Reflections on the First Week

In the last week I have determined my initial research approach and have been getting acquainted with the different sources I will be using to gather information. My blog now has four different pages: home, relevant literature, notes & data, and data gathering process. The home page is where all my weekly summary and other posts will be located. The relevant literature page is where articles and books related to the research question can be found. Notes & data is probably the most important page as it is where links for my Google spreadsheet with data and notes on the process can be found. The last page has my step by step research gathering process, which will inevitably be amended as I continue working on collecting data. I have currently made the choice to ignore albums released after 1980, so as to keep the focus on Folk Music up through the 1970s but not later. This year will probably change as I do more research on the subject.

I have gone through about 3 pages of albums on the Folkways website and have started to uncover some patterns. Pete Seeger was very prominent on all three, but his albums were primarily re-releases and his name is so big in the Folk music world, that documenting his countless albums would add little to the project. I am also figuring out what to make of various collaboration performances and albums as it seems in the Folk genre, solo artists sometimes came together to record an album as a group, going their separate ways afterwards. I am curious whether that sort of album is more or less likely to be preserved. Something that is starting to become clear is that almost all Folkways music has been digitized and is available for streaming on Spotify. There was one record under the Folkway label that was on the Folkways website but not on Spotify, which I have yet to come to a clear answer as to why. It seems that "Bergerfolk Vol. 2: Happy Landings Family Folk" has mysteriously not made it into the Spotify collection. So far that is the only example I have of missing Folkways songs. The other pattern that seems to be emerging is that folk albums not available on Spotify tend to be under different labels, labels which probably haven't released content for streaming. The most frequent among these that I have found so far has been Columbia. Whether or not these albums are available digitized through a source other than Spotify is a question I'll have to look into.

Finding consistent discography sources has been a challenge, though I do find myself coming back to the same few for many of the artists. Something that I have run into is discrepancies in reporting of some artists' complete discography so it seems that there is quite a bit of uncertainty and question in music sellers, archivists, and enthusiasts themselves. Having a standardized and verified database of released songs and albums for labels and song artists could definitely be of use in the search I have been doing. Overall the my approach seems to be working, and getting data that we hypothesized we'd find so it looks like I've got more data to collect to start piecing together the story of what's been digitized and why, as well as answer the questions of why some records seem to have chosen not to.