Roger Wood and James Fraher spent years traveling the “zydeco corridor”, the musical axis between Houston and Lafayette, Louisiana around which zydeco revolves to this day, interviewing and photographing hundreds of authentic musicians, dancers, club owners, and fans. As their words and images make clear, zydeco, both historically and today, belongs not to a state but to all the people of the upper Gulf Coast. Texas Zydeco describes how many of the most formative players and moments in modern zydeco history developed in Texas, especially Houston.
Featured
Gallery Exhibit: Yard Show
Texas Folklife’s exhibit Yard Show showcases homes and properties transformed by their owners into uncommon personal displays with photographs by Krista Whitson, Jill Nokes and Chuy Benitez, videos and sculptural elements borrowed from selected yards as well as new installations commissioned for the exhibit. The stories in Yard Show build vivid pictures of home that is more than just real estate and property values, and offers a lens for people to view their own communities, especially those overlooked neighborhoods where forgotten public histories and private memories may contribute to a greater sense of place.
Gallery Exhibit: Down in Houston
In the clubs, ballrooms, and barbecue joints of neighborhoods such as Third Ward, Frenchtown, Sunnyside, and Double Bayou, Houston’s African American community birthed a vibrant and unique slice of the blues. Houston blues was and is the voice of a working-class community, an ongoing conversation about good times and hard times, smokin’ Saturday nights and Blue Mondays. Showcasing the photographs and stories in the book Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues by Roger Wood and James Fraher, this exhibit presents a detailed portrait of the Houston blues scene, past and present, through interviews and dramatic black-and-white photographs.
Gallery Exhibit: Taquerias of Southmost
In 2012 Texas Folklife and the Brownsville Historical Association (BHA) partnered on “Taquerías of Southmost,” a researc
Down in Houston: Gallery Exhibit Opening
Event Date:
Thursday, October 11, 2018 - 19:00
Event Category:
Texas Folklife Event
Down in Houston: Gallery Exhibit Opening
7pm-8:30pm
Texas Folklife Gallery
1708 Houston St / Austin, TX 78756
FREE with RSVP
Austin Music Exhibit Launch Party
Event Date:
Thursday, September 13, 2018 - 19:00
Event Category:
Texas Folklife Event
On September 13, Austin Music will hold a launch party for its first digital public history exhibit. The exhibit covers music in Austin between 1930 and 1950, with a focus on dance bands, jazz orchestras, and Western Swing. In addition to segments on regional musicians, it features segments on important concerts by Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Paul Whiteman. The launch party will include a guided tour of the digital exhibit, a discussion of the project as a whole, and talks on music, segregation, and politics in Austin in this period.
House Concert Series: Tanzania in Texas Tour with Msafiri Zawose
Event Date:
Monday, October 29, 2018 - 18:00 to 20:00
Event Category:
Texas Folklife Event
Tickets Here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/house-concert-series-africa-in-austin-with-...
$15 general admission
$5 for Texas Folklife members (contact us for discount code)
Tapestry Foundation
Tapestry Foundation awards grants in the Austin area to tax exempt organizations that provide SEL-social emotional learning, early childhood education, parenting education, and Adult Emotional Intelligence projects. Since its inception, Tapestry has awarded more than $7 million in grants.
Apprenticeships in the Folk & Traditional Arts: Jayson Jones & Jaydon Jones, Custom Spur Making
While recognized as a master spur maker, Jayson Jones didn't get started in the craft until later in life. Growing up in Sherman, much of his early life was spent cowboying across the various ranches in Texas and New Mexico, representing a cowboy lineage stretching back to his grandfather.