What does it mean to become a folklorist? How do stories, rumors, family traditions, and everyday objects become archives of Black history? In this special episode of Jack Dappa Blues, host Lamont Jack Pearley sits down with one of the most influential voices in African American folklore, Dr. Patricia A. Turner, for an inspiring conversation about scholarship, mentorship, and the enduring power of Black cultural expression.

From her earliest encounters with folklore as a student to her groundbreaking contributions to the field, Dr. Turner reflects on the people, experiences, and questions that shaped her remarkable career. She shares how folklore became a lens for understanding Black life—not simply through songs and stories, but through the rumors we circulate, the objects we treasure, the quilts we stitch, the sayings we repeat, and the traditions we pass from one generation to the next.

Together, Lamont and Dr. Turner explore the rich terrain of African American folklore, discussing the cultural significance of rumor and legend, the social realities behind some of America's most recognizable urban legends, the importance of material culture, and the ways Black communities have long used narrative as a form of protection, resilience, and collective memory. Their conversation also examines representation in scholarship, the responsibilities of public folklorists, and the importance of documenting Black life on Black communities' own terms.

Beyond her celebrated books—including I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Whispers on the Color Line, Ceramic Uncles and Celluloid Mammies, Crafted Lives, and Trash Talk—Dr. Turner offers deeply personal reflections on teaching, mentoring, overcoming self-doubt, and creating opportunities for future generations of folklorists. Her insights remind us that folklore is not confined to archives or classrooms; it lives wherever people gather, remember, create, and share their experiences.

This episode is more than an interview—it is a masterclass in African American folklore and an invitation to rethink the stories that shape our communities. Whether you are a student, educator, cultural worker, artist, historian, or simply someone who values Black history and cultural heritage, this conversation offers a profound appreciation for the knowledge embedded in everyday life.

Join us as we celebrate Dr. Patricia A. Turner, our African American Folklorist of the Month, and honor a lifetime dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and elevating the richness of Black folklore. Through her scholarship and mentorship, Dr. Turner continues to open doors, inspire new generations, and remind us that our stories are among our greatest cultural treasures.

https://www.patriciaaturner.com/

Jack Dappa Blues Radio honors Libby Rae Watson—an authentic Blues woman, guitarist, songwriter, cultural witness, and keeper of Mississippi Blues memory.Since the early 1970s, Libby Rae has built deep relationships with some of the most important figures in traditional Blues, including Big Joe Williams, Furry Lewis, Eugene Powell, Houston Stackhouse, Stonewall Mays, and her close friend and mentor, Sam Chatmon.In 1978, she helped organize the talent for the very first Delta Blues Festival in Greenville, Mississippi, bringing together elders whose music carried the memory of Black Southern life, labor, survival, humor, migration, and resistance.This special broadcast explores Libby Rae’s journey into the Mississippi Delta, the musicians who trusted and taught her, and the responsibility that comes with carrying tradition forward. Through music, memories, photographs, and personal stories, we look beyond the stage to honor the friendships and cultural relationships that shaped her life.Libby Rae Watson’s story reminds us that the Blues is more than a sound. It is a breathing Black cultural inheritance rooted in people, place, memory, and community.Join us as we give flowers to a woman who listened, learned, showed up, remembered the elders, and continued to speak their names.The Blues Found Her: Libby Rae Watson and the Keepers of the Delta Flamehttps://www.libbyrae.com/Presented by Jack Dappa Blues RadioPreserving the Blues People, one voice and one story at a time.

WHAT’S HAPPENING, BLUES PEOPLE?If you don’t know me from nothing, you know me from that statement. Every month we celebrate our African American Folklorist of the Month—lifting up culture-keepers whose work sits at the crossroads of tradition, scholarship, and community.This episode honors Brandi Waller-Pace (they/she)—Fort Worth–based musician, educator, scholar-activist, Founder/Executive Director of Decolonizing the Music Room (DTMR), organizer of the Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival (FWAAMFest), and Program Manager for the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music’s Black Banjo & Fiddle Fellowship. Born in Atlanta and trained in Jazz Studies at Howard University (Afro Blue alum), Brandi bridges jazz, old-time, and Black American roots music on banjo, piano, guitar, and ‘ukulele—reclaiming ancestral soundscapes while building new spaces for equity and cultural memory.Across the conversation, we dig into:Decolonizing & antiracist approaches in music education (and why it’s forever work)Language, code-switching, and who gets to “name” the canonBanjo, Blackness, and rooting jazz within Black traditionsGatekeeping, tokenism, and creating space (not just “diversity optics”)Paying culture bearers fairly & building coalitionsBlack feminist thought, patriarchy, and accountability within our own communitiesBrandi’s origin story, neurodivergence, and finding grounded confidencePractical ways DTMR supports educators, artists, and organizers“Music is not only performance—it is memory, resistance, healing, and a roadmap to the future.”Guest: Brandi Waller-PaceDTMR: decolonizingthemusicroom.comFWAAMFest: https://www.fwaamfest.com/IG: / brandipacemusic Contact for bookings/collabs: brandipacemusic@gmail.comHost / PlatformJack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation FoundationThe African American Folklorist — preserving the Blues People, one voice at a time.Website:JackDappabluesradio.tv • Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/jackdappabluesradi... • Patreon/YouTube Membership: / jackdappablues

In this episode of Jack Dappa Blues Radio, we welcome Baba Súle Greg Wilson, an American Griot, musician, author, storyteller, educator, and cultural bearer whose work moves through rhythm, Spirit, memory, and Sankofa.Born and raised in Washington, DC, Súle grew up surrounded by street musicians, family stories, global visitors, neighborhood wisdom, and ancestral conversations around the kitchen table. From learning rhythm bones from his father to helping catalyze the Carolina Chocolate Drops and co-directing the historic Black Banjo Gathering, his journey speaks to the deep roots of African and African American musical traditions.Together, we explore Sankofa, rhythm bones, the Black banjo, African spirituality, movement, storytelling, and the body as an archive of memory and healing. This conversation invites listeners to hear rhythm not only as music, but as ancestral wisdom, cultural survival, sacred disruption, and a path toward renewal.for more on Baba Súle Greg Wilsonhttps://sulegregwilson.com/

Presented as part of The African American Folklorist Black Advocacy Issue, the Black Advocacy Symposium brings together public testimony, cultural memory, and practical community guidance for families and communities navigating institutional harm.

This episode centers Black Americans first—because our communities have too often been forced to learn how to respond to tragedy, protect our loved ones’ stories, confront systems of power, and demand justice while carrying grief. At the same time, the conversation welcomes all listeners who are committed to showing up with care, responsibility, and accountability.

Featuring Allisa Charles-Findley, sister of Botham Jean, who was killed in Dallas on September 6, 2018, this symposium offers more than remembrance. It provides a people-centered roadmap for what advocacy can look like after tragedy: how families and communities can respond, who they may need to contact, what steps can help protect the narrative, and how advocacy can be sustained beyond the first wave of public attention.

Hosted by the Jack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation Foundation, this episode also asks an important question for folklorists, ethnomusicologists, cultural workers, and community scholars: How can our tools serve the people? Through ethical documentation, oral history, community archiving, and narrative stewardship, we explore how cultural workers can support advocates, help families preserve legacy, and strengthen Black community control over our own stories.

The Black Advocacy Symposium is both a conversation and a call to responsibility—an invitation to listen, learn, document, protect, and act.

In this long-overdue episode of Jack Dappa Blues, we welcome The Undaunted Professor Harp for a deep and unflinching conversation about Blues, Black history, survival, and truth. Drawing from his memoir, Ain’t No Uncle Tom in My Blues: Life and Times of the Undaunted Professor Harp, Professor Harp reflects on a lifetime in the music—from discovering the harmonica through George “Harmonica” Smith, to sitting in with Muddy Waters, to carrying the weight of being a Black Bluesman in Boston and the New England region for decades.This conversation goes far beyond biography. Professor Harp speaks candidly about racism, appropriation, injustice, under-recognition, perseverance, and the struggle to preserve the Blues as a Black cultural form rooted in lived experience. He reminds us that the Blues is not just entertainment. It is testimony. It is protest. It is memory. It is Black history carried in sound.We also discuss the roots of his stripped-down Texas-style approach, the mentors who helped shape his path, the meaning behind the title “Undaunted,” and his belief that the Blues remains the original protest music in America. Honest, sharp, and deeply grounded, Professor Harp offers a necessary word on what has been lost, what still remains, and why this music still matters.This is not just an interview with a harmonica master. It is a witness statement from a man who has lived the Blues, studied the Blues, fought through the Blues, and never stopped telling the truth about the world that made it.

Join us as we celebrate Michael L. Jones, August’s African American Folklorist for the Month of August 2025, on this special episode of Jack Dappa Blues Radio. Michael is a Louisville‑based journalist, author, and music historian whose award‑winning book Louisville Jug Music: From Earl McDonald to the National Jubilee traces the roots of jug band music and earned the 2015 Samuel Thomas Book Award. A musicologist, ethnomusicologist, historian, and folklorist, Jones straddles many disciplines to document and preserve African American cultural traditions.In this in‑depth conversation, we explore how jug band music emerged along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, drawing on West African rituals, New Orleans “spasm bands” and the melting‑pot soundscapes of Louisville. Jones explains why Louisville’s location on the Ohio River made it an “information superhighway” for Black musicians in the 19th century. By the 1890s there were about thirty active jug bands in the city; Sarah Martin and Whistler’s Jug Band produced the first two jug‑band recordings in 1925, helping to popularize the genre and inspiring groups like the Memphis Jug Band. We discuss the jug as the “poor man’s tuba,” its deep ties to the banjo, and how distilleries soon branded their vessels, embedding jug music into Kentucky culture.Michael also shares his personal journey, from living with indie musicians and writing for LEO Weekly to tracking down descendants of early jug‑band players and becoming a steward of Louisville’s musical memory. He explains why preserving oral histories matters and introduces his latest project, Soulful Sounds of Derbytown, a collaborative book documenting Black music across genres in Louisville. Along the way, he recounts stories of forgotten heroes like blues singer Sarah Martin and explores how Louisville’s vibrant arts community nurtures innovation.Whether you’re a music historian, a blues lover or a curious listener, this episode offers a masterclass in how journalism, folklore and ethnomusicology come together to keep tradition alive. Subscribe and tune in to learn how Louisville’s jug band legacy still resonates today.

In this Deep Blues episode, we sit down with Billy Branch, Emmy Award winner, 3-time Grammy nominee, 2020 Blues Hall of Fame inductee, and living legend of the Chicago Blues tradition.Discovered by Willie Dixon and mentored by the late Carey Bell, Billy Branch has spent over five decades shaping, performing, and preserving the Blues. From recording with icons like Koko Taylor and Taj Mahal to pioneering the globally recognized Blues in the Schools program, Branch’s harmonica tells stories rooted in lineage, labor, and liberation.We explore his groundbreaking work in the culture, history, and music of the blues, his reflections on touring worldwide( from Chicago’s South Side to the stages of Turkey, China, and beyond), and his new project with the groundbreaking blues tune Beggin' For a Change featuring Ronny Baker Brooks and Shemika Copeland. Billy shares insight into his latest music, his tribute to Little Walter, and why the Blues is not just music—it’s a living tradition.Whether you’re a musician, educator, student, or lifelong Blues fan, this episode offers deep wisdom on heritage, pedagogy, and the enduring cultural power of Black traditional music.