Steve Winick's Blogs

Folklife Today

In my official role as writer-editor for the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, I am the general editor of the blog Folklife Today.  

You can see a listing of my most recent Folklife Today posts here.

 

The Huffington Post

I also blog on music, folklore and culture for the Huffington Post.

You can see a listing of my Huffington Post posts here.

(The most recent ones are presented in the center column.  You can find the rest under "More Posts By" in the right-hand column by scrolling down the page a little.)

Wynken de Worde Hath a Blog....

Wynken De Worde Interviews Grammy-Winning Artists! 

Hello, gentle readers!

One month ago, your humble scribe Wynken De Worde had the honor of conducting an on-stage interview with the Grammy-winning folk band The Carolina Chocolate Drops!  Rather than write an extensive blog post on the experience, I've folded it into an article about this remarkable band and their unique brand of old-time folk, based on little-known African-American string band music.  Read the article here!

Wynkyn de Worde sings in a Great Big Rock Concert 

 


Years from now, my niece and nephew and once-removed cousins are apt to ask me: “Weird Uncle Steve, what’s it like to sing in a Great Big Rock Concert?”

Luckily, I will now be able to tell them, in my usual articulate manner: “It's, uh, pretty awesome.”

But I get ahead of myself. First of all, where do I get off calling the show on December 27, 2011 at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, a "Great Big Rock Concert?" It was certainly a triumph of electric folk and a watershed moment in Celtic-Andalusian…

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My Season of Mumming 

 

This year I once again adapted, directed, and performed in my office's Christmas Mummers play.  Mumming, or disguising oneself, going door to door, and performing in neighbors' homes and in public places, is a very old and widespread custom in Europe, going back at least to the middle ages.  However, the type of play we call a Mummers Play today may not go back any further than the eighteenth century, since earlier references to "mumming" either are vague about the exact type of performance, or are…

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Thoughts on the Green Man 4: The Green Man and Calendar Customs 

 

The Green Man and Calendar Customs

This is the first of several blog posts about the Green Man.
[Find the first here] [Find the second here] [Find the third here] [Find the fourth here]

From his earliest appearances among the characters of pageants, shows, and St. George’s Day observances, the Green Man has been associated with calendar customs, especially those of springtime. Yet, one of Richard Hayman’s specific claims in "The Ballad of the Green Man" is that the Green Man is “the latest accretion to the…

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Thoughts on the Green Man 3: The Green Man and the Foliate Head 

 

 

The Green Man and the Foliate Head

This is the third of several blog posts about the Green Man.
[Find the first here] [Find the second here] [Find the third here] [Find the fourth here]

In Part 2, I showed that the idea of a man covered with leaves, as well as the name for that man, “Green Man,” existed for a long time, in the same cultural milieux as the carved foliate faces on churches. However, it is not clear that these two artistic traditions were related. Although scholars like Lady Raglan in the…

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Thoughts on the Green Man 2: What Was the Green Man? 

 

Part 2: What Was the Green Man?

This is the second of several blog posts about the Green Man.
[Find the first here] [Find the second here] [Find the third here] [Find the fourth here]

So what DID the term “Green Man” refer to before 1930, and how did the term come down to modern times, to Lady Raglan’s day and beyond? To answer this, we can rely partly on Brandon Centerwall’s “The Name of the Green Man,” a crucial article that is almost never cited by writers such as Hayman, who wish to downplay the deep…

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Thoughts on the Green Man 1: Introduction 

Introduction:

This is the first of several blog posts about the Green Man.
[Find the first here] [Find the second here] [Find the third here] [Find the fourth here]

Both before and after Lady Raglan’s landmark 1939 essay "The Green Man in Church Architecture," in which she applied the term “Green Man” to a carving of a foliate head in her local church, much has been written about the strange creatures known as “Green Men.” References to them in English go back to the sixteenth century. In the twentieth…

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