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Through blog posts and podcasts of public programs and concerts, you can learn more about the American Folklife Center's collections directly from folklorists, specialists, and performers.

Highlighted Blog Posts

Folklife Today is a blog for people interested in folklore, folklife, and oral history. The blog features brief articles on folklife topics, highlighting the unparalleled collections of the Library of Congress, especially the American Folklife Center and the Veterans History Project.

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The highlighted blog posts below focus on the topic of African-American banjo players.

AFC Kicks off Homegrown 2023 with Jake Blount by Stephen Winick
Published/Created: 2023
A talented musician and eloquent speaker, Jake Blount speaks ardently about the African roots of the banjo. He explores the subtle, yet profound ways that African Americans have shaped and defined roots music and Americana. He highlights the Black and Indigenous histories of popular American folk tunes and revives songs unjustly forgotten in the whitewashing of the canon.
“No One Can Ever Forget It”: Stavin’ Chain’s Performance of “Batson” by Stephen Winick
Published/Created: 2017
Recorded in South Louisiana, the performance of “Batson” by Stavin’ Chain and his friends offer an exuberant performance of string-band music. This performance uses Octave Amos’s fiddle melody, Stavin’ Chain’s voice and guitar, and Charles Gobert’s banjo. In the accompanying liner notes, it is noted that African-American string bands were rarely recorded in South Louisiana, although they are documented throughout both the Deep and the Upland South.
Pic of the Week: Carolina Chocolate Drops Edition by Pat Padua
Published/Created: 3-13-2012
The Library’s Coolidge auditorium hosted a relaxed and thoroughly enjoyable concert by GRAMMY winning string-band The Carolina Chocolate Drops. The two-hour concert featured old-fashioned music on guitar, banjo, steel-resonator mandolin, and fiddle, with rich bass tones added by cello.
Homegrown Plus: Hubby Jenkins by Stephen Winick
Published/Created: 2022
Hubby Jenkins is a singer and multi-instrumentalist who plays guitars, banjos, mandolins, and bones. He has been a member of the Rhiannon Giddens Band, and before that the GRAMMY winning group the Carolina Chocolate Drops. As a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, he played at the Library of Congress back in 2012, and the staff at the American Folklife Center had the honor of doing a brief onstage interview with the band between sets.
John Wesley Work III: Documenting Musical Change by Stephanie Hall
Published/Created: 2014
Folklorist John Wesley Work III lived in an extraordinary time in the development of African-American music. He was famous for his work collecting, writing about, and publishing recordings of traditional and emerging African-American music. His recordings include documentation of gospel music, the blues, and string-band musicians in the South and Southeast. This blog will introduce you to John Wesley Work III, his field recordings, and point you toward his digitized collections.

American Folklife Center Podcasts - Highlights

Highlighted Podcasts

Discover the treasures of the Library through its experts and special guests. The selected podcasts feature African-American banjo players. Find full episodes of the Folklife Today podcast here.

Watch Homegrown Concerts and Take the Archive Challenge (Folklife Today Podcast)
Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick are joined by staff members Theadocia Austen and Jennifer Cutting to discuss two initiatives of the American Folklife Center during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the At-Home Archive Challenge, AFC has been encouraging people to learn or be inspired by material from the American Folklife Center archive at the Library of Congress and to share the results on social media with a tag. For the 2020 Homegrown Concert Series, the Center has moved to an online format with artists recording videos of themselves either at home or on location. The concerts also have an Archive Challenge aspect, as most of the artists have learned material from the AFC archive. This episode of Folklife Today features banjo player and songster Dom Flemons.

African-American Banjo Music: Resources in the American Folklife Center

American Folklife Center: Ask a Librarian

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Highlighted Blog Posts

American Folklife Center Podcasts - Highlights

Highlighted Podcasts