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Alan Jabbour's Biography and Bibliography
Below are my short and long biographies.
| Short Biography |
Alan Jabbour was born in 1942 in Jacksonville, Florida. A violinist by early training, he put himself through college at the
University of Miami playing classical music. While a graduate student at Duke University in the 1960s, he began documenting
oldtime fiddlers in the Upper South. Documentation turned to apprenticeship, and he relearned the fiddle in the style of the Upper
South from musicians like Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia, and Tommy Jarrell of Toast, North Carolina. He taught a repertory of
oldtime fiddle tunes to his band, the Hollow Rock String Band, which was an important link in the instrumental music revival in the
1960s.
After receiving his Ph.D. in 1968, he taught English, folklore, and ethnomusicology at UCLA in 1968-69. He then moved to
Washington, D.C., for over thirty years of service with Federal cultural agencies. He was head of the Archive of Folk Song at the
Library of Congress 1969-74, director of the folk arts program at the National Endowment for the Arts 1974-76, and director of the
American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress 1976-99. Since his retirement, he has turned enthusiastically to a life of
writing, consulting, lecturing, and playing the fiddle.
University of Miami playing classical music. While a graduate student at Duke University in the 1960s, he began documenting
oldtime fiddlers in the Upper South. Documentation turned to apprenticeship, and he relearned the fiddle in the style of the Upper
South from musicians like Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia, and Tommy Jarrell of Toast, North Carolina. He taught a repertory of
oldtime fiddle tunes to his band, the Hollow Rock String Band, which was an important link in the instrumental music revival in the
1960s.
After receiving his Ph.D. in 1968, he taught English, folklore, and ethnomusicology at UCLA in 1968-69. He then moved to
Washington, D.C., for over thirty years of service with Federal cultural agencies. He was head of the Archive of Folk Song at the
Library of Congress 1969-74, director of the folk arts program at the National Endowment for the Arts 1974-76, and director of the
American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress 1976-99. Since his retirement, he has turned enthusiastically to a life of
writing, consulting, lecturing, and playing the fiddle.
| Long Biography |
Alan Jabbour was born in 1942 in Jacksonville, Florida, and was educated in Jacksonville public schools and the Bolles
School, where he graduated from high school in 1959. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Miami in 1963
and received his M.A, (1966) and Ph.D. (1968) from Duke University. At Duke, under the direction of Professor Holger O.
Nygard, he wrote a master's thesis on "A Survey and Analysis of the Collecting, Editing, and Criticism of Folkmusic in England,
Scotland, and America," and a doctoral dissertation on "The Memorial Transmission of Old English Poetry: A Study of the
Extant Parallel Texts." As a graduate student he was the recipient of a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (1963), a Duke
Scholarship (1964-66), and a Danforth Fellowship (1966-68).
A violinist from the age of seven, Dr. Jabbour was a member of the Jacksonville Symphony, the Brevard Music Festival
Orchestra, the Miami Symphony under Fabien Sevitsky, and the University of Miami String Quartet. While a graduate student,
he became interested in American fiddle styles and made extensive trips in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, where
he recorded instrumental folk music, folksong, and folklore on tape. This collection, particularly rich in traditional fiddle tunes
from the Upper South, is now in the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress.
In 1968-69, Dr. Jabbour became an assistant professor of English and folklore at the University of California, Los Angeles,
where he taught graduate and undergraduate courses in the ballad, Anglo-American folksong, and folklore and literature.
In September 1969 Dr. Jabbour was appointed head of the Archive of Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture) at the
Library of Congress. There he supervised the development of the national archival collection for folk music and folklore. He
edited a long-playing record drawn from earlier recordings in the Archive, which was published in 1971 as American Fiddle
Tunes. With Carl Fleischhauer, he undertook a three-year project to research, record, and photograph the history and
traditions of a single Appalachian family. As a result, the Library of Congress published in 1973 a two-record album entitled
The Hammons Family: A Study of a West Virginia Family's Traditions. As part of the Library's Bicentennial effort, he was
responsible for initiating an anthology of fifteen long-playing records containing examples of folk music traditions in the United
States.
In April 1974 Dr. Jabbour moved to the National Endowment for the Arts to become founding director of that agency's
grant-giving program in folk arts. Under his direction the Folk Arts Program grew rapidly as a source of funding for the
varieties of folk cultural expression in the United States. It continued to grow after his departure in 1976, lending funding
assistance for many years to projects involving a wide range of ethnic and regional groups and a broad geographical
distribution throughout the nation.
In August 1976 Dr. Jabbour became the founding director of the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress,
continuing in that position for 23 years until his stepping down from the directorship in mid-1999. Established by the American
Folklife Preservation Act of 1976 (Public Law 94-201), the Center is directed to "preserve and present American folklife"
through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, live presentation, exhibition, publication, dissemination,
training, and other activities involving the many folk traditions of the United States. Overseen by a Board of Trustees, the
Center since its inception has carried out a number of projects in various parts of the United States, documenting folk cultural
traditions, preparing published products from the documentation, and assisting in the development of local, state, and regional
folklife programs. The Center also holds periodic conferences, produces exhibitions and a wide variety of publications, offers
public concerts and other programs at the Library of Congress, and serves as a coordinative and consultative center for the
network of folklore and folklife research and public programming throughout the United States. The Center's Archive of Folk
Culture, formerly known as the Archive of Folk Song, is the principal repository for field documentation of American folklore and
folklife, and it also contains important holdings from all the major regions of the world.
Dr. Jabbour retired from federal service at the end of 1999. He has published widely on the subject of folklore and folklife,
including a number of publications on American folksong and instrumental folk music, and he is a frequent lecturer on topics
relating to folklife, folk music, and cultural policy. His publications include both print publications and the editing of a number of
documentary recorded publications, and he has also been featured on recordings and in numerous festivals, concerts, and
workshops as a performer on and teacher of the fiddle. In 2004 he undertook research on the tradition of cemetery decoration
in the Great Smoky Mountains, and the resulting report was published as part of a major Environmental Impact Statement. With
his wife, Karen Singer Jabbour, he continued field and library research into the Decoration Day tradition, resulting in the
heavily illustrated book Decoration Day in the Mountains (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
He has served on numerous panels and boards, including the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. (co-chair, 1987-88;
secretary, 2001-02), the American Folklore Society (president, 1988), the Fund for Folk Culture (chair, 1991-94), the National
Coalition for Heritage Areas (1993-97), the European Center for Traditional Culture (1996-98), International Arts and Artists
(2001-), and the Alliance for American Quilts (1996-2007, president, 2006-07). He has assisted The Ford Foundation in
developing a program in support of Indian folklore and folklife. He and his wife, Karen Joy Singer Jabbour, live in Washington,
D.C., and have three children, Rebecca, Aaron, and Hannah.
December 2010
School, where he graduated from high school in 1959. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Miami in 1963
and received his M.A, (1966) and Ph.D. (1968) from Duke University. At Duke, under the direction of Professor Holger O.
Nygard, he wrote a master's thesis on "A Survey and Analysis of the Collecting, Editing, and Criticism of Folkmusic in England,
Scotland, and America," and a doctoral dissertation on "The Memorial Transmission of Old English Poetry: A Study of the
Extant Parallel Texts." As a graduate student he was the recipient of a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (1963), a Duke
Scholarship (1964-66), and a Danforth Fellowship (1966-68).
A violinist from the age of seven, Dr. Jabbour was a member of the Jacksonville Symphony, the Brevard Music Festival
Orchestra, the Miami Symphony under Fabien Sevitsky, and the University of Miami String Quartet. While a graduate student,
he became interested in American fiddle styles and made extensive trips in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, where
he recorded instrumental folk music, folksong, and folklore on tape. This collection, particularly rich in traditional fiddle tunes
from the Upper South, is now in the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress.
In 1968-69, Dr. Jabbour became an assistant professor of English and folklore at the University of California, Los Angeles,
where he taught graduate and undergraduate courses in the ballad, Anglo-American folksong, and folklore and literature.
In September 1969 Dr. Jabbour was appointed head of the Archive of Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture) at the
Library of Congress. There he supervised the development of the national archival collection for folk music and folklore. He
edited a long-playing record drawn from earlier recordings in the Archive, which was published in 1971 as American Fiddle
Tunes. With Carl Fleischhauer, he undertook a three-year project to research, record, and photograph the history and
traditions of a single Appalachian family. As a result, the Library of Congress published in 1973 a two-record album entitled
The Hammons Family: A Study of a West Virginia Family's Traditions. As part of the Library's Bicentennial effort, he was
responsible for initiating an anthology of fifteen long-playing records containing examples of folk music traditions in the United
States.
In April 1974 Dr. Jabbour moved to the National Endowment for the Arts to become founding director of that agency's
grant-giving program in folk arts. Under his direction the Folk Arts Program grew rapidly as a source of funding for the
varieties of folk cultural expression in the United States. It continued to grow after his departure in 1976, lending funding
assistance for many years to projects involving a wide range of ethnic and regional groups and a broad geographical
distribution throughout the nation.
In August 1976 Dr. Jabbour became the founding director of the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress,
continuing in that position for 23 years until his stepping down from the directorship in mid-1999. Established by the American
Folklife Preservation Act of 1976 (Public Law 94-201), the Center is directed to "preserve and present American folklife"
through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, live presentation, exhibition, publication, dissemination,
training, and other activities involving the many folk traditions of the United States. Overseen by a Board of Trustees, the
Center since its inception has carried out a number of projects in various parts of the United States, documenting folk cultural
traditions, preparing published products from the documentation, and assisting in the development of local, state, and regional
folklife programs. The Center also holds periodic conferences, produces exhibitions and a wide variety of publications, offers
public concerts and other programs at the Library of Congress, and serves as a coordinative and consultative center for the
network of folklore and folklife research and public programming throughout the United States. The Center's Archive of Folk
Culture, formerly known as the Archive of Folk Song, is the principal repository for field documentation of American folklore and
folklife, and it also contains important holdings from all the major regions of the world.
Dr. Jabbour retired from federal service at the end of 1999. He has published widely on the subject of folklore and folklife,
including a number of publications on American folksong and instrumental folk music, and he is a frequent lecturer on topics
relating to folklife, folk music, and cultural policy. His publications include both print publications and the editing of a number of
documentary recorded publications, and he has also been featured on recordings and in numerous festivals, concerts, and
workshops as a performer on and teacher of the fiddle. In 2004 he undertook research on the tradition of cemetery decoration
in the Great Smoky Mountains, and the resulting report was published as part of a major Environmental Impact Statement. With
his wife, Karen Singer Jabbour, he continued field and library research into the Decoration Day tradition, resulting in the
heavily illustrated book Decoration Day in the Mountains (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
He has served on numerous panels and boards, including the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. (co-chair, 1987-88;
secretary, 2001-02), the American Folklore Society (president, 1988), the Fund for Folk Culture (chair, 1991-94), the National
Coalition for Heritage Areas (1993-97), the European Center for Traditional Culture (1996-98), International Arts and Artists
(2001-), and the Alliance for American Quilts (1996-2007, president, 2006-07). He has assisted The Ford Foundation in
developing a program in support of Indian folklore and folklife. He and his wife, Karen Joy Singer Jabbour, live in Washington,
D.C., and have three children, Rebecca, Aaron, and Hannah.
December 2010