Choice Magazine Reviews Singing Out

In the December 2010 issue of CHOICE magazine, the American Library Association's publication covering the latest in academic publishing, there is a favorable review of "Singing Out: The Ballad of Pete Seeger." An excerpt from their review:

"Each chapter tells its story through quotations from Dunaway's interviews with a wide variety of people and commentaries from the authors. The scheme works well because of the fascinating opinions and insights that many famous artists and distinguished scholars from different times and places bring to each topic." p. 509-510

Denmark

I'm in Denmark now. Great trip. Updates soon to come!

Knight Digital Media Center Fellowship --

Over the past week, I've been involved in an intensive project with an amazing team of designers and journalists at the Knight Digital Media Center at UC Berkely. We spent multiple 14 hour days developing a multimedia project about an establishment in Oakland, CA that offers "Holistic Veterinary Care." You can see the product of our work in this embedded YouTube clip.

It was a great experience, and I met some wonderful people--some of my fellow KDMC fellows work at places like the New York Times, Al Jazeera, and Time Magazine. Although we worked long hours, I'm coming away from this project energized and in possession of a new set of skills.

Spring Sounds...

It's almost Spring; the birdies are remembering their voices and back home in New Mexico, little green tongues are rising from the black soil. I'm back teaching in San Francisco, Queen City of the Pacific. The first weeks were balmy, then foggy and now the weather will try to make up its mind. It's great fun doing the occasional radio show on KALW or KPFA--or any other Bay Area station that could use a veteran folkie D.J.

Classes in Radio/Documentary Studies at San Francisco State are filled with wonderful, seeking folks. It makes me proud. One asked for a sticky, dripping sound. Omitting the obvious (and unprofessional), I suggested honey, heated in a microwave and dropped on a metal sheet from 2 feet above. As it cools, it drips.

Back at you soon.

New Release!!! Pete Seeger Discography

Our Pete Seeger discography is forthcoming from Scarecrow Press in December! Below, you'll find our publisher's description of the book:

Pete Seeger is one of the most recorded artists in American history, and his recording catalog tells us not just the story of his career but the story of our culture and its political and social history. A Pete Seeger Discography: Seventy Years of Recordings is a comprehensive listing of the 45s, 78s, LPs, and CDs recorded by Seeger in his various incarnations: with the Almanac Singers, with the Weavers, as a solo artist, and with other musicians and contributors. David King Dunaway provides information, with easy to use cross-references, on rare recordings and archival collections.

The discography offers details on Seeger's recording history, including the album title, song(s), other artists on the recording, the publisher and number, and the year or exact recording date if known, as well as the original release date and the re-releases of each recording. Structured to make locating details easy for readers, the recordings are organized chronologically and categorized by albums, singles, private pressings, and foreign releases. Readers can easily cross-reference through album and song title indexes and a contributing artist index. An appendix listing the unreleased archival holdings of the Smithsonian Folkways collection under Moe Asch completes the volume, and a photospread with more than 30 of Seeger's album covers convey a pictorial recording history of this well-loved artist.

The authors gratefully acknowledge Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, for their funding assistance in preparing this discography.

BEA Best of Festival - Faculty Audio Winner: David Dunaway

David Dunaway Receives Vox Populi Award!

Dr. Dunaway was the first recipient of the Oral History Associations’ Vox Populi (“Voice of the People”) Award, given by renowned author/investigative historian Stetson Kennedy at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Oral History Association in Atlanta.

ABOUT THE VOX POPULI AWARD
The intent of the Stetson Kennedy Vox Populi Award is to stimulate, and give recognition to, collections of oral histories taken from individuals who have devoted much of their lives to activism designed to bring about change for a more democratic, just, peaceful, and harmonious world. In choosing Dr. Dunaway the Committee recognized not only his body of work over the years, but the singularity of documenting social protest in folksong through “How Can I Keep From Singing and Singing Out: An Oral History of America’s Folk Music Revivals”. Mr. Kennedy -- who made the presentation -- is the only living subject of a Woody Guthrie song.

You can find further information about the OHA Vox Populi Award and about the conference at the Oral History Association website.

Dr. Dunaway's acceptance speech for the award is printed below:

My thanks to the local organizers, to the award committee (which I’ll be helping in future years), to Stetson Kennedy, and to my editor at Oxford, Nancy Toff. But we all owe our thanks to the brave men and women who sparked, and survived, the civil rights movement here in Georgia, where so much of it began, and where there were so many leaders.

I was too young to go South in that time; I joined friends of SNCC, at the northern edge of the movement. But, it’s an honor to be surrounded by so many real activists.

Now, talking about the civil rights movement, the FBI played a still-uncharted role in this movement. We really need to know more about this! Some of you know that I sued the FBI under the FOIA, for its records on musicians in the 40s and 50s—one form of historical activism. Before I deposited two thousand pages at the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center, I asked the FBI if these files still existed. No, came the answer, but they did have a file on one David Dunaway—folksinger. Well, for me, that’s definitely a promotion and a new opportunity.

So, in the spirit of Stetson’s friend Woody Guthrie, I’ll close with a snatch of song (to the tune of “Acres of Clams”). Woody wrote when an FBI man asked if he’d fight for his country:

I answered the FBI: Yea,
I will point a gun for my country,
but I won’t guarantee you which way.

Thank you.