Joe Hickerson Papers, 1953-2018
| Oberlin College Archives
Administrative/Biographical History
Joseph “Joe” Charles Hickerson, folk musician, folklorist, ethnomusicologist, archivist and librarian, is a graduate of Oberlin College in the class of 1957. He was born in Highland Park, Illinois in 1935. Before his enrollment at Oberlin in 1953, he attended a Progressive Party campaign event in 1948, where he first saw a performance by the folksinger and labor activist Pete Seeger. Subsequently Hickerson bought records by The Weavers, a folk group that included Seeger, and began to play ukulele and guitar. The guitar is his primary instrument.
Hickerson attended Seeger’s first concert in Oberlin, in 1954. For Seeger’s second Oberlin concert in April of 1955, Hickerson was the assistant organizer. In February 1956, Hickerson was the chief organizer for a Seeger children’s concert and an evening performance for over 850 people in Finney Chapel. After these appearances, Hickerson spoke with Seeger about organizing concerts for him at other colleges. On October 20, 1956, Pete did afternoon and evening presentations at the college’s Hall Auditorium and Finney Chapel, for which Hickerson was again the organizer. That evening Hickerson led a post-concert folksing with Seeger in the backyard of Grey Gables Co-op, Hickerson’s dormitory, which was recorded and simultaneously aired by the campus radio station, WOBC-FM.
Seeger’s annual concerts were of central importance to an increasing interest in folk music on the Oberlin College campus. In 1957 Hickerson and others formed the Oberlin Folk Song Club and a performing/teaching group, The Folksmiths, which made a recording on the Smithsonian Folkways Records label in August that year. The first Oberlin Intercollegiate Folk Festival occurred in May 1957, just before Hickerson’s graduation.
Hickerson came back to Oberlin twice during his graduate studies in folklore, ethnomusicology and anthropology at Indiana University for Seeger concerts, in 1957 and 1958. He wrote two additional verses for one of Seeger’s best-known compositions, “Where Have all the Flowers Gone,” in 1960. The next twenty years saw increased activity in folklore and music on the Oberlin College campus on the extracurricular level, and additional Pete Seeger concerts. The class of 1972 selected Pete Seeger as the keynote speaker for their graduation ceremonies.
For thirty-five years (1963-98) Joe Hickerson was Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song/Culture at the Library of Congress. He lectures and writes on a variety of folk music topics. From 2003-11 he edited “The Songfinder” column for Sing Out! (singout.org). He has performed and lectured throughout his career, in the U.S., Canada, Finland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, and has made recordings on the Folk-Legacy and Smithsonian Folkways labels. He offers cassettes and CDs of his recordings for sale on the Folkmusic Society website.
In 1966 Joe married Lynn Russell; the marriage did not last. His current partner is Ruth Weiss Bolliger (class of 1959), an original member of the Folksmiths. Beginning in 2005, Joe made trips to see Bolliger in Portland, Oregon, where she was a member of the Portland Folkmusic Society. Joe has been an active member and contributor to the PFS website and newsletter. He moved to Portland in 2011. From 2014 to 2016 Joe wrote a column called “Joe’s Jottings” for the PFS newsletter, Local Lore. He continues to write and lecture on folk music topics.
JOE HICKERSON DISCOGRAPHY
The following is a list compiled by Joe Hickerson with descriptions of his recordings on CD-ROM (and cassette tape*). Many are copies from original LP phonograph records.
Smithsonian Folkways F-2407, We’ve Got Some Singing to Do: The Folksmiths Travelling Folk Workshop*. I lead on several songs and otherwise perform on this recording of eight Oberlin College students, originally recorded in August 1957 and issued as a Folkways LP in 1958. This was the first published recording containing “Kum Ba Yah.” Includes a 6-page booklet with texts.
Smithsonian Folkways F-RF-51, Uncle Dave Macon*. Conceived by Pete Seeger, selected and edited by Norman Tinsley, Bob Highland, and Joe Hickerson. This was the first LP reissue of 78 rpm recordings by this pioneer of banjo and country music. Originally issued in 1963. Includes a 6-page booklet with discography.
Folk-Legacy CD-39, Joe Hickerson with a Gathering of Friends. My first solo recording, originally issued as an LP in 1970. CD reissue has two bonus tracks not on the original. Includes a 24-page booklet with texts.
Folk-Legacy CD-41, Five Days Singing (New Golden Ring) Vol. I. I lead several songs and perform on others. Originally issued as an LP in 1971. Includes an 8-page booklet with texts.
Folk-Legacy CD-42, Five Days Singing (New Golden Ring) Vol. II. More from the 1971 session, with an 8-page booklet with texts.
Folk-Legacy CD-58, Drive Dull Care Away, Vol. I. With the next item, my second and third solo recordings, originally issued as LPs in 1976. (The title track was Garrison Keillor’s theme on his “Morning Show” on Minnesota Public Radio in the late 1970s). Includes a 22-page booklet with texts.
Folk-Legacy CD-59, Drive Dull Care Away, Vol. II*. See above. Includes a 22-page booklet with texts.
Folk-Legacy CD-75, The Continuing Tradition, Vol. I: Ballads. A sampler of previously unissued recordings by various Folk-Legacy artists. My offering is “Reynardine,” accompanied by members of the “The New Golden Ring.” Originally issued on LP in 1981. Includes a 12-page booklet with texts.
Cob’s Cobble Music 1005, Folk Songs of the Catskills: A Celebration of Camp Woodland. A memorial to Herbert Haufrecht, this CD features songs collected ca. 1940-60 by campers and staff at Camp Woodland of Phoenicia, New York. Performed by Joanna Cazden, Bob & Louise DeCormier, Ronnie Gilbert, Joe Hickerson, Geoff Kaufman, Abby Newton, Pete Seeger, Artie & Happy Traum, Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, Mickey Vandow, and Eric Weissberg. Issued in 2001. Includes a 12-page booklet.
Sources
“Joe Hickerson,” The Ark Archive, The Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan,
accessed 2/11/2021.
“Joe Hickerson,” Portland Folklore Society website, accessed 3/29/2021.
Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationThe Papers were received from Joe Hickerson on July 25, 2018.
Oberlin College
Oberlin College Folk Music Club, Oberlin College Folk Music Archive
Recordings (1955-2017), 2017. Oberlin College Conservatory Library.
The Folksmiths, We’ve Got Some Singing to Do: The Folksmiths travelling
workshop, 1958, CD-ROM, Oberlin College Conservatory Library.
Streaming service under the title Folk Songs with The Folksmiths
(Alexander Street Press, 2009).
The Folksmiths, We've Got Some Singing To Do, CD-ROM, Oberlin
College Archives (RG 37 Sound Recordings: CD-ROMs).
Other Resources
Joe Hickerson Interview, April 17, 1987. Reel-to-reel tape, Library of Congress
Archival Material.
Joe Hickerson, with the help of an assistant, arranged and described his papers prior to transferring them to the Archives, with the inclusion of an item-level inventory (available upon request). It appears that this arrangement was at some point amended or disturbed. Thus Hickerson’s inventory will not always reflect the actual contents of a given series. Only minor changes to the original arrangement were made for clarity. The few photographs were kept with the related textual material files, as in the original order.
The materials are arranged into fourteen series, outlined below. Overall the collection covers a long date range from 1953, Hickerson’s first semester at Oberlin College, to the year the collection was donated, in 2018. It documents Hickerson’s activities as an Oberlin student and alum, particularly in relation to his beginnings as a folk musician, his touring and recording with the performing group formed at Oberlin, The Folksmiths, and his lifelong connection to those and other folk musicians. Hickerson was a curator at the Library of Congress Folk Archive for thirty-five years, but the papers do not reflect his career there, with the exception of a file on Oberlin students who interned with him.
Hickerson first saw a performance by Pete Seeger at a Progressive Party campaign event in 1948; Seeger’s later appearances at Oberlin in the 1950s were highly influential for Hickerson and others, and provided Seeger with bookings he could not get elsewhere as a suspected communist. Series 2 holds material generated for and about Seeger concerts during Hickerson’s student years and beyond, and later email correspondence by Hickerson and associates as well as clippings and articles. A file compiled for an Oberlin Alumni Magazine article published in 2014 is a rich source of information on Seeger.
The series are relatively small in size, only one or two folders in some cases. The largest series, but still less than two archival case boxes, are Series 3, The Folksmiths, Hickerson’s folk ensemble, and Series 4, Joe Hickerson at Oberlin after June 1957. The Folksmiths series reveals the activities and recording files of the ensemble. Like Pete Seeger, the group collected songbooks and folk dance booklets, described as demonstration materials. These can be found in three folders. Series 4 holds files on various class reunions, special reunions, and a Folk Music/Ethnomusicology Conference and Reunion at Oberlin in 2004. A significant amount of email and Facebook post print-outs document these activities. Much of the electronic correspondence also consists of reminiscences and information sharing.
The collection includes sound recordings on reel-to-reel tape, phonograph records, and CD-ROMs. The reel-to-reel tapes are live performances of Hickerson’s folk ensemble The Folksmiths in the summer of 1957 after his graduation. The phonograph records include the group’s 1958 Folkways record, “We’ve Got Some Singing to Do,” and a record of song highlights from a musical by the Mummer’s Club at Oberlin. The CD-ROMs represent a live performance by Hickerson and others at a folk music conference at Oberlin in 2004, and music by The Folksmiths transferred from tapes, produced by the Smithsonian Institution in 2005. Recordings on media other than CD-ROMs are restricted.
ARRANGEMENT
[Dates are spans]
Series 1. Joe Hickerson’s Student Years at Oberlin College, 1953-2016
(0.22 l.f.)
Series 2. Pete Seeger at Oberlin, 1954-2015 (0.16 l.f.)
Series 3. The Folksmiths, ca. 1940s-2017 (0.44)
Series 4. Hickerson at Oberlin after June 1957, 1981-2016 (0.68 l.f.)
Series 5. Other Folk and Ethnomusicology Activities at Oberlin after June
1957, 1958-2016 (0.22 l.f.)
Series 6. Oberlin Clubs, 1972-2014 (0.15 l.f.)
Series 7. Oberlin Alumni in Folk Music and Ethnomusicology after 1957,
1975-2018 (0.15 l.f.)
Series 8. Oberlin Students and Alumni as Interns at the Library of Congress
Folk Archive, 1973-2018 (0.01)
Series 9. Tom Reid Tape/CD Archive of Folk Music and Oberlin-Related
Material, 2006-2015 (0.01 l.f.)
Series 10. Hickerson’s Donations to Oberlin College, 1990-2018 (0.15 l.f.)
Series 11. Correspondence with the Oberlin College Archives, 2006, 2018
(0.01 l.f.)
Series 12. Materials for Oberlin College Exhibit, 1950s (0.02 l.f.)
Series 13. General and Miscellaneous, 1995-2010 (0.02 l.f.)
Series 14. Sound Recordings, 1955-2005 (1.66 l.f.) RESTRICTIONS
Subseries 1. Reel-to-reel Tapes, 7”
Subseries 2. Phonograph Records
Subseries 3. CD-ROMs