Folklife Center News A m e r i c A n F o l k l i F e c e n t e r “This Man froM The Library of a Two-way sTreeT: foLkLore B OA R D O F T R U S T E E S Congress had CoMe Looking for Me” and CuLTuraL weLL-being Congressional Appointees: C. Kurt Dewhurst, Chair, Michigan Patricia A. Atkinson, Nevada Jean Dorton, Kentucky Joanna Hess, New Mexico William L. Kinney, Jr., South Carolina Margaret Robson, New Mexico Charlie Seemann, Nevada Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Massachusetts Presidential Appointees: Tammy Duckworth, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Jodi Gillette, U.S. Department of the Interior Susan Hildreth, Institute of Museum and Library Read about Grammy-winning bluesman The late Stetson Kennedy talks about Services 3 David “Honeyboy” Edwards and his long 10 his life as a folklorist and activist. Robert G. Stanton, U.S. Department of the Interior association with the AFC archive. Librarian Appointees: Maribel Alvarez, Arizona Tom Rankin, North Carolina Donald Scott, Nevada A m e r i c A n F o l k l i F e c e n t e r Ex Officio Members Gage Averill, President, Society for The American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress to “preserve Ethnomusicology and present American folklife” through programs of research, documentation, archival James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibition, publication, and training. The Peggy A. Bulger, Director, American Folklife Center Center incorporates an archive, which was established in the Music Division of the Library of G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Congress in 1928 and is now one of the largest collections of ethnographic material from the Rocco Landesman, Chairman, National United States and around the world. Endowment for the Arts Elaine Lawless, President, American Folklore Folklife Center News publishes articles on the programs and activities of the American Folklife Society Center, as well as other articles on traditional expressive culture. It is available free of charge Jim A. Leach, Chairman, National Endowment from the Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, 101 Independence Avenue, S.E., for the Humanities Washington, D.C. 20540–4610. Judith McCulloh (Emerita), Illinois Folklife Center News does not publish announcements from other institutions or reviews of Folklife Center News books from publishers other than the Library of Congress . Readers who would like to comment Volume 33, Nos. 3-4, Winter/Spring 2011 on Center activities or newsletter articles may address their remarks to the editor. Stephen D. Winick, Editor � ONLINE INFORMATION RESOURCES: The American Folklife Center’s website provides David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor � full texts of many AFC publications, information about AFC projects, multimedia presentations Morgan E. Greene & Stanley Bandong, � Designers of selected collections, links to Web resources on ethnography, and announcements of upcoming events. The address for the home page is http://www.loc.gov/folklife/. An index of Cover: Rare color footage from 1942 depicting the site’s contents is available at http://www.loc.gov/folklife/az-index.html. David “Honeyboy” Edwards has been discovered in the AFC archive. Read more about Honeyboy’s The website for the Veterans History Project provides an overview of the project, an online “kit” long association with the Library of Congress for participants recording oral histories of veterans, and a brief presentation of some examples starting on page 3. of video- and audio-recordings of veterans’ stories. The address is http://www.loc.gov/vets. A M E R I C A N F O L k L I F E C E N T E R S TA F F Administration: Maggie Kruesi, Cataloger Veterans History Project: Tamika Brown, Processing Technician Peggy A. Bulger, Director Valda Morris, Processing Technician Robert Patrick, Director Jennifer Eidson, Processing Technician Mary Bucknum, Special Assistant to Marcia Segal, Processing Archivist Rachel Mears, Supervisor – Program Megan Harris, Librarian (Collection the Director Nora Yeh, Archivist, Coordinator Specialist Specialist) Michael Taft, Head, Archive Bert Lyons, Digital Assets Manager Monica Mohindra, Supervisor – Liaison Candace Milburn, Processing Technician David A. Taylor, Head, Research and Reference: Specialist David Novack, Processing Technician Programs Jennifer A. Cutting, Folklife Specialist Tracey Dodson, Executive Assistant Amie Pleasant, Processing Technician Brock Thompson, Administrative Specialist Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist, Donna Borden, Program Assistant David Quick, Processing Technician Christy Chason, Liaison Specialist JoAnna Russo, Processing Technician Research and Programs: Coordinator Pinesha Harrison, Program Assistant Gabrielle Sanchez, Archivist Theadocia Austen, Public Events Coordinator Stephanie A. Hall, Automation Specialist Jeffrey Lofton, Liaison Specialist Peter Bartis, Folklife Specialist Todd Harvey, Folklife Specialist American Folklife Center: Jason Steinhauer, Liaison Specialist Nancy Groce, Folklife Specialist Ann Hoog, Folklife Specialist Tel: 202 707–5510 Jamie Stevenson, Liaison Specialist Guha Shankar, Folklife Specialist Fax: 202 707–2076 Audio Engineering: Aron Swan, Program Specialist Stephen D. Winick, Writer-Editor E-mail: [email protected] Jonathan Gold, Audio Technician Lisa Taylor, Liaison Specialist www.loc.gov/folklife Processing and Cataloging: Digital Conversion: Rachel Telford, Program Specialist Catherine Hiebert Kerst, Archivist John Barton, Specialist Lynette Brown, Processing Technician “This Man from the Library of Congress Had Come Looking for Me”: David “Honeyboy” Edwards (1915–2011) and the American Folklife Center Archive By Stephen Winick singer, bottleneck guitar master, lengthened to “Honeyboy.” and harmonica player, David Young Honeyboy became A “Honeyboy” Edwards was a aware of the blues in versatile performer and a consummate about 1930, when Tommy musician. He was a Blues Hall of Fame Johnson, already a well member and a National Heritage Fellow, known performer, came as well as a winner of both an individual to pick cotton at the farm Grammy Award and a Grammy for Life- where the Edwards family time Achievement. He was also a friend lived. He played music to the Library of Congress, and had a in the evenings with other seventy-year association with the AFC young men in the commu- Archive, from 1942, when he was first re- nity, and Edwards took no- corded for the Library, until shortly before tice. “They’d pick cotton his death, when he gave AFC permission all through the day, and at to put two of his recordings online. night they’d sit around and David Edwards was born June 28, play the guitars,” Edwards 1915, in Shaw, Mississippi, to parents recalled in his autobiogra- On Honeyboy Edwards’s 1992 album Delta Bluesman, the who were sharecroppers and musicians. phy, The World Don’t Owe veteran performer released his earliest recordings, made fifty His mother played the guitar and his fa- Me Nothing. “I’d just sit years previously by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. ther was a fiddler and guitarist for coun- and look at them. I’d say, ‘I The original discs are in AFC’s collections. try dances. They bought him his first wish I could play.’ ” guitar and taught him to play traditional Edwards did learn to play, and began world-famous after his death. The two songs and ballads. They also gave him to travel around as an itinerant musi- became fast friends. Although they were the nickname “Honey,” which was later cian, wandering down to New Orleans in both essentially solo musicians, Edwards wintertime and back up to the Delta spent a lot of time with the better-known in the spring. In 1937, he met Robert Johnson, socializing and learning what Johnson, a young blues player who he could from the older bluesman. was already a well-known record- After spending winter in New Orleans ing artist, but who would become as usual that year, Edwards returned to Mississippi in the summer of 1938, to find Robert Johnson involved with a new woman, one whose husband owned a juke joint where Robert played. On Saturday, August 13, Edwards went there to hear Johnson play. Johnson began to feel sick, and was taken home; friends speculated that the jealous husband had poisoned him. Edwards assumed Johnson would be all right, and next visited him on Tuesday, but found his Robert Johnson, Tommy McLennan, and friend worse rather than better. “I talked Robert Petway were friends of Honeyboy to him,” Edwards remembered in his Edwards and early influences on the young book. “But he wasn’t able to talk. There bluesman in the 1930s. A m e r i c A n F o l k l i F e c e n t e r n e w s 3 Tommy Johnson (below, far right) was one of the first blues performers Honeyboy recalled hearing. Johnson’s playing sity, including gave him a lifelong love of John Wesley music. John Wesley Work III Work, III. of Fisk University (right) was co-director of the field project Lomax’s goal during which Honeyboy was was to collect first recorded by Alan Lomax. as many record- ings of blues and other traditional music as he could. He encountered Edwards twice during his fieldwork, and wrote about those wasn’t nothing I could do for meetings in his book The Land Where him. People couldn’t call the the Blues Began. Edwards later wrote about doctor. What black person those meetings as well, and comparing the two men’s separate had any money then?” Robert accounts is fascinating. Both agree that one time they merely Johnson died on August 16, spotted one another while Honeyboy was playing; seeing a 1938, and Edwards was one white man in a juke joint was unusual enough that Edwards of his last visitors. remembered Lomax, and Edwards’s music was remarkable After Johnson’s death, enough that Lomax made a point of finding him again.