Folklife Concerts

A free noon concert series co-presented by the American Folklife Center and the Music Division at the Library of Congress in cooperation with the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. All concerts are in the Coolidge Auditorium (located on the Ground Floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress).

Blanch Sockabasin and Wayne Newell are both tradition bearers and members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe. 

Blanch Sockabasin teaches Native music, drumming, singing and dancing at the Indian Township School in eastern Maine. She also makes Native baskets and leather crafts.  Her first love is teaching all that she can about Passamaquoddy culture and language. She was recently honored by the Maine State Legislature for her efforts in preserving the Passamaquoddy way of life. She is deeply committed to passing on the rich Passamaquoddy culture to the children of her Tribe. 

Wayne Newell was born at Sipayik (Pleasant Point) Reservation in eastern Maine. Wayne is a storyteller, and a singer of Passamaquoddy and other Native music.  He speaks the Passamaquoddy language fluently, and utilizes English as his second language.  Educated at the local schools, he eventually went on to earn his Masters degree in the field of education from Harvard University.  Wayne’s first love is the preservation of the Passamaquoddy language. In 1971, he directed the first bilingual and bicultural education program for the Passamaquoddy Tribe. This program included the introduction of a writing system for the Passamaquoddy language. He has authored and co-authored over forty reading books written in the Passamaquoddy/Maliseet language.

Photo provided by the Abbe Museum of Maine's Native American heritage, Bar Harbor, Maine

As poets, songwriters and horsemen, Wylie Gustafson and Paul Zarzyski have pursued their writing and riding passions for over 35 years.  Wylie Gustafson’s performing career began in his teens.  His break came when his band, Wylie & The Wild West, appeared on Ronnie Mack’s Barn Dance at The Palomino Club in North Hollywood, which helped them secure a record deal.  That done, he moved to Dusty, Washington, where he established the Cross Three Quarter Horse Ranch.  Wylie remains a full-time cutting horse trainer and competitor, as well as a full-time musician.  He has recorded over fifteen albums, and has played thousands of venues around the world, including more than fifty appearances on The Grand Ole Opry.  He has also been a guest on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.  Paul Zarzyski has spent fifteen seasons as a bareback bronco rider on the amateur, pro, and senior circuits.  This experience has infused his poetry with rodeo images and lingo.  He is the recipient of the 2005 Montana Governor’s Arts Award for Literature.  His books have won a Western Heritage award for poetry from The National Cowboy Hall of Fame, and a Spur Award from The Western Writers of America.  In addition to his eight collections of printed work, he has recorded four spoken-word CDs.  In 1987, he was invited to the third annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, where he’s performed every year since, and where he crossed trails with Wylie.  Shortly thereafter, their co-written songs began to appear on Wylie’s albums.  In the fall of 2008, they joined Nashville producer John Carter Cash in his Cash Cabin Studio to record the CD HANG-n-RATTLE!   According to Mark Bedor of American Cowboy magazine, they’re “like Lennon and McCartney in cowboy hats.”  

Barbara Lynn is a rhythm and blues singer and left-handed guitarist from Texas.  In the 1950s, inspired by blues artists Guitar Slim and Jimmy Reed, and pop acts Elvis Presley and Brenda Lee, she created an all-female band, Bobbie Lynn and Her Idols. Her first single "You'll Lose a Good Thing" was a #1 R&B hit and a Top 10 pop hit in 1962, and was later a country hit for Freddy Fender. Soon Lynn was touring with such soul music greats as Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Ike and Tina Turner, and The Temptations.  She appeared at the Apollo Theatre and twice on American Bandstand, and her song, "Oh Baby (We've Got a Good Thing Goin')” was recorded by The Rolling Stones.  Rolling Stone's David Fricke has noted that Lynn continues to display “undiminished grace and poise, pouring a lifetime of blues and wisdom into her delivery.”

Around 1900, a Norwegian immigrant named Bernt Berntson Bradskerud purchased a violin in a northern Wisconsin logging camp and gave it to his ten-year-old son, Bennie. Bennie began playing learning Scandinavian folk tunes from fiddlers in his rural Wisconsin immigrant community, especially his musical uncle and cousins. For the next thirty years, Bennie played all night long at house parties and community dances that featured Scandinavian waltzes, schottisches, and square dances.  These tunes became the backbone of the repertoire for the Berntsons.   In the 1930s, Bennie Berntson’s son Maurice and daughter Eleanore joined the family music circle. Eleanore’s pump organ, playing melodies as well as chording, blended with the violins to produce a strikingly warm, rich sound. Maurice further enhanced the mix by playing the violin melodies on the guitar.  In the 1960s, a second guitar was brought into the musical picture, when Eleanore’s son Karl began playing the family music. Today, the Berntsons are alive and well, and heading into their second century of music-making. The band will include Eleanore Berntson, Karl Berntson, Andrea Hoag, Loretta Kelley, and Charlie Pilzer.