2/10/24: Musical Traditions at the University of Chicago Folk Festival

Join us for a free program of vintage folk performances!.

Saturday, February 10th
1:30pm-2:30pm
University of Chicago’s Ida Noyes Hall
1212 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
FREE. More information HERE. 

Media Burn is so pleased to be part of this year’s University of Chicago Folk Festival.

The University of Chicago Folklore Society formed in the early 1950s and put on its first Folk Festival in 1961, featuring such greats as Ralph and Carter Stanley, The New Lost City Ramblers, Elizabeth Cotten, Roscoe Holcomb and Willie Dixon. The Festival was a huge success, and over the next decade, exposed many great traditional musicians to a much wider audience. Legends such as Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, Frank Profitt, Hobart Smith, The Staples Singers, Nathan Abshire, Dewey Balfa, Doc Watson, Clarence “Tom” Ashley, Muddy Waters and Little Walter, and many more graced the Mandel Hall stage in the early years. The Festival has been held every Winter since 1961, presenting traditional music from around the country and around the world, alongside free and fun workshops for everyone.

For the Festival, Media Burn curated a special program of vintage folk music performances. The program features bluegrass music from our friends at Appalshop and, from further north on the Appalachian Trail, performances from traditional musicians recorded by Julie Gustafson and John Reilly, as well as protest music, acoustic ballads, and more from across the Media Burn collection, with musicians ranging from the near-anonymous or forgotten masters of folk to some of the biggest names of the 1970s.