Founded over 90 years ago, the National Folk Festival was first presented in 1934 in St. Louis, Missouri, and is the nation’s longest-running multicultural celebration of traditional arts and culture. In honor of this milestone, we are featuring a rotating series of live video and audio recordings from 40 years ago that capture highlights of the 36th National Folk Festival …
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NCTA Radio streams a series of thematic programs that feature music from the NCTA Collection. “Gospel Ship” is one of these programs, which were produced over a 10-year period by Mark Yacovone for WDUQ-FM, and narrated by Joe Wilson. The sounds of African American, Cherokee, Sacred Harp, and Appalachian gospel from deep tradition—all recorded live at various National Folk Festivals—are …
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Masters of blues, Appalachian flat-picking, Hawaiian slack key, dobro, jazz and rockabilly guitar styles were showcased in the first Masters of the Steel String Guitar tours, which helped open the doors of major performing arts venues to traditional artists in the early 1990s. Listen to tour recordings that capture live performances by John Cephas, Jerry Douglas, Wayne Henderson, Ledward Kaapana, …
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The National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) The NCTA is the nation’s oldest multicultural arts presenting organization. For over eight decades, through festivals, tours, symposia, exhibits, and media productions, the NCTA has showcased the very best of the myriad grassroots folk, tribal and ethnic cultures that comprise our diverse nation.