Music Films

This classic, entertaining documentary on American traditional music features varied individuals and groups who have not become part of the “melting pot” of American society.

Women of Old-time Music: Tradition and Change in the Missouri Ozarks takes on the commonly-held folk music scholarship assertion that women did not widely participate in old-time…

Larry Edelman produced this video in 1987 while studying square dance calling with Jerry Goodwin. Recorded at the Prosperity Fire Hall in western Pennsylvania the video features…

This deceptively simple but profound film explores the importance of music-making in the life of Jerry Morrell, a pulp mill worker in rural Maine. His “Down East” fiddling style…

Filmed in the mountains of North Carolina, this acclaimed documentary revisits the region where English folklorist Cecil Sharp collected British ballads in the early 1900s. The…

Film of the singer/faith healer and folk artist Fannie Bell Chapman from Centreville, Mississippi. Footage includes Chapman and her family singing and praying during church…

The portrayal of rural Indiana group, The Patoka Valley Boys, a six-person string band comprising one of America's finest old-time and bluegrass musical groups.

This video tells how and where Arkansas ballad singer Almeda Riddle began her 10 year stint of singing old ballads all over the country. In an informal manner, folk musician Starr…

An hour-long WETA-TV documentary on musician Stephen Wade. Catching the Music describes the passing of the banjo from one player to the next. The film includes footage of Kirk…

Filmmaker Jill Godmilow (with folklorists Ethel Raim and Marty Koenig) made this film in 1977 when there was a community of 1100 Serbian-Americans families in South Chicago. They…

Profiles filmmaker, photographer, artist, and musician John Cohen. The film examines the birth of a new artistic ethic and counterculture through John Cohen\'s involvement with…

A glimpse into the life, food, and Mardi Gras celebrations of black Creoles in French Louisiana, featuring the stories and music of "Bois Sec" Ardoin and Canray Fontenot. Dry Wood…

"Texas Style" is an intimate look at rural Texas culture and the traditional fiddle music played on its back roads. With spirited rhythms and guitar accompaniment, Texas fiddling…

Othar Turner, a fife-maker and musician, owns his farm in the Gravel Springs community in northwest Mississippi. The rhythmical music he and his friends play is called "fife and…