Scope and Content
Art Rosenbaum collected these field recordings in north and coastal Georgia between 1976 and 1983. They include many genres of instrumental and vocal folk music and, in addition, oral history interviews with some performers. These recordings were made in homes, churches, and at festivals with the intent of: 1) preserving through duplication the content of deteriorating tapes of local performing traditions; 2) making these recordings accessible to a wider public; and 3) ensuring the continuity of the musical traditions of these performers' ancestors.
Although Rosenbaum made the majority of these recordings in the late 1970s and early 1980s, one tape (GFC 43) is dated from approximately 1955 and was duplicated from a recording by Oscar and Fred Huff. Another tape (GFC 171) was recorded with Joe Heaney in September 1966. Most of the recordings were made in summer and fall, but notably 4 tapes (GFC 319-322) record an Easter church service in Oglethorpe County. An extensive sequence of tapes (GFC 295-315) was recorded in the Georgia Sea Islands. Several lectures by visionary artist Rev. Howard Finster are included.
The Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries holds the original masters, where they were deposited in 1987 by Art Rosenbaum, and the 3-1/4 inch preservation masters. A few tapes were not duplicated onto audiocassettes because of their extremely poor condition even after restoration. The Inventory (Folder 2) appended to this guide provides further details.
In addition to complete sets of recordings at the Archive of Folk Culture at the American Folklife Center and the University of Georgia Media Archives (Athens, GA 30602), different selections of reference copies from the collection are also held at locations around Georgia. In regions that are represented in the field recordings, the University of Georgia Libraries deposited relevant copies of field tapes at the regional public libraries. The names and addresses of these libraries are included in Folder 3.
The Georgia Folklore Collection consists primarily of the field recordings made by Art Rosenbaum and was created when he donated these tapes to the University of Georgia Libraries Media Archives in 1987. However, the Georgia Folklore Collection is currently an open collection and also contains associated collections of sound and video recordings from around Georgia, including those made by the Georgia Folklore Society.