Hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn interview American Folklife Center staff members about what inspires them about AFC collections while they are working from home during the stay-at-home orders imposed by the covid-19 virus crisis. Alda Allina Migoni speaks about Spanish-language collections from California recorded in 1939 by Sidney Robertson Cowell, including versions of “Cielito Lindo.” Michelle Stefano speaks about blues musicians interviewed as part of the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project survey in 1977. Stephen Winick speaks about recordings of Zora Neale Hurston made in 1939, including one of her singing the song “Uncle Bud.” Maya Lerman speaks about the John Cohen collection and the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection, including the old-time music in the collections and especially interviews with Tommy Jarrell. John Fenn speaks about the Juan B. Rael Collection of Hispano music and culture from New Mexico and Colorado. More information on the songs as well as full audio and videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn discuss “On the Road with Alan Lomax” a campaign in the Library of Congress “By the People” program, which crowdsources transcriptions of Lomax’s field notes. Alan Lomax was a prominent folklorist who made iconic field recordings around the world. The hosts interview Victoria Van Hyning, Lauren Algee, and Todd Harvey of the Library of Congress, and play some of Lomax’s best recordings, including the earliest recordings of Muddy Waters and Honeyboy Edwards, interviews with Jelly Roll Morton, classic recordings of Vera Hall, Bessie Jones, Seamus Ennis, and The Copper Family, and music from Grenada, Haiti, Finland, and all over the U.S. More information on the songs as well as full audio and videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn, along with guests Stephanie Hall and Jennifer Cutting discuss and play their favorite songs of winter. Songs include “Footprints in the Snow,” “Ice Skating Song,” “Fair Charlotte,” “Young Charlotte,” “The Wind Blows High,” and “Time to Remember the Poor.” More information on the songs as well as videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn, along with guest Theadocia Austen, discuss and play their favorite songs of winter. Songs include an old-time love song by Virginian Hettie Swindel, an urban blues from Detroit songsters Sampson Pittman and Calvin Frazier, a Hardanger fiddle tune from Loretta Kelley, an example of rich vocal polyphony from the Republic of Georgia, and a lumberjack song by Carl Lathrop. More information on the songs as well as videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts Stephen Winick and Thea Austen and guest Jennifer Cutting discuss the folksong “The Candidate’s a Dodger,” also known as “The Dodger.” They talk about the song’s meanings in oral tradition, its use by Aaron Copland as an art song, and its involvement in political controversy in the 1930s, when Charles Seeger first published it. They examine the song’s history and lay out brand-new evidence about its relationships to other folksongs and to a musical theater song from 1840s England. They also discuss the possibility that Charles Seeger, a founder of ethnomusicology and a pioneering federal folklorist, was himself a “dodger!” The episode includes performances by folksingers Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, and Peggy Seeger, as well as baritone Thomas Hampson, and five field recordings from the Library of Congress. More information on “The Dodger,” as well as videos of some of the performances, photos of the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick introduce three spooky stories to celebrate Halloween: Award-winning storyteller and author Jackie Torrence telling "The Golden Arm," groundbreaking folklorist Mary Celestia Parler telling "The Witch Who Kept a Hotel," and Connie Regan Blake, one of today's leading professional storytellers, telling "Mr. Fox." Much more about the storytellers and the tales can be found at the blog Folklife Today, https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, and their guests Ann Hoog, Carl Fleischhauer, and Michelle Stefano, discuss the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection, created as part of the American Folklife Center's first fieldwork project in 1977. The collection, featuring sound recordings, manuscripts, and photographs from 25 ethnic communities in Chicago, is online at loc.gov They discuss the challenges of getting the collection online and of making connections between the collection and the current Chicago community. They play excerpts of interviews with artists from the Greek American, Puerto Rican, African American, and Icelandic American communities, and music from the Greek American, African American, and Irish American communities.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, and their guest Jennifer Cutting, introduce two more hidden folklorists, writer Charles J. Finger and filmmaker Nicholas Ray. Finger collected folklore for award-winning books such as "Tales from Silver Lands," "Sailor Chanties and Cowboy Songs," "Frontier Ballads," and "Robin Hood and his Merry Men." Ray was employed by the Works Progress Administration to collect folklore in 1938 and 1939, before embarking on a career as a filmmaker and directing "Rebel Without a Cause," "They Live by Night," "On Dangerous Ground," and "Johnny Guitar." Ray also directed the radio series "Back Where I Come From" with Alan Lomax. The episode includes four songs sung by Finger, identified by him as three chanties and a forecastle song, and three selections recorded by Ray, on one of which Ray himself sings.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick discuss children's songs, and in particular "Ring Around the Rosie." They interview Carolyn Bennett, the Library of Congress Teacher-in-Residence, and play versions of children's songs recorded in the field in 1939 and in 2019. They talk about the story that the origin of "Ring Around the Rosie" is related to plague symptoms in English history. They conclude that the plague story is folklore, and that specifically it is "metafolklore," meaning folklore about folklore. They also conclude that it's probably not true. Nevertheless it tells us interesting things about the way folklore is told, spread, and used by various kinds of people, including children.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick discuss occupational folklife in general, and the American Folklife Center's Occupational Folklife Project in particular. Topics covered include occupational songs, labor scholar and activist Archie Green, and the Occupational Folklife Project's oral histories with American workers. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi provides a moving tribute to labor folklorist Archie Green. Other interviewees include American Folklife center director Betsy Peterson, who was a fieldworker on the Occupational Folklife Project, archivists who take care of the recordings, and the coordinator of the project, Nancy Groce. The program includes excerpts from three workers in the Port of Houston, and with one circus worker reminiscing about elephants. It also includes a mining song performed by Blind Jim Howard and two versions of the railroad song "Rock Island Line," one by Kelly Pace and the other by the popular singer-songwriter Billy Bragg.