Stories from the Anne Grimes Collection of American Folk Music

Stories from the Anne Grimes Collection of American Folk Music is a treasury of American traditional music and Ohio’s folklife heritage.

Traveling along the highways and byways of Ohio in the 1950s as a folksinger and collector of traditional music, Anne Grimes encountered people from many different backgrounds who opened up their homes to her to share their most precious family heirlooms—their songs. She recorded these treasures for posterity and further preserved them through her lectures and recitals.

After years of performance and research on her material, Anne Grimes decided to write about it all. This beautiful book presents her lively portraits of the major contributors with photographs taken by her husband, James W. Grimes; lyrics and extensive notes on the songs; and a CD sampler that includes performances by her contributors, most of whom had not been previously recorded. It also contains selections from Bob Gibson, Carl Sandburg, Pete Seeger, Jenny Wells Vincent, as well as Grimes herself. The Anne Grimes Collection is preserved in the Library of Congress.

Besides songs, Anne Grimes also collected dulcimers, and portraits of these folk instruments and their players—including Anne Grimes herself—are featured throughout the book and on the CD. Photographsinclude some of the forty-two rare vintage dulcimers and other instruments collected by Anne Grimes that are now preserved at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.

Songs and Dulcimer Playing

CD Selections from the Anne Grimes Collection:

Reuben Allen, Bertha Bacon, Sarah Basham/Bertha Basham Wright, Henry Lawrence Beecher, John Bodiker, Dolleah Church, Walter W. Dixon, Ken Ward, Blanche Wilson Fullen, Bob Gibson, Brodie F. Halley, Perry Harper, Anne Grimes, Donald Langstaff, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, W.E. Lunsford, Jane Jones McNerlin, May Kennedy McCord, Jenny Wells Vincent, Pete Seeger, Neva Randolph, Babe Reno/Arbannah Reno, Branch Rickey, Carl Sandburg, Bessie Weinrich, Faye Wemmer, Okey Wood