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Manuscripts"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music
Festivals, 1938-1943 consists of approximately one hundred sound
recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, and
related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State
College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia. The
documentation was created by John Wesley Work III in 1941 and by Lewis Jones and Willis
Laurence James in March, June, and July 1943. Also included are
recordings made in Tennessee and Alabama (including six Sacred Harp songs) by John Work between September 1938 and 1941. These
recording projects were supported by the Library of Congress's Archive
of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife
Center). Song lists made by the collectors, correspondence with the
Archive about the trips, and a special issue of the Fort Valley State
College student newsletter,
The Peachite:
Festival Number, are also included. One interesting feature of
this collection is the topical rewording of several standard gospel
songs to address the wartime concerns of the performers. This online
presentation is made possible by the generous support of The Texaco
Foundation.
The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its
resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain
and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future
generations. The goal of the Library's National Digital Library Program is to
offer broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents as
a contribution to education and lifelong learning.
The Library of Congress presents these documents as part of the record of
the past. These primary historical documents reflect the
attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress
does not endorse the views expressed in these collections, which
may contain materials offensive to some readers.
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