rhymes, expressive forms all of which are referenced in House's writing.

Residency outcomes will include an on campus lecture to share what has been learned and future publications and paper presentations.

William is a fiddler and recent graduate of the University of Kentucky where he majored in Agriculture and Agricultural Biotechnology. His interest in homemade music developed from family and community associations growing up during the 1980s and 1990s in rural Whitley County, Kentucky about halfway between Williamsburg and Corbin. He started playing the fiddle at age twelve. Besides older fiddlers, his musical models and mentors have included singers, banjo players, and other musicians, many now up in years, who are railroad workers, farmers and public school teachers.

His study in the Berea Archives will be directed toward gaining an understanding of how his community's traditions of homemade music compare and contrast with those of adjacent counties and other parts of the state generally. Audio sources to be drawn upon include early commercial recordings of such groups as Walker's Corbin Ramblers and the later field recordings of Whitley County area musicians and singers made by Leonard Roberts and Loyal Jones. Work in the Archives will alternate with interview and performance recording of several Whitley and perhaps nearby McCreary County musicians and singers, none of whom have been documented previously.

Residency outcomes include a webpage exhibit featuring audio and contextual material documenting a sampling of some of the regional musicians that will be documented. Will’s Fellowship Activity Report is available as a pdf file. (Document will open in a new window.)