Blues musician Buck Thompson playing on his porch

Fieldwork

Research methods

Collecting

Porches

String instruments

Blues (Music)

African Americans

Musical tradition, African diaspora

Guitarists

Guitar

Architecture

Music performance

Guitarist

Musicians

Blues singers

Thirty four color slides. Images of fifty-year old blues guitarist Buck Thompson playing tunes that he learned from the radio on his front porch. A lifelong migrant farmer, he played the juke circuit in the 1950s. A sound recording of the performance can be found in S 1714, box 6 reels 23 and 24. In winter 1985, the Bureau contracted with two folklorists to conduct a folk arts survey of the St. Johns River basin in northeastern Florida. The St. Johns River is the largest and most used river in Florida, supporting much river commerce as well as a modest amount of commercial fishing. Folklorists Mary Anne McDonald and Kathleen Figgen conducted the survey from January through March 1985 under the direction of Folklife Coordinator Blanton Owen and Bureau Chief Ormond Loomis. Documentation compiled in the survey was used to prepare and present the St. Johns River Basin Folklife Area at the 1985 Florida Folk Festival.

State Archives of Florida, Series S1577

1985-02-14

Florida Folklife Program

color slides

Still Image

S1577

v. 27

S85-1467 - S85-1495

St. Johns River Survey

Owen, Blanton, 1945-1998

McDonald, Mary Anne

Thompson, Albert Buck

African American

1122

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