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"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals



                      The American Folklife Center
                       At the Library of Congress
                                Presents
  "NOW WHAT A TIME": BLUES, GOSPEL, AND THE FORT VALLEY MUSIC FESTIVALS
                               (1938-1943)

Audio recordings from what may be the first folk festival created by and
for African-Americans are featured in the latest addition to the
American Memory online collections of the Library of Congress.

"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals,
1938-1943 is a folk music collection consisting of approximately one
hundred sound recordings and related documentation such as song lists
and correspondence created during trips to the Fort Valley State College
Folk Festival in Fort Valley, Georgia. These recordings, which are a
part of the American Folklife Center collections held at the Library of
Congress, were made in 1941 and in March, June and July 1943.  Recorded
at a historically black college founded in 1895, the recordings include
blues and gospel songs recorded by John Wesley Work III, Lewis Jones,
and Willis Laurence James, with the support of the Library?s Archive of
American Folk Song, now known as the Archive of Folk Culture.  These
recordings include both choral and instrumental works performed by
artists such as Will Chastain, Buster Brown, the Silver Star
Singers, and Traveller Home Singers.  Supplementing the recordings and
song lists are other publications about the festival, including a
special issue of the Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State
University) student newsletter, the Peachite.  Also included in this
collection are recordings made in Tennessee and Alabama between 1938 and
1941 by John Wesley Work III.  These recordings include six songs by
Sacred Harp singers created in 1938 and a recording of the Holloway High
School Quartet made in 1941.

As the Fort Valley Music Festivals took place during World War II, this
collection also provides a unique opportunity to feature the Center?s
wartime collections documenting soldiers? songs and other folkloristic
material growing out of the war.  In addition to preserving blues and
gospel songs of the time, ?Now What a Time? also documents the topical
re-wording of several standard gospel songs to address the wartime
concerns of those performing at the festival.  Users will enjoy
listening to the music and will learn more about the impact of World War
II on the people within the African-American community.

The presentation of "Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort
Valley Music Festivals (1938-1943) is made possible by the generous
support of The Texaco Foundation.

This collection can be found at the following URL:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ftvhtml/

Other folklife-related online collections, selected publications of the
American Folklife Center, and information about its products and
services are available from the Center's homepage:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife

The Library of Congress, founded on April 24, 1800, is the nation?s
oldest federal cultural institution.  It preserves a collection of more
than 19 million items, with the large majority being in media other than
books.  These include the largest map, film, and television collections
in the world.  In addition to its primary mission of serving the
research needs of Congress, the Library serves all Americans through its
website, which can be found at http://www.loc.gov and
in its twenty-two reading rooms on Capitol Hill.

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress was created by
Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife." The Center
incorporates the Archive of Folk Culture, which was established at the
Library in 1928 as a repository for American Folk Music. The Center and
its collections have grown to encompass all aspects of folklife from
this country and around the world.

The National Digital Library, of which American Memory is a part, is one
of the Library?s Gifts to the Nation as it celebrates its bicentennial.
This five-year program will make available more than 5 million items of
primary source materials from the library?s collections that relate to
American history.  At present more than 3 million items from more than
seventy collections are available on-line for use in the nation?s homes
and classrooms.

Please direct any questions to ndlpcoll@loc.gov.

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