Monday, January 01, 2007

Laura Ingalls Wilder Was Musical?

Because I am now reading the newspaper again, yesterday I saw the Associated Press article 'Little House' Songs On CD.

The songs referred to are the 126 songs Dale Cockrell, a professor at Vanderbilt University, found mentioned in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. He's set up his own record label in order to record all the Little House music. It's going to take ten CDs to do the job.

Cockrell says, "...I don't think there are any books that better capture the way music worked in the 19th-century family. I came to the conclusion not only are the books rich in music-making, but it's virtually a playlist for first-century American music."

Dale Cockrell has also been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship so he can work on scholarly essays related to the music.

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