Smithsonian.com

Aerobics for Everyone (1982). Image courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways.

Autumn is upon us, which means we must once again turn our thoughts to the Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas triumvirate of culinary evil. No matter how much goodwill you show to your friends, family and neighbors, it won’t save your waistline from the smorgasbord of rich foods that you traditionally encounter this time of year. That said, let’s turn our thoughts to a bygone era, that of the 1980s, that age where you could don shoulder pads large enough to create the illusion of having a slimmer midsection that than what you actually had. Also, it was an age of star-studded aerobic exercise, be it with Jane Fonda in pastel leggings helping you look your Barbarella best or Richard Simmons encouraging you to sweat to the oldies (or start a grass roots Rockette troupe—I could never really tell.) Not to be outdone, Smithsonian Folkways has in its collections a handy dandy workout record of its own from 1982: Aerobics for Everyone. No, you don’t get the benefit of working along with a video and watching someone do the moves with you—although, per the cover, the vocal and included written instructions are easy enough to follow—you do get to drop a stone or two to the tune of world music classics like “Hava Nagila,” “The Mexican Hat Dance” and the “Tarantella.” (If you can work out to the latter while tossing pizza dough, you’re an exercise ace.)

Listen to a few selections from this album. Audio Courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways, the nonprofit record label of the national museum. For CDs or digital downloads please visit folkways.si.edu

Halloween isn’t the most musical holiday out there. Repeated listenings of “Monster Mash” (and it’s infrequently heard B-side), the Ghostbusters theme, The Addams Family theme song, the theme from The Munsters. Are you detecting a theme here? I mean, you could also play 101 variations of “Night on Bald Mountain” and do the Time Warp again and again and again, but that’s a good way to kill your Halloween party really fast. Don’t get me wrong—I love all those novelty songs that comprise the hit parade from Hell, but a little variety in one’s personal musical catalog is a good thing.

That said, if you do some digging in the Folkways crypt, there are tunes here and there that provide some wonderfully apropos sounds for the season. Here are a few selections that will give your ghoulish gathering a Smithsonian twist.

Witches and War-Whoops: Early New England Ballads. This one made the list for several reasons. The cover is bright orange and features a perfectly morbid image of pour souls hanging on the gallows. There’s also the fact that the bulk of this album is a collection of ballads that recount Salem at the time of the infamous witch trials. So with songs like “Death of Goody Nurse,” “The Gloucester Witch,” and “Bloody Brook,” this is probably the most Halloween-y album in the Folkways pantheon.

Fast Folk Musical Magazine (Vol. 3, No. 1). This folk album features two tracks that may fit your mood this Halloween: “Skeleton” and “Chiller Theater.”

La Bamba: Sones Jaroch from Veracruz. This Spanish-language album features the hard driving rhythms of the harp and guitar—not to mention a song called “The Witch.”

She Was Poor But She Was Honest: Nice, Naughty and Nourishing Songs of the London Music Hall and Pubs. I’m a something of a fan of musical theater, with Stephen Sondheim held in high regard. As much as I love my 2005 revival cast recording with Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris (and some of you may be more familiar with the Tim Burton film), I was quite taken by “Sweeney Todd the Barber,” an earlier musical treatment of the legend of the demon barber of Fleet Street.

Activity Songs for Kids. Okay, so Halloween is probably first and foremost a holiday for the kiddies, and there’s something in Folkways’ black bag for them too.

LISTEN TO THESE HALLOWEEN SONGS

Audio Courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways, the nonprofit record label of the national museum. For CDs or digital downloads please visit folkways.si.edu

As summer segues into autumn, it’s time once again to dust off your lederhosen, crack out the sauerkraut, throw the best bratwurst on the barbie and raise a stein to Oktoberfest! This 16-day celebration originated in Munich in the early 1800s and has since been celebrated the world over thanks to hearty German immigrant populations who couldn’t bear to part with their Fatherland’s festivities. And really, who could argue against an opportunity to enjoy good food and celebrate camaraderie? But no party is complete unless you’re prepared to spin some festive music—and Folkways is here to help you spice up your gatherings. So grab the nearest herr or frau, dance along to the tunes from the following albums and have a wunderbar Oktoberfest!

German Drinking Songs: Die Bleibtreu Sänger und ein Stimmungsorchester
What’s Oktoberfest without a frau sporting some serious bouffant and some fine steins? Get into the swing of things with this brassy, accordion-happy album.

German Favorites: From the Hofbräuhaus to the Reeperbahn.
This CD promises music the likes of which you’d hear in places like the Hofbräuhaus brewery and the Reeperbahn, Hambrug’s red light district—all packaged with family-friendly cover art that features wholesome images of lederhosen-laden musicians and timber-framed cottages.

20 Best-Loved German Folk Songs.
Here we have music perfect for an afternoon of frolicking in the Alps. Mellower in mood than the preceding offerings, this CD may be a good choice as you’re winding down from a day of drinking.

German Folk Songs.
If you want to double dip in the German folk song fountain, you may want to try this entry, notable for the banjo and recorder accompaniment arranged by Pete Seeger.

Improving Education (2000). Image courtesy of the National Postal Museum.

Back to school season is upon us! Students are spazzing over course schedules and the teachers they have to expand their minds. Teachers are sure to wonder what young minds they get to contend with over the course of the next school year and parents are prepping for an onslaught of PTA meetings and kids needing a helping hand with their homework.

That said, let the Smithsonian give you a helping hand with its open buffet of online educational resources. There’s a little something for everybody here–teachers, students and parents—to enhance the experiences in the classroom and to keep young minds active at home. So, for your convenience, here is a listing of educational materials and hopefully they’ll help make this year’s return to the classroom an exciting—and enriching—experience.

American Art Museum

Picturing the 1930s is an immersive multimedia experience that provides a vision of what life was like during the Great Depression. Browse a virtual movie theater where you can watch interviews with artists working during the period, view artwork, listen to radio programs, watch short films and even create a documentary movie of your own. You can find this and other media-rich learning aids on the Classroom Activities site. For grades 6-12.

Teachers: get your pupils involved in the world of art with Student Podcasts. This program invites students to discuss pieces in the museum’s collection. For grades K-12.

Educators are also encouraged to browse the museum’s Education Resources, a page chock-full of lesson plans and ideas on how to incorporate the arts into the classroom. These guides encompass a wide variety of subjects such as history, science and literature. There are currently 28 guides available, and new guides are added three times a year. For grades K-12.

Environmental Research Center

Check out the Environmental Research Center’s Education and Outreach Programs for a host of hands-on science programs and activities that foster learning experiences in the field as well as in the classroom. If you’re a college undergrad or graduate student, also be sure to check out the Environmental Research Center’s professional training programs. For grades K-12 and collegiate students.

Folkways

Smithsonian Folkways—the Institution’s nonprofit record label—offers a Tools for Teaching website that promotes cultural understanding through a series of lesson plans and education kits. Through studying music, students can enhance their understanding of other subject areas, such as history, geography, language arts and social studies. For grades K-12.

National Air and Space Museum

The Classroom Resources site offers learning guides and online activities that allow you to test your knowledge of the science and history of aeronautics. For grades K-12.

Educators can make use of the museum’s Teaching Resources, which include posters and teaching packets that cover a wide range of topics from how things fly to the structure of the universe. Also be sure to check out Educational Videoconferencing—programs that feature the museum’s staff and volunteers who use artifacts and photographs to teach the history and science of aeronautics. The videoconferences are geared to students in grades 3-5 and grades 8-12.

National Museum of American History

History Explorer is a resource for teachers, students and their families that invites you to investigate the museum’s artifacts and the stories they have to tell. For teachers, there are lesson plans and activities, as well as interactive media, designed to enhance the learning experience. For grades K-12.

Our Story is a resource for parents who would like to expand their child’s classroom experiences at home. This website is chock-full of activities, recommended reading and field trip ideas. For grades K-4.

National Postal Museum

The museum’s Curriculum Guides site offers a host of educational opportunities for students in grades K-12. Not just a means of exploring postal history, these guides will expand your knowledge of history and the visual arts. For grades K-Adult.

Also, be sure to check out Arago, the Postal Museum’s free online guide to the study of philately. Not only for people who are interested in stamp collecting, a host of online exhibits are available that will enhance your understanding of art, science and history. To see how stamps have been used in educational activities—and perhaps to generate some ideas of your own—check out Heroes on Stamps. For grades K-Adult.

National Zoo

Especially for educators, the zoo’s Curriculum Guides site offers a wide range of interdisciplinary student activities. For grades K-12.

If you’re planning a trip to the zoo this school year, be sure to check out the Field Trip Resources site for pre- and post-visit lesson materials and resources, as well as ideas for activities to do during your visit. For grades K-12.

The Smithsonian Biodiversity in the Classroom page will encourage students to explore the natural world and hone their math and science skills with a series of classroom lessons and outdoor activities. For grades 3-6.

Conservation Central, sponsored by FujiFilm, is designed to help kids learn about the importance of conservation and the challenges faced in preserving temperate-forest habitats—home of the Giant Panda. For grades 6-8.

UPDATE: We were remiss to not include the clearinghouse for Smithsonian education materials: SmithsonianEducation.org

Poet (1938) by Thomas Hart Benton. It's Bad Poetry Day—don't strain your brain too much! Image courtesy of the American Art Museum.

Happy Bad Poetry Day everybody! Crack out your bongos along with your pad and paper and be unashamed to lay down a bit of verse that ought never see the light of day again! Stoke the creative fire of your soul and let loose those ladies from Nantucket with reckless abandon all over the nearest blank page! I could go on pumping out clichés for ages, but enough is enough for one blog posting, yes?

I personally maintain the mindset that something is only “bad” if it is completely lacking in entertainment value. Creative pieces that fall short of their lofty artistic aspirations secure audiences who find humor in the tragically ludicrous ways in which they fail. Shortcomings are somehow strangely endearing.

That said, I don’t think there’s anything in the Smithsonian Folkways collections that would make you double over laughing for all the wrong reasons. Considering this is a record label that has been preserving the whole spectrum of America’s sounds—from summer camp songs to pirate shanties—the Folkways catalog is nothing short of eclectic. On that note, let’s take a quick look at a few of the label’s quirkier offerings.

Bentley on Biermann: Songs and Poems of Wolf Biermann

I have to give props to Eric Bentley for translating Wolf Bierman’s protest songs from German into English, though I’ll leave it to you to judge Bentley’s merits as a performer. It was hard not to include this album in today’s Folkways roundup considering it’s opening track is a piece titled “The Song of the Worst Thing.” How apropos!

Kenneth Patchen Jazz

Kenneth Patchen’s literary career encompassed novels, plays and verse and Folkways has several fine recordings of his poetry readings available. He was also someone who liked to experiment with poetic form, and on the Kenneth Patchen Jazz CD, you can listen to Patchen lay his verse atop some perfectly delightful jazz tunes. If you enjoy the affected high drama of William Shatner’s singing, then this disc most definitely belongs on your CD shelf.

Song of Hiawatha as Read By Harry Fleetwood

Here’s a situation where a classic poem doesn’t shine as bright as it could due to a person’s delivery. Not that there’s anything wrong with Harry Fleetwood’s pipes—he has all the cadence of a narrator for a nature documentary that may lull you (perhaps happily?) to sleep.

Do you have a poem that’s near and dear to you heart that causes everyone else to roll their eyes and groan? Tell us about it! Or better yet, help us celebrate Bad Poetry Day and set down your own so-bad-it’s-good verse in the comments area below.

Mike Seeger died of cancer at age 75. Photo by Maguire, courtesy of Mike Seeger via Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

The ATM Blog regrets this Friday’s passing of Mike Seeger at age 75, a long-time contributor to the Smithsonian Folkways label. A dedicated proponent of “old-time” music, this accomplished musician and singer helped keep traditional, rural roots music alive, recording the performances of the musicians, forming revival groups that played the music in its original incarnation, and spreading knowledge to other musicians and listeners.

Seeger was essentially a music historian, as well as a skilled multi-instrumentalist; he was adept on the banjo, guitar, fiddle, autoharp and harmonica, among others. He wasn’t just Pete Seeger’s younger half-brother, by any means.

Sometimes it’s difficult to describe Seeger’s type of music to today’s generation. In May 1997, Seeger described his beloved “old-time music” in a piece he wrote for Bluegrass Unlimited:

“Old-time music was the old-time name for real mountain-type folk music. Old-time music is the main foundation for bluegrass music. It is the kind of music that Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers and in fact most rural people prior to the mid-nineteen twenties, were raised with. . . It’s a rich and varied heritage of music—as rich as the roots music of any country. . .I can talk on and on about reasons for liking old-time and bluegrass music, but really it all boils down to “it just suits me.”

Seeger spent most of his time with the three-piece, folk-revival outfit he founded in 1958, The New Lost City Ramblers, and influenced many musicians on the burgeoning folk scene, including Bob Dylan. Dylan, from his memoir Chronicles: Volume 1, praised the New Lost City Ramblers:

“Everything about them appealed to me—their style, their singing, their sound. I liked the way they looked, the way they dressed and especially I liked their name. Their songs ran the gamut in styles, everything from mountain ballads to fiddle tunes and railroad blues. All their songs vibrated with some dizzy, portentous truth. I’d stay with The Ramblers for days. At the time, I didn’t know that they were replicating everything they did off old 78 records, but what would it have mattered anyway? It wouldn’t have mattered at all. For me, they had originality in spades, were men of mystery on all counts. I couldn’t listen to them enough.”

Throughout his career, Mike Seeger was remarkably productive, both as a New Lost City Rambler and as a solo artist, earning six Grammy nominations and contributing to 75 Smithsonian Folkways albums.

On August 25, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings will release 50 Years: Where Do You Come From, Where Do You Go?, a box set commemorating the 50^th anniversary of The New Lost City Ramblers.

Listen to “Pretty Little Miss” from disc 3 of that album:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Crowds on the National Mall during the 2002 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photo by Jeff Tinsley, courtesy of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is back—that ten-day celebration that has been happening on the National Mall since 1968. Every summer the Smithsonian Folklife Center promotes cultural education by highlighting the conventions and customs of social groups from the world over. This year, come on out to the National Mall and explore these three pavilion areas: Giving Voice, which focuses on African American oral traditions from storytelling to song to radio; Wales, which celebrates the language, literature and spoken word of one of Europe’s oldest cultures; Las Américanos, which features the musical heritage of Latin America from mariachi to vallenato.

There are tons of activities for visitors of all ages (and plenty of food), so be sure to look at this complete listing of events and the festival map so you can plan your visit. Oh, and I’d be bad if I didn’t mention that you should dress for hot, humid weather and to carry an umbrella in the event of rainstorms. (In the event of inclement weather, duck inside the nearest museum until the rain passes. The festival typically resumes as soon as possible.) You can also get a daily lineup of Folklife Festival programs right here on the Around the Mall blog.

Not able to make it out to the National Mall? Well, the next best thing is the Folklife Center’s webcasts of festival events. And don’t forget that the Folklife Center works year-round to document our rich global heritage, so be sure to check out the Folkways record label and the recently-launched Folkways magazine to keep yourself in the know.

After the jump is a complete listing of the opening day events. Don’t forget to check out a festival map when planning your day’s events at the festival. Check back in to Around the Mall for daily events listings!
(More…)

Pete Seeger performs at the 1970 Festival of American Folklife. (Image copyright Bill Pierce. Courtesy of Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.)

UPDATE: From everyone at the Around the Mall blog and Smithsonian Folkways, we’d like to thank you for sharing your happy birthday messages with Pete! If you’d still like to post, please do so by Tuesday, May 5th at 5 PM EST, after which we’ll close the comments and send the messages to Pete. Thanks again for participating.

On Sunday, Pete Seeger turns 90, and everyone is celebrating.

Over a dozen cities and several countries are holding concerts (some fundraisers) dedicated to the songs of protest and American life made famous by the folk music master.

Smithsonian Folkways is celebrating their star musician in several ways. They are presenting to the public, rare archival footage (including a “Wimoweh” sing-along) and photographs of Seeger. Featuring Seeger’s story with Smithsonian Folkways in their quarterly Folkways Magazine. They are also sending a photographer to document the celebrity-packed celebration Madison Square Garden birthday concert in New York City on May 3.

But no party is complete without music, and so in honor of Seeger’s history as a political protester, Folkways released the 5-disk box set, America’s Favorite Ballads Vols. 1-5. The 139 songs in the set are mainly from the years 1955 through 1960, when Seeger was blacklisted for “un-American” activity. But with the help of Folkways producer Moses Asch, Seeger was given access to a studio where he produced 5 to 6 albums a year. Some of the songs include the classics, “Hole In the Bucket,” “Home on the Range” and “Skip to My Lou.”

Want to wish Seeger happy birthday as well? Comment in the space below. Folkways, which has a relationship with Seeger dating back to 1943 and has produced nearly all of his albums, will print out and mail our readers’ comments to Seeger as part of a birthday care package.