Thursday’s issue of The Chicago Tribune has a great column by Eric Zorn listing the BBC series American Folk History, with some of the videos and links to the rest, as shown on YouTube. From The Carter Family through Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, The Weavers, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan to The Byrds, in a dozen episodes. Watch one or two now, check out the others later.

I’d like to mention just a few events in folk music over the past year. These items will be old news to many of you, but I thought it would be helpful to start off this way and then go on to recent and upcoming events.

On a local scale, some of us witnessed changes in music venues, such as the the closing of Middle Earth Music Hall in Bradford, Vermont last May:

http://www.memh.com/index.php

http://www.middle-earth-music.com/

Happily, you can find their live music videos on:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Folkhero01

On the national front, we mourned the passing of folk music legend Odetta (December 2, 2008):

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1863667,00.html

Last month we saw Grammy awards granted to Pete Seeger (best traditional folk album), The Blind Boys of Alabama (best traditional gospel album), Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder (best bluegrass album), B. B. King (best traditional blues album), Ladysmith Black Mambazo (best traditional world music album) and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (best contemporary folk/Americana album, country and pop awards for individual songs, and album of the year). The Blind Boys of Alabama and Tom Paxton were given lifetime achievement awards.

Independent Music Awards winners, also in January, included Tony Trischka for best Americana album and The Paschall Brothers for best gospel album.

http://www.independentmusicawards.com/ima_new/jukebox2009.asp

http://www.folkways.si.edu/about_folkways/news.aspx

And Rolling Stone, the chronicle of rock, honored folk music artists Joan Baez and Pete Seeger in their February 19 issue:

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/02/02/inside-rolling-stones-afternoon-with-folk-icons-pete-seeger-and-joan-baez/

Feel free to comment on the folk music events that were memorable for you.

Format changes at two public radio stations mean the end for two long running east coast folk radio shows. Earlier this month WFCR-FM in Amherst Massachusetts ended ‘Valley Folk’ which has been part of the folk music community in Western Mass for more than 22 years. This week WETA FM in Washington D.C. canceled ‘Traditions’, the D.C. area’s longest running folk music program.

It’s sad and shocking to see two important shows gone in such a short time.

Sometimes audience response can turn these things around so if you live in the broadcast areas of either of these stations, please take a few minutes to let station management know what you think.

At WFCR contact Helen Barrington, Program Director: 413-577-0541 hbarrington@wfcr.org or Martin Miller, General Manager: 413-545-1990 miller@wfcr.org

At WETA contact Sheryl Lahti Director of Audience Services (703) 998-2724. slahti@weta.com

Update Ron Olesko has a very thoughtful post on the situation and the future of folk music radio. He also points us to articles in the Washington Post and the Washington City Paper.

Update January 29 WAMU has picked up Mary Cliff’s ‘Traditions’ program which will now air Saturday nights, 11 pm to 1 am.

Some quick notes on recent news…

On Sunday November 26th at 3pm WFDU FM will air a recreation of the 1956 Woody Guthrie tribute review “Bound For Glory: A Musical Tribute to Woody Guthrie” The original 1956 tibute, which features Guthries words and music in a script by Millard Lampell was a historic moment early in the folk revival.

Ron Olesko points out that PBS will be airing a documentary on Alan Lomax as part of the POV series.

Reuters News has a nice piece about Murry Lerner’s Festival! which is now available on DVD.

My youngest has been after me to see “Weeds” on Showtime. She’s quite amused that Malvina Reynolds song “Little Boxes” is the shows theme song. I happened across this Reuters article on the show which includes some nice interview material with Pete Seeger about Malvina.

Folkie tune reborn as theme for series ‘Weeds’

I really enjoyed No Direction Home even though I’m inclined to agree with Steven Hart’s assessment that it sheds little light on the man himself.

In case you’ve missed the onslaught of publicity. The Martin Scorsese Dylan bio pic “No Directoion Home” airs Monday and Tuesday…