Florida Folk Festival Recordings 1954 - 1979
The first festival was held in May 1953, but was not recorded. Below are MP3 files of all the recordings of the Florida Folk Festival from 1954 to 1979 (more years will be added in the future.) Originally recorded on reel to reels (later years were recorded on audio tapes and compact discs), the MP3 files can accessed by clicking on the catalogue number for each recording (e.g., T77-1, etc.). For more information on the background of the festival, as well as a summary of each year’s recordings, go to About the Florida Folk Festival. Click on a year to read a description of all recordings for that year's festival, including dates and which stages were taped. For descriptions of individual recordings, go to the Folklife Collection database. Also, programs for each year’s festival are available online (click on desired year to access program).
Finally, if you are looking for recordings of a specific performer, go to our list of festival performers to locate the appropriate year.
Background
The first recordings were created in 1954 by curator of the Stephen Foster Memorial, Foster Barnes after the success of the first festival in 1953. Barnes continued to record the festival for the next decade. Following his retirement in 1965, other memorial staff maintained the practice. As control of the festival shifted to the Florida Folklife Program in 1979 and the Florida Park Service in 2003, both agencies continued to record the performances. To date, nearly 3,500 of these festival recordings are housed within the Florida Folklife Collection. [The only year not represented is 2005.] Films and videos of the festival were also created; see S 1615 for more information on festival-related moving images .
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
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