From Martha:

“Madison County Project: Documenting the Sound”, a documentary short about ballad singing and filmmaking in Madison County, NC, will be screened on UNC’s campus on April 12th.
This event will take place in Murphey Hall, room 104, beginning at 4:00 pm. The screening will be followed by a time where the filmmakers will be available for questions.

Blurb:
Madison County Project examines the tradition of unaccompanied ballad singing in Madison County, North Carolina and how the works of documentary filmmakers, photographers, and academics have influenced that tradition. The story unfolds through the historical works of John Cohen, Rob Amberg, and Harvey Wang as well as the voices of today’s ballad singers such as Sheila Kay Adams, Donna Ray Norton, Denise Norton O’Sullivan, and DeeDee Norton Buckner. Filmed in North Carolina. The film has been selected for multiple regional festivals and academic conferences as well as winning the Audience Choice Award at the 2005 Asheville Film Festival.

The earlier posting was correct. Madison County Project will be showing at the Piedmont Filmmakers Festival at 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 8th at Highland School in Warrenton, VA. The festival highlights the work of filmmakers with ties to the Piedmont region of Virginia.

My friend and former employer Tom Davenport will be showing two of his films at 10 a.m. that same morning.

It’s been quiet for a while as Martha finishes her thesis and Rob hunts for jobs. We just got word that the video will be shown at the Open Apperture Film Festival in Boone, NC on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. Not sure of the location, but it will be on the campus of Appalachian State University. Check the website for details.

Les Blank will be the featured filmmaker and is definitely worth the visit.

We’re always showing on April 8th (I think) in Warrenton, VA as part of the Piedmont Film Festival. This festival features filmmakers with ties to the rapidly developing, once rural section of Virginia west and southwest of Washington, D.C. More details as we move closer.

Also working on a showing on UNC’s campus later next month. More details to come.

We’ve updated our blogging software WordPress to version 2.0. It seems to have been a painless upgrade so far, but please send us any feedback if you find anything that’s not working.

Please feel free to take a look at the Beta version of the multimedia companion site that was produced for Rob’s thesis project. Be advised that viewing the site via a dial-up connection most likely will be a frustrating experience. Please let me know if you find any bugs, typos, or other inaccuracies.

The draft of the final paper I’ve submitted to my thesis committee is now available online. In our journalism program, the written section of a thesis project isn’t as extensive as a traditional written thesis, but for most readers, I’m sure it will seem more than extensive.

Feel free to read and share any comments.

Madison County Project is now streaming on Folkstreams. We’ll be developing our presence on the site over the next few weeks. For now, you can access MCP on Folkstreams here.

Folkstreams is a joint project between Davenport Films and the University of North Carolina to create an Internet archive of documentary films that deal with folk arts and culture. I became involved with the project when I worked with Tom Davenport and my involvement with Folkstreams was one of the major factors in my decision to come to graduate school at UNC.

Up next are two additional short piece based on interviews we did with photographers who have worked in Madison County with many of the same people who John Cohen photographed, filmed, and recorded in the 1960s. These edits are somewhat rough, and are intended to provide additional information about documentary work in Madison County for the DVD.

Rob Amberg (video) started taking photographs in Madison County in the 1970s. He developed a close friendship with Dellie Norton and her adopted son Junior. That relationship resulted in Rob (and Dellie’s as he explains) book Sodom Laurel Album. Rob still lives in Madison County and is currently documenting the constructon of Interstate 26 through Madison County. Visit his website for additional information.

Harvey Wang (video) is a Brooklyn-based photographer and filmmaker whose books include Flophouse:Life on the Bowery and Harvey Wang’s New York. Harvey first travelled to Madison County in 1976 for a thesis project while at SUNY-Purchase where he studied photography with John Cohen. Visit his website for additional information.

I’m creating additional material for the DVD and website that I’ll be posting as they become available…

First is a short feature on a fantastic singer named John Anloe Phillips. You’ll need Quicktime for Mac or Windows to watch this mpeg-4 file.

Mr. Phillips learned the old songs as a child from relatives and family friends. His ballads are related to, but often different from those sung by the other families in Madison County. Where Dellie Norton and the Sodom Laurel singers had a large repertoire of ballads and love songs, Mr. Phillips says the singers he knew might have known about a dozen apiece and would share them while working in the fields or while “visiting” in the evenings.

As you’ll see from the feature, Mr. Phillips still farms tobacco the old way with a team of Belgian mules. He also runs a small sawmill in Big Laurel.