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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. A violinist from the age of seven, he was a member of the Jacksonville Symphony, the
Brevard Music Festival Orchestra, the Miami Symphony, and the University of Miami String Quartet.
While a graduate student at Duke, he became interested in folk music and folklore, and in 1965-68 he
made extensive trips in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, to record 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. The documentation trips verged
into a process of apprenticeship, and he began playing the fiddle under the influence of new masters.
In particular, he learned the style and repertory of Henry Reed, a master fiddler who lived along the New
River in Glen Lyn, Virginia, and was then in his eighties.
As Alan Jabbour began to learn the regional fiddling style and repertory of the Upper South, he joined
together with three other young musicians to form a band devoted to playing these oldtime tunes,
including Tommy Thompson on the five-string banjo, Bertram Levy on the mandolin, and Bobbie
Thompson on the guitar. They called themselves the Hollow Rock String Band, after a rural community
outside of Durham where the Thompsons lived and where the band gathered for regular jam sessions
and music parties. The band was at the core of an oldtime music scene that blossomed in Durham
and Chapel Hill in the later 1960s. In 1968, the year that Henry Reed passed away, the band released
a long-playing record called The Hollow Rock String Band: Traditional Dance Tunes (Kanawha 311).
That album, which became a document of the oldtime music revival in the 1960s and 1970s, has
recently been reissued as a compact disc (County Records CO-CD-2715).
In 1968-69, Alan 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, British
and American folksong, and folklore and literature. In September 1969 he 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 nation’s largest 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 (now available on CD as Rounder Records 18964-1518-2).
With Carl Fleischhauer, he undertook a three-year project to research, record, and photograph the
history and traditions of a single Appalachian family. This was published in 1973 by the Library of
Congress in a two-record album entitled
The Hammons Family: A Study of a West Virginia Family's Traditions. A companion album appeared
that year on the Rounder label, entitled Shaking Down the Acorns. Both these publications were
released in a double-CD edition in 1998, entitled The Hammons Family: The Traditions of a West
Virginia Family and Their Friends (Rounder 1504/05). As part of the Library's Bicentennial effort, he
initiated an anthology of fifteen long-playing records containing examples of folk music traditions in the
United States. During this period he performed less often as a musician, but an LP entitled The Hollow
Rock String Band (Rounder Records 0024) includes him on the fiddle, Tommy Thompson on the banjo
and guitar, and Jim Watson on the guitar, mandolin, and autoharp.
In April 1974, Alan 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, and it
continued to grow after his departure in 1976. In August 1976, he became the founding director of the
American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress, continuing in that position for 23 years until he
stepped down as director 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. 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 contains important holdings from all the
major regions of the world.
In the 1980s, while focusing on his duties as an administrator, he occasionally turned his attentions to
editing folk music documentary albums and playing music at occasional public events and gatherings.
He edited, with John A. Cuthbert, another LP publication related to the Hammons Family, The Edden
Hammons Collection, published by West Virginia University Press in 1984. And in the early 1980s, an
LP entitled Sandy's Fancy (Flying Fish FF-260) featured him on fiddle, Tommy Thompson on banjo,
and Sandy Bradley on guitar and piano.
Alan Jabbour retired from federal service at the end of 1999. In celebration of his retirement, he has
resumed playing the fiddle more actively and has made frequent appearances and engagements as a
musician and fiddle teacher. He served as guest curator of Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry
Reed Collection, an online presentation of the Library of Congress published in 2000 that makes
available the entire field collection of recordings and manuscripts created during his visits with Henry
Reed in 1966-67. In 2002 he released a new CD of his own fiddling, A Henry Reed Reunion, joined by
Bertram Levy and James Reed. In 2004 his instructional video Learning Old-Time Fiddle Appalachian
Style appeared in VHS and DVD formats, and he released a two-CD set entitled Hollow Rock Legacy
reissuing two earlier LP recordings. In 2005 he released another fiddling CD, Southern Summits, with
Ken Perlman on banjo. In 2004-05 he and his wife did research in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains
on the cultural tradition of cemetery decoration, and he was the principal author of a report entitled
North Shore Cemetery Decoration Project, published in 2005 by Great Smoky Mountains National
Park as part of an Environmental Impact Statement.
He has published widely over the years on subjects related to folklore and folklife, including many
publications on American instrumental folk music, and he is a frequent lecturer on topics related to
folklore and folklife, folk music, and cultural policy. His publications include both print publications and a
number of documentary recorded publications. He has served on various boards, including the
Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. (co-chair 1987-88, secretary 2001-02), the American Folklore
Society (president 1988, board member 2004-06), the Fellows of the American Folklore Society
(president 2005-06), 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
(2002- , vice president 2004- ), 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. In 2003 he received the Benjamin A. Botkin Prize from the American Folklore Society for
outstanding achievement in public folklore. He is married to Karen Joy Singer Jabbour and lives in
Washington, D.C.
September 2006
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. A violinist from the age of seven, he was a member of the Jacksonville Symphony, the
Brevard Music Festival Orchestra, the Miami Symphony, and the University of Miami String Quartet.
While a graduate student at Duke, he became interested in folk music and folklore, and in 1965-68 he
made extensive trips in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, to record 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. The documentation trips verged
into a process of apprenticeship, and he began playing the fiddle under the influence of new masters.
In particular, he learned the style and repertory of Henry Reed, a master fiddler who lived along the New
River in Glen Lyn, Virginia, and was then in his eighties.
As Alan Jabbour began to learn the regional fiddling style and repertory of the Upper South, he joined
together with three other young musicians to form a band devoted to playing these oldtime tunes,
including Tommy Thompson on the five-string banjo, Bertram Levy on the mandolin, and Bobbie
Thompson on the guitar. They called themselves the Hollow Rock String Band, after a rural community
outside of Durham where the Thompsons lived and where the band gathered for regular jam sessions
and music parties. The band was at the core of an oldtime music scene that blossomed in Durham
and Chapel Hill in the later 1960s. In 1968, the year that Henry Reed passed away, the band released
a long-playing record called The Hollow Rock String Band: Traditional Dance Tunes (Kanawha 311).
That album, which became a document of the oldtime music revival in the 1960s and 1970s, has
recently been reissued as a compact disc (County Records CO-CD-2715).
In 1968-69, Alan 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, British
and American folksong, and folklore and literature. In September 1969 he 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 nation’s largest 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 (now available on CD as Rounder Records 18964-1518-2).
With Carl Fleischhauer, he undertook a three-year project to research, record, and photograph the
history and traditions of a single Appalachian family. This was published in 1973 by the Library of
Congress in a two-record album entitled
The Hammons Family: A Study of a West Virginia Family's Traditions. A companion album appeared
that year on the Rounder label, entitled Shaking Down the Acorns. Both these publications were
released in a double-CD edition in 1998, entitled The Hammons Family: The Traditions of a West
Virginia Family and Their Friends (Rounder 1504/05). As part of the Library's Bicentennial effort, he
initiated an anthology of fifteen long-playing records containing examples of folk music traditions in the
United States. During this period he performed less often as a musician, but an LP entitled The Hollow
Rock String Band (Rounder Records 0024) includes him on the fiddle, Tommy Thompson on the banjo
and guitar, and Jim Watson on the guitar, mandolin, and autoharp.
In April 1974, Alan 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, and it
continued to grow after his departure in 1976. In August 1976, he became the founding director of the
American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress, continuing in that position for 23 years until he
stepped down as director 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. 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 contains important holdings from all the
major regions of the world.
In the 1980s, while focusing on his duties as an administrator, he occasionally turned his attentions to
editing folk music documentary albums and playing music at occasional public events and gatherings.
He edited, with John A. Cuthbert, another LP publication related to the Hammons Family, The Edden
Hammons Collection, published by West Virginia University Press in 1984. And in the early 1980s, an
LP entitled Sandy's Fancy (Flying Fish FF-260) featured him on fiddle, Tommy Thompson on banjo,
and Sandy Bradley on guitar and piano.
Alan Jabbour retired from federal service at the end of 1999. In celebration of his retirement, he has
resumed playing the fiddle more actively and has made frequent appearances and engagements as a
musician and fiddle teacher. He served as guest curator of Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry
Reed Collection, an online presentation of the Library of Congress published in 2000 that makes
available the entire field collection of recordings and manuscripts created during his visits with Henry
Reed in 1966-67. In 2002 he released a new CD of his own fiddling, A Henry Reed Reunion, joined by
Bertram Levy and James Reed. In 2004 his instructional video Learning Old-Time Fiddle Appalachian
Style appeared in VHS and DVD formats, and he released a two-CD set entitled Hollow Rock Legacy
reissuing two earlier LP recordings. In 2005 he released another fiddling CD, Southern Summits, with
Ken Perlman on banjo. In 2004-05 he and his wife did research in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains
on the cultural tradition of cemetery decoration, and he was the principal author of a report entitled
North Shore Cemetery Decoration Project, published in 2005 by Great Smoky Mountains National
Park as part of an Environmental Impact Statement.
He has published widely over the years on subjects related to folklore and folklife, including many
publications on American instrumental folk music, and he is a frequent lecturer on topics related to
folklore and folklife, folk music, and cultural policy. His publications include both print publications and a
number of documentary recorded publications. He has served on various boards, including the
Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. (co-chair 1987-88, secretary 2001-02), the American Folklore
Society (president 1988, board member 2004-06), the Fellows of the American Folklore Society
(president 2005-06), 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
(2002- , vice president 2004- ), 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. In 2003 he received the Benjamin A. Botkin Prize from the American Folklore Society for
outstanding achievement in public folklore. He is married to Karen Joy Singer Jabbour and lives in
Washington, D.C.
September 2006