national endowment for the arts

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. 

Washington, D.C. 20560-0001

Not for sale––Available for free at arts.gov
The National Endowment for the Arts was established 

by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the 

federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded 

more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, 

creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals 

and communities. The NEA extends its work through 

partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other 

federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. 

2010 NEA National Heritage Fellow Yacub 

Addy (center with drum) performing at the 

annual awards ceremony concert. 

Photo by Michael G. Stewart
1982-2011

30th

Anniversary

k

National

Heritage

Fellowships

National 

Endowment

for theArts
Chairman’s Message

The traditional and folk arts exist at the center of community, both 

reflecting the culture of the place and sharing an aspect of it that many 

may not realize is there. 

Over the past 30 years, the NEA National Heritage Fellowships 

have highlighted the special artists who contribute to our nation’s 

culture, from the Cajun fiddling of Dewey Balfa in 1982 to the 

African-American quilting of Laverne Brackens in 2011. These artists 

present a tapestry of American cultural traditions that range from 

Native Americans to the most recent immigrants. These traditions are 

embedded in the DNA of the communities in which the artists live, 

work, and create. 

Sometimes the artists uncannily reflect the history and culture of 

their place. Ray Hicks, who received a fellowship in 1983, worked 

most of his life as a farmer in the Appalachian highlands of North 

Carolina, where he learned the stories he is renowned for telling, many 

from his grandfather. The dialect in his stories is similar to that of the 

Scotch-Irish and English pioneers who settled that land in the 1700s. 

Other times, the NEA National Heritage Fellows add to the culture 

above: NEA National Heritage Fellow Ralph 

Stanley (center, with banjo) leads his band 

in a concert outside the Old Post Office 

Building in Washington, DC, in 1984. 

NEA file photo

middle: Newly minted NEA National 

Heritage Fellow Edward Babb leads his 

band McCullough Sons of Thunder in a 

performance in the historic Gold Room of 

the White House prior to awards ceremony 

in 1997. 

NEA file photo

right: 1990 NEA National Heritage Fellow 

Nati Cano led his band Mariachi Los 

Camperos in a performance at the 2004 

Smithsonian Folklife Festival as part of a 

special feature on Latino Heritage Fellows. 

Photo by Jim Saah

i i

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of a place. 

When Japanese taiko artists Roy and PJ Hirabayashi moved 

to San Jose, California, in the 1970s and created the performance 

organization San Jose Taiko, they not only introduced a new art form 

to the city, but they became active members of the community, offering 

extensive educational and outreach programs and receiving many 

commendations for their efforts. These 2011 fellows are not 

only national leaders in their art form but also in their commitment 

to their community. 

This publication shares some of the stories of the 358 recipients of 

the NEA National Heritage Fellowships from the last 30 years, but you 

can find biographies of all the fellows as well as interviews, portraits, 

and more at arts.gov. Join us in celebrating these important artists who 

have contributed to the nation’s living cultural heritage. 

Rocco Landesman

Chairman

National Endowment for the Arts

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Special Thanks:

•	 Alan Govenar, Alan Hatchett, and Jay 

F. Brakefield of Documentary Arts for 

providing many of the photographic images 

for this publication as well as providing 

much of the biographical information, as well 

as producing the DVD-Rom at the end of 

the publication.

•	 Tom Pich and Michael G. Stewart for the 

use of their photographs on the cover and 

throughout the publication.

•	 Barry Bergey for the introduction to this 

publication and the introductions to all 

the years’ entries.

Photography Acknowledgments:

Photos by Carol Edison courtesy of Utah Arts 

Council. Photo by Patricia Crosby courtesy 

of Mississippi Cultural Crossroads. Photos by 

Martha Cooper courtesy of Citylore. Photos 

by Michel Monteaux courtesy of Museum of 

International Folk Arts. Photo by T. Harmon 

Parkhurst courtesy of Museum of New Mexico. 

Photos by H. Jane Nauman courtesy of South 

Dakota Folk Arts Program. Photo by Erik Berg 

courtesy of Vermont Folklife Center. Photo by 

Troyd Geist courtesy of North Dakota Council 

on the Arts.

The National Council for the Traditional 

Arts (NCTA), working through a cooperative 

agreement with the National Endowment for 

the Arts, has produced the ceremonies and 

events associated with the National Heritage 

Fellowships since 1984. In particular, the NEA 

would like to thank Julia Olin, Madeleine 

Remez, and the entire staff of NCTA for their 

hard work and dedication to making the NEA 

National Heritage Fellowship events successful 

each year. 

Since 2000 the American Folklife Center of the 

Library of Congress has co-hosted the annual 

banquet for Heritage Fellows held in the Great 

Hall of the Library.

Emcees at the concert presentations have 

included folk singers Pete Seeger and 

Theodore Bikel, actresses Margo Albert, Ruby 

Dee, and Celeste Holm, author Studs Terkel,

writer and television journalist Charles Kuralt,

author and television commentator Roger 

Welsch, National Public Radio reporter Alex 

Chadwick, and since 1997, Nick Spitzer, host 

of American Routes, broadcast over public radio.

From 1986 through 1995, WETA-FM radio 

of Arlington, Virginia, produced an edited 

broadcast of the National Heritage Fellowships 

concert. From 1996 to 2009, WDUQ-FM 

of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has broadcast an 

edited version of the concert, carried by most 

public radio stations on Thanksgiving Day. 

Since then, the program has been webcast 

live on the NEA website and broadcast as an 

American Routes special over public radio.

Contributing to the success of the fellowship 

celebrations has been foundation and 

corporate support. Funders have included 

Continental Telecom, Inc (CONTEL), Music 

Performance Trust Funds, Joseph Martinson 

Memorial Fund, Philip Schoch Bequest, J.C. 

Penney Co., Target Stores,Cracker Barrel 

Old Country Store, Inc., Darden Restaurants 

Foundation, and Golden Corral. 

This publication was printed on recycled paper.

Acknowledgments

This publication is published by:

National Endowment for the Arts

Office of Public Affairs

Jamie Bennett, Director

Don Ball, Editor

Designed by: Fletcher Design, Washington DC

September 2011

Voice/TTY: (202) 682-5496 For individuals 

who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Individuals who do not use conventional print 

may contact the Arts Endowment’s Office for 

AccessAbility to obtain this publication in an 

alternate format.

Telephone: (202) 682-5532

The NEA website, arts.gov, also contains 

interviews with and artwork of the NEA 

National Heritage Fellows from 1996 to the 

present. Additional copies of this publication 

can be obtained free of charge by contacting the 

NEA website.

National Endowment for the Arts

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20506-0001

(202) 682-5400
Contents

Introduction................................................1

NEA National Heritage Fellows

(by year awards given)

1982............................................................4

1983............................................................8

1984..........................................................12

1985..................................................................16

1986..........................................................18

1987..................................................................20

1988..................................................................22

1989..........................................................24

1990..................................................................26

1991..........................................................28

1992..........................................................30

1993..................................................................32

1994..........................................................34

1995..................................................................36

1996..........................................................38

1997..........................................................40

1998..........................................................42

1999..................................................................44

2000..........................................................46

2001..........................................................48

2002..........................................................50

2003..........................................................52

2004..........................................................54

2005..........................................................56

2006..........................................................58

2007..........................................................60

2008..........................................................62

2009..........................................................64

2010..........................................................66

2011..........................................................68

Bess Lomax Hawes Award.........................70

State List of NEA National Heritage 

Fellowship Recipients................................83
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Basket by 2007 NEA National Heritage Fellow Pat Courtney Gold. 

Photo courtesy of the artist
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The birth of the National 

Endowment for the Arts 

(NEA) National Heritage Fellowship 

program in 1982 came after a prolonged 

gestation. Over a five-year period, there 

was a vigorous discussion about how the 

federal government might appropriately 

honor and support master folk and 

traditional artists. Bess Lomax Hawes, 

hired to direct a nascent Folk Arts 

Program at the NEA, recalls that in her 

very first conversation with Chairman 

Nancy Hanks in 1977, Hanks asked 

if the United States might develop a 

system of recognition for folk artists 

similar to the Japanese Living Treasures 

program. Hawes later reminisced that 

she, agency staff, and National Council 

members spent the next five years 

worrying over what type of program 

might be appropriate: they worried 

about the size of the award (just $5,000 

for the first 11 years); they worried about 

whether the award would create jealousy 

among artists; they worried about how 

to choose individual artists who worked 

in an art form, the folk arts, that was 

ingrained in the cultural possession of 

groups not individuals. 

As it was finally conceived, the 

NEA National Heritage Fellowships 

program took on its own distinct 

democratic character. Honorees are 

nominated by individual citizens and 

are recommended each year by a 

rotating panel of specialists, including 

one layperson, representing a variety of 

forms of cultural expertise. The slate of 

candidates, chosen from a list of over 

200 nominees in an average year, is 

i n t r o d u c t i o n

then reviewed by the National Council 

on the Arts, and ultimately the award 

is made by the NEA chairman. The 

amount of the award was eventually 

changed to $10,000 in 1993, enough 

to make a difference but not enough to 

go to anyone’s head, and in 2009 the 

fellowship was increased to $25,000. 

Guidelines and nomination 

information for the NEA National 

Heritage Fellowships—as well as 

biographies and photographic portraits 

of previous fellows, interviews with 

recent recipients, and presentations 

of selected work—are available on the 

NEA website at arts.gov. Everyone is 

encouraged to consider nominations 

for this, the highest form of federal 

recognition of folk and traditional artists.

The yearly celebration of the NEA 

National Heritage Fellows has elements 

that encompass the three dimensions 

of life in our nation’s capital—the 

personal, the political, and the public. 

Artists are brought to Washington, 

DC, in the fall of each year for an award 

ceremony held either on Capitol Hill 

or at the White House. Each recipient 

“Of all activities assisted 

by the Folk Arts program, 

these Fellowships are among 

the most appreciated and 

applauded, perhaps because 

they present to Americans a 

vision of themselves and of their 

country, a vision somewhat 

idealized but profoundly longed 

for and so, in significant ways, 

profoundly true.” 

Bess Lomax Hawes, Director, 

NEA Folk & Traditional Arts, 

1977-1992

2006 NEA National Heritage Fellow Mavis Staples with Folk and Traditional Arts Director Barry 

Bergey at the awards concert rehearsal.

Photo by Tom Pich
receives a certificate, a cash award, 

and a congratulatory letter from the 

President. Honorees are also feted with 

a banquet, and they participate in a 

celebratory concert open to the public. 

For the past 28 years, the National 

Council for the Traditional Arts, a 

not-for-profit organization founded 

in 1933 that produces the National 

Folk Festival and a variety of programs 

around the country, has managed the 

events surrounding the ceremonies. 

Since 2000, the banquet—hosted by the 

chairman of the NEA and the Librarian 

of Congress and co-sponsored with the 

American Folklife Center—has been 

held in the Great Hall of the Library of 

Congress.

Over the past 30 years, the NEA 

National Heritage Fellowships 

have grown to become much 

greater than the sum of their 

parts. In effect the ceremony 

and the accompanying 

events have provided the 

opportunity for our government, and 

in turn our citizenry, to celebrate and 

to contemplate who we are as a nation. 

Each panel, in recommending a group 

of master artists representing a variety 

of cultural traditions and artistic genres, 

re-imagines their particular vision of e 

pluribus unum.

To date, the Heritage Fellows 

program has honored 202 culturally 

specific artistic traditions, from Apache 

basketmaking to zydeco music. Panels 

consider nominations under the broad 

categories of music, craft, dance, and 

other (storytelling, poetry, puppetry, 

etc.), but more specifically, 51 genres of 

expression have been recognized from 

bonsai to weaving, including musical 

performance on 45 different instruments 

and dancers performing in 19 distinct 

artistic traditions. 

Some years ago, I attended a 

high school graduation ceremony 

in my hometown, a small river town 

2 

in central Missouri. The salutatory 

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“While the Heritage Fellows 

come from a wide range of 

backgrounds and carry on 

quite different forms of artistic 

expression, they all share this 

same dedication to excellence, 

to tradition, and to the deep 

cultural values which they 

embody and uphold.”

Dan Sheehy, Director, 

NEA Folk & Traditional Arts, 

1992-2000

1989 NEA National Heritage Fellow John Cephas with harmonica player Phil Wiggins performing at a special concert celebrating the 25th 

anniversary of the NEA National Heritage Fellowships program during the 2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC. 

Photo by Michael G. Stewart

Navajo basket weave by 1995 

National Heritage Fellow 

Mary Holiday Black.

Photo by Carol Edison
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speaker opened her address by saying: 

“We are all totally unique ... just like 

everybody else.” For a moment I 

mused on the inherent contradiction 

embedded in that statement, but I also 

realized that there was a profound 

truth. Most of us simultaneously strive 

to assert our individual character and 

affirm our membership in any number 

of groups, as defined by community, 

ethnicity, occupation, beliefs, and 

nationality. NEA National Heritage 

Fellows represent the best of that which 

is unique combined with the most 

enduring of that which is common to 

us all. Collectively their stories remind 

us of our artistic commonwealth; 

individually their lives narrate tales 

of persistence, of stewardship, and of 

creativity.

The confines of the space in this 

publication do not allow us to feature all 

of the 358 recipients of NEA National 

Heritage Fellowships over the past 30 

years. It is our hope that 

by highlighting just a few of 

the artists each year, the cumulative 

picture will reflect the breadth and 

depth of our nation’s cultural assets, 

assets not always properly recognized. 

A story about one of the early fellows 

illustrates this: Years ago, a well-known 

American television host visited Ireland, 

and upon entering a pub he noticed 

a photograph displayed in a place of 

prominence behind the bar. “Who’s 

that?” he asked. The bartender replied, 

“Why that’s Joe Heaney, the greatest 

singer to come from here. He lives in 

New York.” The American thought 

to himself, Yes, and he also operates 

my elevator and works as my doorman. 

When he returned to the United States, 

Merv Griffin invited future NEA 

National Heritage Fellow Joe Heaney to 

appear on his television program. 

With these awards, we honor and 

recognize individual excellence and 

the continuance of our rich 

artistic and cultural heritage, 

ensuring that these masters 

of traditional arts do not 

remain among us merely 

as faded photographs or 

as distant memories. And 

these artists, in turn, honor 

and recognize those that 

influenced and inspired them. 

In the second year of the 

National Heritage Fellowship 

Awards, Lem Ward, a decoy carver from 

the Chesapeake Bay region of eastern 

Maryland, was too ill to attend the 

ceremonies, so he asked his grandson 

to read a statement to the audience: 

“Whatever good I have done in my 

86 years, I owe to others. First to my 

father who understood that a young 

boy’s curiosity can be shaped with love 

and patience; second to nature which 

has provided me the greatest studio and 

the most perfect models any artist may 

ever imagine; and last of all to God who 

taught me that faith is the foundation of 

all knowledge. Through all three, I have 

learned that man has the power both to 

destroy and to create beauty, and since 

there can never be too much beauty 

in the world, man’s correct choice is 

eternal...”

We at the National Endowment for 

the Arts are thankful that these artists 

have chosen to create, to strive for 

beauty, to honor the past, and to teach 

others what they have learned. We 

are most of all happy to have had the 

opportunity to draw attention, however 

so brief and inadequate, to the lives and 

accomplishments of these master artists.

Barry Bergey

Director, Folk & Traditional Arts Program 

1982 NEA National 

Heritage Fellow Joe Heaney 

at the 1966 Newport Folk 

Festival. 

Photo by Diana Davies, courtesy of 

the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives 

and Collections, Center for Folklife 

and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian 

Institution

1983 Fellow Lem Ward’s first duck decoy, 1918.

Photo courtesy of Lem Ward
Dewey Balfa

C a j u n F i d d l e r

Born in 1927 in rural Louisiana, 

Dewey Balfa was instilled with 

a love of Cajun music since he was a 

child. Balfa began learning the fiddle 

from his father at the age of 13. “The 

fiddle was always laying around the 

house,” Balfa said, “and it was just as 

natural to learn to play an instrument or 

to fiddle as it was to pick up your spoon 

for you to eat.” In addition to his father, 

several other musicians influenced 

him: J.B. Fusiler, Leo Soileau, Harry 

Choates, and Bob Wills. 

In the 1940s, Balfa formed a 

band with his brothers and became 

very popular in the dance halls of 

southwestern Louisiana. The band 

started getting national recognition in 

the 1960s after playing the Newport 

1982

The first NEA National Heritage 

Fellowship ceremonies were held in 

conjunction with the Festival of American 

Folklife, an annual event presented on 

the National Mall in Washington, DC, by 

the Smithsonian Institution over a twoweek period around July 4th. The list of 

recipients included many musical artists 

who were known to broader audiences 

as a result of the popular interest in 

folk music during the 1960s and 1970s, 

including Cajun fiddler and cultural 

activist Dewey Balfa, Irish-American 

master of unaccompanied song Joe 

Heaney, North Carolina fiddler Tommy 

Jarrell, Georgia Sea Island song leader 

Bessie Jones, blues artists Sonny Terry 

and Brownie McGhee, and bluegrass 

founding father Bill Monroe.

While the awards were presented 

to the artists on July 3rd, daily concerts 

at the festival honored the recipients, 

featuring such future Heritage Fellows as 

Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens and 

Irish musician Mick Moloney. In addition, 

an exhibition of crafts by Heritage 

Fellows was mounted at the National 

Museum of American History. 

In her introduction to the festival 

program, Bess Lomax Hawes—Director 

of the Folk Arts Program—laid out her 

vision for the future of the NEA National 

Heritage Fellowships: “Each year, we 

will greet, salute, and honor just a few 

examples of the dazzling array of artistic 

traditions we have inherited throughout 

our nation’s fortunate history....We 

believe that this can continue far into 

the future, each year’s group of artists 

demonstrating yet other distinctive art 

forms from the American experience.”

Folk Festival. The Balfa Brothers played 

together until 1978, when Dewey’s 

brothers Will and Rodney were killed in 

an automobile accident. Balfa continued 

to play, incorporating his son and 

daughters into the group.

In characterizing his distinctive 

Cajun fiddle style, Balfa said, “[My 

fiddling has] a lot of double-stops, a 

lot of drone, a lot of unisons. There’s 

a lot of loneliness and a lot of hurt in 

Cajun fiddling in spite of the fact that the 

rhythm is uptempo.”

In 1968, when the Council for the 

Development of French in Louisiana 

was created, he became actively involved 

in using music as a vehicle for teaching 

about Cajun culture, and continuing that 

cultural preservation into the 1970s. 

Photo by Robert Barclay
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Bessie Jones was born in 

1902 and grew up in a large 

extended family that included her 

stepfather James Sampson and his 

parents Jet and Julia. It was from the 

Sampsons, especially Jet, that Jones 

first learned about slavery and the “old 

ways.” Music was as important as 

storytelling in her family, with all the 

men playing guitar or banjo and singing.

In the 1920s, Jones became 

a migrant worker with her second 

husband, George Jones, and followed 

the crop harvests from Florida to 

Connecticut. During these years, she 

also traveled to Brunswick, Georgia,

and St. Simons Island, visiting both her 

husband’s family and her deceased first 

husband’s parents. By 1933, the Joneses 

settled on St. Simons Island while 

continuing to do migrant work. Bessie 

worked as a maid, cook, and nurse in 

the off-season, and joined Lydia 

Parish’s Spiritual Singers Society of 

Coastal Georgia. 

In the mid-1950s, Jones met 

folklorist Alan Lomax, who was 

conducting fieldwork in the Georgia 

sea islands and working to collect the 

music of the Spiritual Singers Society. 

Lomax made a film of the group, in 

which Jones began to share the stories 

and songs of slavery she heard from her 

grandfather as a child. Over the next 

several years, Jones toured extensively 

around the country and teamed up with 

a group of other singers to form The 

Georgia Sea Island Singers, whom Alan 

Lomax filmed. Jones co-wrote a book 

with Bess Lomax Hawes, Step It Down, 

in 1972 and began making solo albums 

thereafter, continuing to perform 

at schools and festivals throughout 

the 1970s. 

 Mary Elizabeth “Bessie” Jones

G e o r g i a S e a I s l a n d S i n g e r

George López

S a n t o s C a r v e r

other religious scenes and Bible stories 

and characters. 

Although López liked whittling 

as a boy, he did not pursue a career 

as a santero until 1952. He worked 

mostly with a penknife, handsaw, and 

sandpaper to make his figures. “It’s part 

of my life, and part of my name...I’m 

a sixth-generation santero,” he said, 

“but I guess I’m the last because I’ve 

got no kids of my own.” To perpetuate 

this venerable tradition, however, 

López passed on his skills to his nieces 

and nephews. He viewed his work as 

a distinct mix of Catholic tradition, 

Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Institution

Photo by T. Harmon Parkhurst

George López was born in 

1900 in the New Mexico 

village of Cordova, one of the early 

Spanish settlements dating from the 

16th century. The area has become 

widely known throughout the United 

States and Europe for its tradition of 

religious wood carving, and López grew 

up watching his father carving santos in 

the manner he had learned from earlier 

generations of the López family. Santos, 

literally “saints” in Spanish, include 

not only images of saints but also 

apparitions of the Virgin Mary, 

depictions of the life of Christ, and 
Bill Monroe is the father of 

bluegrass music. He invented 

the style, named it, and was the leading 

performer in the music for much of the 

20th century. Not only did he invent 

the sound, he was the mentor for several 

generations of musicians, including Earl 

Scruggs, Lester Flatt, Vassar Clements, 

and Carter Stanley. 

Monroe was born in 1911 near 

Rosine, Kentucky, the youngest of eight 

children. His mother sang and played 

the fiddle, harmonica, and accordion, 

and her brother, Pendleton Vanderver, 

was a fiddler of considerable talent and 

local renown. Both of his parents died 

when he was 11 years old and Monroe 

was raised by Uncle Pen, who taught 

him the essentials of the mandolin, 

fiddle, and guitar. Monroe often played 

guitar at local dances while his uncle 

fiddled. Monroe later paid tribute to his 

mentor with the song “Uncle Pen,” one 

of his most popular numbers. He also 

accompanied local African-American 

fiddler and guitarist 

Arnold Schultz, 

whose bluesy 

sound influenced 

the young Monroe. 

In 1929, Monroe 

joined his brothers 

Charlie and Birch in 

Indiana, where they worked 

at an oil refinery during the 

day and as a musical 

group at night. 

Bill Monroe

B l u e g r a ss M a n d o l i n P l a y e r a n d B a n d l e a d e r

Photo by Michel Monteaux

Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Institution

medieval Spanish art, mountain 

isolation, and Penitente ritual, where 

Catholic lay members attend the sick, 

bury the dead, and hold devotional 

services in places where there are no 

resident priests. Of these, the influence 

of the Pentitentes was perhaps the 

most pronounced.

“All my life, I’ve seen Penitente

processions pass my house,” López 

said. “In the old days, they’d have a 

procession when somebody died or 

even to say prayers at a sick person’s 

home. Nowadays, they just have 

processions in Holy Week.” 

Eventually Charlie and Bill formed the 

Monroe Brothers, and began touring 

and recording. In 1938, the brothers 

parted ways, and Monroe formed the 

Blue Grass Boys, debuting at the Grand 

Ole Opry the following year with his 

new sound, blending old-time music 

with a soloing structure that seemed 

shaped by jazz. 

The Blue Grass Boys’ music was 

the quintessential bluegrass sound: 

banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and 

bass playing rapidly and trading solos, 

with vocals sung in what Monroe called 

the “high lonesome” style. During the 

1940s, the band perfected their sound, 

and by 1946 the classic Blue Grass 

Boys line-up was in place: Monroe 

on mandolin and vocals, future NEA 

National Heritage Fellow Earl Scruggs 

on banjo, Lester Flatt on guitar, Chubby 

Wise on fiddle, and Howard Watts on 

bass. This band recorded many of the 

most popular Monroe songs, becoming 

one of the most popular groups in 

country music and landing numerous 

Top 20 hits. 

Throughout the rest of his career, 

Monroe toured relentlessly, spreading 

the music throughout the country. In 

1968, he established his own bluegrass 

festival at Bean Blossom, Indiana, which 

became an extremely popular event, 

and in 1970 he was inducted into 

the Country Music Hall of Fame. He 

received a Lifetime Achievement Award 

from the Grammys in 1993.
Philip Simmons was born 

in 1912 and grew up in 

Charleston, South Carolina, where at 

the age of 13 he caught the blacksmith 

fever. Apprenticing himself to Peter 

Simmons, who was born a slave in 

1855 and had learned the trade from 

his father, Simmons acquired the skills 

that sustained him throughout his long 

metalworking life.

“It was action that brought me to 

the shop,” he said. “I liked to see sparks 

and the fire, and hear the hammer 

ring.” In the 1930s, he became a fullfledged blacksmith and began to turn 

his attention to decorative wrought iron. 

The first decorative piece Simmons 

created in Charleston is installed at 9 

Stolls Alley, and it exemplifies the local 

style of ornamental wrought ironwork 

in the city. Topped by an overthrow of 

spear points, it has S and C scrolls, two 

of the major motifs in the Charleston 

tradition. 

In some instances, Simmons used 

sculptural motifs, such as those found 

in his “snake gate,” where he provided 

realistic eyes to make the snake appear 

alive, and his “star and fish gate”—

made in 1976 for the Smithsonian 

Institution—which is crafted from 

several pieces of curved iron so as to 

appear as though it were underwater.

In 1991, his friends formed 

the Philip Simmons Foundation, a 

nonprofit organization to develop and 

maintain the garden commemorating his 

work on the grounds of his church, St. 

John’s Reformed Episcopal Church, in 

downtown Charleston.

Philip Simmons

B l a c k sm i t h a n d O r n a m e n t a l I r o n w o r k e r

1982 

Fellowship 

Winners

Dewey Balfa *

Cajun Fiddler

Basile, LA 

Joe Heaney *

Irish Singer

Brooklyn, NY

Tommy Jarrell *

Appalachian Fiddler

Mt. Airy, NC

Bessie Jones *

Georgia Sea Island Singer

Brunswick, GA

George López *

Santos Woodcarver

Cordova, NM

Brownie McGhee *

Blues Guitarist/Singer

Oakland, CA

Hugh McGraw

Shape Note Singer

Bremen, GA

Lydia Mendoza *

Mexican-American Singer

Houston, TX

Bill Monroe *

Bluegrass Musician

Nashville, TN

Elijah Pierce *

Carver/Painter

Columbus, OH

Adam Popovich *

Tamburitza Musician

Dolton, IL

Georgeann Robinson *

Osage Ribbonworker

Bartlesville, OK

Duff Severe *

Western Saddlemaker

Pendleton, OR

Philip Simmons *

Ornamental Ironworker

Charleston, SC

Sanders “Sonny” Terry *

Blues Harmonica Player/ 

Singer

Holliswood, NY

*Deceased

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Photo by Tom Pich
1983

In 1983, sixteen artists were honored 

with NEA National Heritage Fellowships. 

Again, the award ceremonies took 

place concurrently with the Smithsonian 

Folklife Festival, with the special concert 

program emceed by popular folk singer 

Pete Seeger. 

Bess Lomax Hawes, director of the 

Folk Arts Program, and Joseph Wilson, 

director of the National Council for the 

Traditional Arts, on three-days notice 

flew to Bristol, Tennessee, rented a 

car, and drove cousins Ray and Stanley 

Hicks from Beech Mountain in western 

North Carolina to Washington, DC, for 

the event. Ray, a master storyteller, and 

Stanley, an instrument maker, musician, 

and dancer, and not so bad at decorating 

the truth himself, ping-ponged stories, 

songs, and jokes back and forth for the 

entire journey to the capital. Joe Wilson, 

later to receive an NEA National Heritage 

Fellowship himself, recalled that it was 

the best road trip of his long career 

working with traditional artists. 

A statement by President Ronald 

Reagan on June 21, 1983, noted that 

the fellowships “offer us a unique 

opportunity to honor the cultural 

contributions of the best of today’s 

traditional artists and through them, 

countless others who have preceded 

them.”

Ray Hicks

A pp a l a c h i a n S t o r y t e l l e r

Ray Hicks was born in 1922 

in Banner Elk, North 

Carolina, a few miles from the North 

Carolina-Tennessee border, the fourth 

of 11 children. As a young boy, he 

would sit by the potbellied stove in the 

front room and listen to his grandfather’s 

tales. When he was about five years 

old, he began telling stories himself, 

becoming the eighth generation of 

Hicks storytellers on Beech Mountain.

Working most of his life as a farmer, 

sometimes supplementing his income 

with work as a mechanic, Hicks found 

that storytelling could help to get the 

chores done. “Used to be, whenever 

we had a long, slow job to be done,” he 

said, “like corn husking or something, 

we’d just gather all the young ‘uns 

around and put them to work. Why, 

them kids would work for hours and 

never a sound out of them, long as I’d 

keep telling them tales.”

Hicks’ storytelling repertoire 

included roughly 40 “Jack” tales, 12 

of which he learned directly from his 

grandfather and eight of which are 

original. Hicks’ Jack tales are about 

the antics of a poor mountain boy who 

outwits thieves, giants, witches, wild 

hogs, and ogres to win fame, fortune, 

and love. 

The dialect in his tales originated 

more than 200 years ago, and some 

have called his dialect the purest 

example of the speech of the ScotchIrish and English pioneers who settled 

in Appalachia in the 1700s. Once 

discovered by folklorists, Hicks was 

invited to the annual storytelling festival 

in Jonesboro, Tennessee, and has 

recorded an album of storytelling called 

Ray Hicks Tells Four Jack Tales on Folk 

Legacy Records.

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John Lee Hooker

B l u e s G u i t a r i s t a n d S i n g e r

Miguel “Mike” Manteo

S i c i l i a n M a r i o n e t t i s t

When John Lee Hooker first 

heard blues music, played 

by his stepfather William Moore, he 

was hooked. “Nobody can teach you,” 

Hooker said, “but I watched him night 

and day and I played like him.”

Born in 1917 in Coahoma County, 

Mississippi, Hooker as a child learned 

the rudiments of blues on Moore’s guitar. 

By 1929 he played well enough to work 

with Moore at local country suppers and 

dances in the area. At 14, Hooker ran 

away from home and went to Memphis, 

where he worked as an usher in a movie 

theater on Beale Street, frequenting house 

parties in his spare time and encountering 

blues musicians such as Robert 

Nighthawk and Eddie Love. 

By the 1940s, Hooker had moved 

to Detroit and formed his own group, 

working at local clubs. “You had to 

play electric in those clubs, they were 

so noisy,” Hooker recalled. “But 

the sounds you could make! I love 

electricity. You barely have to touch the 

guitar, and the sound comes out so silky. 

Electric sound is so lovely. I felt drawn 

to it.”

In 1948, black record store owner 

Bernie Bessman helped Hooker to 

record his first record, “Boogie Chillen,” 

which became a huge success. He 

followed it with several more hits: 

“Hobo Blues,” “Crawling King Snake 

Blues,” and “I’m in the Mood.” During 

these early years, Hooker recorded with 

only his electric guitar and stomping 

foot as accompaniment, but eventually 

recorded with bands.

He recorded for numerous 

labels throughout the 1950s, 

experimenting with a variety of 

styles, including folk and rock. 

His influence was profound: 

English groups such as the 

Yardbirds and the Animals as 

well as American rock groups 

Canned Heat and ZZ Top 

copied his style in the 1960s 

and 1970s, and Van Morrison 

practically made a career by 

stylizing his vocals on Hooker’s. 

Younger blues artists such as George 

Thorogood and Robert Cray were also 

inspired by his sound. In the 1990s, 

Hooker gained a wider audience when he 

released The Healer, with appearances by 

star musicians he had influenced, such as 

Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana, Los Lobos, 

and Charlie Musselwhite. The album 

won a Grammy and increased the major 

record labels’ interest in Hooker, which 

allowed him to live out the remainder of 

his life far more comfortably than his early 

sharecropper days.

Mike Manteo’s parents moved 

from Catania, Sicily, to 

Medosa, Argentina, in 1900, bringing 

with them the marionette theater they 

inherited from their forebears. In 1919, 

when Manteo was ten, the family 

moved to New York City. There they 

opened the theater “Papa Manteo’s 

Life-Sized Marionettes” in Little Italy. 

Manteo’s grandfather Agrippino ran an 

electrical business by day and staged 

marionette performances by night. 

“I started out as a kid cranking the 

pianola—an old hurdy-gurdy,” Manteo 

said. “But whenever my grandfather 

wasn’t around, I’d practice handling the 

puppets...Eventually, I was allowed to 

manipulate the marionettes onstage, and 

my father came down to direct the show 

from the wings.”

For more than a century, five 

generations of the Manteo family 

Photo by Marina Fusco

Photo by Martha Cooper
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performed episodes from Un Avventura 

d’Orlando Furioso, the epic adventures 

of the knight Roland in defense of 

Charlemagne’s empire, with life-sized 

marionettes. To complete the Orlando 

cycle, 394 episodes are performed over 

13 months. This distinctive form of 

marionette theater emerged in Sicily 

in the early 19th century, though the 

tradition of performing the Orlando 

cycle with marionettes was known as 

early as the 16th century. 

Manteo enlarged the family’s 

collection of marionettes from about 

50, brought by his grandfather from 

Argentina, to more than 200, making 

new wooden figures out of mahogany, 

oak, and cherry. “They’re works of art,” 

he said. “No machine can make them. 

They were made with the hands and 

with the heart.”

The method for constructing the 

marionettes, often four to five feet high 

and weighing well over 100 pounds 

each, is based on “rod control.” One 

rod controls the marionette’s head 

movements with a second rod attached 

to the right arm. The legs, which 

swing free, move by their own weight. 

In addition to building the puppets, 

Manteo also created the dialogue for the 

plays, based on the stories he had heard 

from his father and grandfather. 

Narciso Martínez

C o n j u n t o A cc o r d i o n i s t a n d C o mp o s e r

Considered the father of 

conjunto music, Narciso 

Martínez established the framework for 

the small-group dance music, driven 

by accordion and bajo sexto (a Mexican 

12-string bass guitar), that is native to 

Texas and northern Mexico. 

Born in Mexico in 1911, Martínez’s 

family moved to Texas while he was 

still an infant, seeking work in the citrus 

and vegetable fields of the Rio Grande 

Valley. As a young man, Martínez 

began adapting the tunes he heard 

the Mexican-American farmworkers 

whistling to his brother’s button 

accordion. He began working dances 

in the late 1920s using a one-row 

button accordion, which he called 

“una murgrita” (a little piece of junk). 

Eventually, he was able to buy a new 

Hohner two-row button accordion 

and collaborated with Santiago Almeida 

on bajo sexto. Under a recording 

contract with Bluebird Records, they 

recorded “La Chicharronera” and “El 

Tronconal,” which were immediate hits. 

Between 1935 and 1938, Martínez 

earned his reputation as “Hurricane of 

the Valley” by making 59 records with 

Almeida, including polkas, redowas, 

valses altos, vals bajitos, huapangos, 

schottisches, and mazurkas. In addition 

to his conjunto recordings, Martínez 

recorded Cajun music as Louisiana 

Pete and Polish music as Polski Kwartet 

for Bluebird’s Louisiana Cajun and 

Polish series.

In the 1940s, Martínez acquired 

the now standard three-row button 

accordion, and began to concentrate 

on a right-hand virtuosity that gave 

his sound a treble, staccato quality in 

marked contrast to the Germanic style 

of playing, which relied heavily on lefthand accompaniment on the bass keys. 

With the success of his recordings 

came increased demand for public 

performances, and Martínez toured the 

southwestern United States while still 

earning his living as a farmworker. 

Photo by Martha Cooper

Photo by Alan Govenar

Narciso Martínez with Antonio Ramirez, 1986.
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Lem Ward

D e c o y C a r v e r a n d P a i n t e r

Lem Ward was born 

in 1896 and grew 

up in the Chesapeake Bay 

region of Crisfield, Maryland, 

where he and his brother Steve 

learned to carve working duck 

decoys from their father, who 

also trained them as barbers. 

Although “duck coys” and 

“duck cages and traps” are 

known to have been employed 

in bird hunting in Europe 

and England, it was in North 

America that artificial lures 

resembling birds in various 

natural poses first came into 

common use. Carving decoys flourished 

as a folk art form during the last half 

of the 19th century, when “market 

gunning” (unrestricted hunting) created 

a demand for large numbers of these 

lures.

By the 1930s, the Ward brothers 

had brought the distinctive Crisfield 

decoy type—flat bottom, exaggerated 

head shape, and simple painted 

patterns—to a new level of perfection. 

With Steve doing practically all the 

carving by hand and Lem most of the 

painting, the brothers experimented 

with varying poses, positions, and 

shapes; developed the technique of 

“stippling,” or applying paint in dots or 

short strokes, the decoy’s surface; and 

employed an impressionistic painting 

style in order to create decoys far more 

lifelike than those typical of the period. 

The pursuit of realism in their 

decoys also led the Ward brothers 

toward decorative bird carving, bringing 

them their greatest recognition. Lem’s 

experimentations with techniques 

such as feather insertion, by which real 

feathers are added to the woodcarving, became the basis for much of the 

decorative bird carving that followed. 

In the late 1950s, the Ward brothers 

stopped cutting hair and became fulltime wood carvers, devoting themselves 

to decorative birds. They continued 

until Steve’s death in 1976 and Lem’s 

cataracts forced him to retire in 1978. 

In 1975, a museum dedicated 

to the artwork the Ward brothers 

championed, the Ward Museum of 

Wildfowl Art, opened in Salisbury, 

Maryland.

1983 

Fellowship 

Winners

Sister Mildred Barker *

Shaker Singer

Poland Springs, ME

Rafael Cepeda *

Bomba Musician/Dancer

Santurce, PR

Ray Hicks *

Appalachian Storyteller

Banner Elk, NC

Stanley Hicks *

Appalachian Musician/ 

Storyteller/Instrument Maker

Vilas, NC

John Lee Hooker *

Blues Guitarist/Singer

San Carlos, CA

Mike Manteo *

Sicilian Marionettist

Staten Island, NY

Narciso Martínez *

Conjunto Accordionist/ 

Composer

San Benito, TX

Lanier Meaders *

Potter

Cleveland, GA

Almeda Riddle *

Ballad Singer

Greers Ferry, AR

Simon St. Pierre

French-American Fiddler

Smyrna Mills, ME

Joe Shannon *

Irish Piper

Chicago, IL

Alex Stewart *

Cooper/Woodworker

Sneedville, TN

Ada Thomas *

Chitimacha Basketmaker

Charenton, LA

Lucinda Toomer *

African-American Quilter

Columbus, GA

Lem Ward *

Decoy Carver/Painter

Crisfield, MD

Dewey Williams *

Shape Note Singer

Ozark, AL

*Deceased

Photo courtesy of Maryland Historical Society
1984

The third year of the program saw the 

most awards given out: 17. A nascent 

program with a year-to-year life cycle, 

it seemed almost as if the panel wanted 

to honor as many individuals and as 

many artistic traditions as possible. 

Bess Lomax Hawes later recalled 

that staff subsequently recommended 

reducing the numbers of artists each 

year to around a dozen because there 

was a law of diminishing returns for 

each individual artist, with so many 

awards presented in a given year. 

Bluegrass banjo player Ralph Stanley, 

currently enjoying a resurgence in 

his long and distinguished career, 

commented at the time that this 

award was the greatest honor of his 

lifetime. The celebratory concert, now 

held in the fall of the year and not 

in conjunction with the Smithsonian 

festival, was moved to the historic 

Ford’s Theater. Gaining more national 

attention, the event was covered in the 

“Talk of the Town” section of The New 

Yorker.

Clifton Chenier

Z y d e c o A cc o r d i o n i s t

Blending the traditional, 

acoustic sounds of French 

Creole music from southwestern 

Louisiana with New Orleans electric 

rhythm and blues, Clifton Chenier 

created the modern dance music now 

known as zydeco.

Born in 1925 in Opelousas, St. 

Landry Parish, Louisiana, Chenier 

learned the basics of accordion playing 

from his father, a local musician who 

played at dances known as fais dos 

dos. By the time he was 16, he played 

accordion with his brother Cleveland 

on frottoir (a washboard played with 

a metal object, like a spoon or bottle 

opener, to produce a percussive sound) 

at local house parties. 

As he matured, Chenier developed 

his own musical style and shifted from 

the small diatonic accordion his father 

had taught him to play to the larger, 

more flexible piano accordion. The 

percussion in his bands grew more 

complex as well, and he added electric 

guitars, bass, drums, and saxophone 

when playing larger clubs, dance halls, 

and juke joints between Houston and 

New Orleans.

In 1946, Chenier moved to 

Houston, Texas, to work in the postwar 

boom and began performing at area 

dances with his brother. In 1954, 

the Chenier brothers released their 

first recording, “Louisiana Stomp” 

backed with “Clifton’s Blues,” which 

are considered the earliest recorded 

examples of zydeco music. 

In 1955, Chenier came to national 

attention with his hit on Specialty 

Records, “Ay ‘Tit Fille (Hey, Little 

Girl),” a cover of a Professor Longhair 

song. Chenier decided to focus fulltime on music, leaving his day job and 

touring nationally with his band, the 

Zydeco Ramblers. The turning point in 

his career occurred in 1963, when he 

signed with the California-based label 

Arhoolie, quickly becoming the label’s 

top-selling artist.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, 

Chenier toured widely, forming a new 

band in 1976, the Red Hot Louisiana 

Band featuring tenor saxophonist Blind 

John Hart and guitarist Paul Senegal. 

His later years were plagued by diabetes 

and kidney problems. “Sometimes I get 

tired a little,” he said, “but I’m a person 

like this: When I’m playing, I’m playing. 

Ain’t no tired there. One speed: let’s 

go.” 

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Martin Mulvihill

I r i s h - A m e r i c a n F i d d l e r a n d T e a c h e r

Born in Ballygoughlin, County 

Limerick, Ireland, in 1919, 

Martin Mulvihill received his first 

instruction in playing the fiddle from 

his mother. By the time he was 10 years 

old, he had become an accomplished 

traditional fiddler, eventually learning 

the piano and button accordion as well. 

In 1951, he moved to Northampton, 

England, and started a family.

In 1971, Mulvihill and his family 

emigrated to New York City, where 

he began teaching Irish music to a 

few Bronx neighborhood children. 

His versatility and superb traditional 

repertoire soon attracted so many 

students that he quit his regular job 

to teach full-time, opening the Martin 

Mulvihill School. The school taught 

Ralph Stanley

B l u e g r a ss B a n j o P l a y e r a n d B a n d l e a d e r

Ralph Stanley 

was born 

in 1927 in the Clinch 

Mountains of Virginia, 

which inspired much of 

his music. He and his 

brother Carter learned 

ballad singing and clawhammer-style banjo playing 

from their mother, whose 

repertoire ranged from traditional 

narrative songs to 19th-century 

hymns. The Stanley brothers began 

performing with Roy Sykes and the 

Blue Ridge Mountain Boys in 1946. 

They soon formed their own band, 

the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch 

Mountain Boys, and gained a following 

due to their broadcasts on WCYB in 

Bristol, Virginia, which reached a fivestate area: Kentucky, North Carolina, 

Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

From 1947 to 1958, the Stanley 

Brothers recorded with Rich-R-Tone, 

Columbia, and Mercury record labels, 

where they defined their signature 

sound, which revolved around Ralph’s 

mournful vocals and claw-hammer 

banjo playing. In 1966, Carter died, 

and after much consideration, Ralph 

continued his musical career and 

formed a new band. 

Although Stanley has played 

primarily a traditional repertoire, he has 

also written his own songs. “It just hits 

you, comes on your mind,” he said. 

“I’ve got up at three or four o’clock 

in the morning, wrote a song or two, 

maybe wrote three before I went back 

to bed. If I didn’t get up and write them 

children 6 to 18 years old the basics of 

music notations and the traditional Irish 

instruments: fiddle, tin whistle, drums, 

piano, and accordion. Over the years, his 

reputation steadily grew and hundreds 

of his pupils have achieved remarkable 

success in competitions and festivals in 

both the United States and Ireland. 

Mulvihill continued to perform as 

well as teach, using the long-bowing 

technique common to southern Ireland, 

playing rolls instead of triplets, and 

holding to the long, elegant lines of the 

old melodies. He was often joined in 

performance by his four children. 

Photo by Jesse Winch

Photo by Alan Govenar
Paul Tiulana was born 

in 1921 on King Island 

in the Bering Strait, just off the 

Alaskan Seward Peninsula. As 

an Inupiaq Native, he was taught 

at an early age how to survive in 

nature, how to hunt, and where 

to go on the ice floes to look for 

seals. When Tiulana was nine 

years old, his father died and his 

uncle, John Olarrana, became 

his mentor. Under his tutelage, 

Tiulana grew up to become 

a leader in the preservation 

of Inupiaq traditions. He 

was an accomplished ivory 

carver, maskmaker, singer, and 

drummer, and devoted much 

of his life to the perpetuation 

of King Island culture 

and heritage.

In the 1950s, King Island 

Eskimos were forced to leave 

their island and were resettled 

throughout Alaska. Many settled 

in nearby Nome, but Tiulana 

ended up in Anchorage, 

where he taught carving classes 

and workshops and was a 

member of the King Island 

dancers for more than 40 

years, and their leader since 

1956. He toured extensively 

with the group throughout 

Alaska and the lower United States. 

He also played a key role in the revival 

of the ceremonial Wolf Dance, which 

was finally performed in 1982 for the 

first time in more than 50 years. 

Paul Tiulana

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In 1983, Tiulana was named 

Citizen of the Year by the statewide 

Alaska Federation of Natives for his 

work promoting cultural heritage. Rarely 

had a civic award of this nature been 

presented to a practicing artist. 

Photo courtesy of Alaska State Council on the Arts

Photo courtesy of Alaska 

State Council on the Arts

down, I wouldn’t have remembered 

them the next day.” Stanley was also 

responsible for the revival of a cappella 

singing in contemporary bluegrass 

music, continuing the tradition he had 

learned from his mother. 

Many contemporary bluegrass 

artists have come up through the Clinch 

Mountain Boys band, including Ricky 

Skaggs, Keith Whitley, and Roy Lee 

Centers. Stanley has seen a resurgent 

interest in his music after some of his 

songs were used on the multi-platinum 

soundtrack for the movie, O Brother, 

Where Art Thou?, released in 2000. 
E mily Zuttermeister 

was born Emily 

Kauiomakawelinalaniokamanookalanipo in 1909 

on the Island of Oahu to 

Native Hawaiian parents. 

They followed the practice 

of the time and gave Emily 

to her kahu hanai (maternal 

grandparents) to raise. 

Through them, she learned 

the old Hawaiian customs. 

Her uncle Sam Pua Ha’aheo 

was a policeman and elder in 

the church, but also knew the 

hula tradition and the ancient 

chants, which he kept secret 

until he was an old man.

In 1933, Ha’aheo 

decided it was time to pass 

on his knowledge of those 

vital Hawaiian traditions, and 

he opened a hula halau (hula house) 

on the shore of Kahana Bay beside 

his fishing shack. By then, his niece 

Emily had married Karl Zuttermeister, 

a U.S. serviceman stationed in Hawaii 

who urged his wife to learn the old 

hula traditions. She reluctantly agreed 

and began studying with her uncle, 

practicing six nights a week for three 

years. She was forced to memorize 

each dance and the chant associated 

with it, as well as the many rules, such 

as knowing which hula could not be 

Emily Kau’i Zuttermeister

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danced with the pahu drum and which 

greenery was appropriate for the altar. 

In 1936, Zuttermeister, nicknamed 

Aunty Kau’i, opened her own school 

for hula, called the Ilima Hula Hale. 

She continued teaching hula, traditional 

chants, and pahu drumming in the 

Ha’aheo style for more than 50 years. 

As she stated in an address about Nana 

E. Na Hula Loea, a project of the KalihiPalama Culture and Arts Society, “My 

uncle told me the only way the culture is 

going to live is if the dance is kept pure.” 

1984 

Fellowship 

Winners

Clifton Chenier *

Zydeco Accordionist

Lafayette, LA

Bertha Cook *

Knotted Bedspread Maker

Boone, NC

Joseph Cormier

Cape Breton Violinist

Waltham, MA

Elizabeth Cotten *

African-American Singer/ Songwriter

Syracuse, NY

Burlon Craig *

Potter

Vale, NC

Albert Fahlbusch *

Hammered Dulcimer Maker/ Player

Scottsbluff, NE

Janie Hunter *

African-American Singer/

Storyteller

Johns Island, SC

Mary Jane Manigault *

African-American Seagrass 

Basketmaker

Mt. Pleasant, SC

Genevieve Mougin *

Lebanese-American Lacemaker

Bettendorf, IA

Martin Mulvihill *

Irish-American Fiddler

Bronx, NY

Howard “Sandman” Sims *

Tap Dancer

New York, NY

Ralph Stanley

Bluegrass Banjo Player/Singer

Coeburn, VA

Margaret Tafoya *

Santa Clara Pueblo Potter

Espanola, NM

Dave Tarras *

Klezmer Clarinetist

Brooklyn, NY

Paul Tiulana *

Inupiaq Eskimo Maskmaker/ 

Dancer/Singer

Anchorage, AK

Cleofes Vigil *

Hispanic Storyteller/Singer

San Cristobal, NM

Emily Kau’i Zuttermeister *

Hula Master

Kaneohe, HI

*Deceased

1984 National Heritage Fellowships Concert, NEA file photo
Central Intelligence Agency’s secret war 

against the communist Pathet Lao. After 

the United States pulled out of Laos 

in 1973, Mua, his wife, and two of his 

children fled their homeland for fear 

of communist reprisals. After two 

years in a refugee camp, Mua and his 

family immigrated to the United States 

in 1978. 

Mua worked hard to maintain his 

cultural traditions in his new home in 

Portland, Oregon, despite the initial 

discrimination he and his family faced. 

He participated in an apprenticeship 

program for Asian refugees. In addition 

to his work with young Hmong, Mua 

also visited schools to explain the 

unfamiliar ways of Southeast Asia to 

the schoolchildren of Portland, often 

using song and dance to demonstrate 

the culture.

Bua Xou Mua was born in 1915 

in Ban Whoi Na, a village in 

northeastern Laos where his family had 

lived for generations. When he was 15, 

he began studying the oral history of 

his people, the Hmong, with an uncle. 

Mua also learned to play the gaeng, a 

mouth organ consisting of six curved 

bamboo pipes inserted into a wooden 

wind chest, which is unique to Hmong 

culture. The instrument is used to 

accompany both funeral texts and New 

Year’s celebrations. Mua also learned 

the traditional courtship and wedding 

songs and shamanistic healing rituals.

The Hmong had no written 

language until the 1950s, so history 

was passed on primarily through the 

oral tradition. Mua learned to recite 

from memory the story of his people’s 

migration from China to Vietnam and 

Laos and their resistance to Chinese 

oppression. He became known as a legal 

and religious practitioner, and in 1960 

became chief of his clan of about 400 

people.

In the 1960s, Mua and two of 

his sons were recruited into the U.S. 

1985

The Heritage ceremonies became the 

first celebratory event marking the 

occasion of the 20th anniversary of the 

National Endowment for the Arts. Roger 

Welsch—folklorist, television personality 

on Charles Kuralt’s CBS Sunday Morning,

and Folk Arts Program panelist—visited 

recipient Lief Melgaard, a Norwegian 

woodcarver from Minnesota, and 

commented after his visit: “I have come 

to think of Heritage awards—perhaps 

incorrectly—as a recognition of a kind 

of spirit as well as of a degree of skill. 

Unselfconscious, unassuming, dedicated, 

philosophical, Leif Melgaard is the 

kind of citizen artist who deserves this 

unrequested recognition.”

The 1985 roster presented art 

forms perhaps less widely known to the 

public, such as Basque accordion music, 

Hmong ritual performance, Norwegian 

woodcarving, and Puerto Rican 

instrument making. Recognition of the 

distinct style of Hawaiian quilting through 

an award to Meali’i Kalama reflects 

the fact that panelists, at this point, are 

receiving nominations and considering 

some of the “small community” 

traditions. Quilting may not be the best 

known art form in Hawaii (such as hula 

or slack-key guitar), but it is an important 

one for the particular community in 

which it is practiced.

Bua Xou Mua

H m o n g M u s i c i a n a n d S p i r i t u a l L e a d e r

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Alice New Holy Blue Legs

L a k o t a S i o u x Q u i l l A r t i s t

Born in 1925, Alice Blue Legs’ 

mother died when she was 

young, and her father, Joseph New 

Holy, instructed her in quillwork and 

other skills. “He didn’t show me,” she 

said. “He just told me what to do...

It was something I had to learn. Every 

Indian girl was supposed to learn how to 

do quillwork and beadwork and tanning 

hides, so they will know rather than 

going to traders and buying them.”

Quillwork, using porcupine 

quills to decorate clothing and other 

regalia, was relatively common among 

the woodland and plains Indians, but 

was especially prominent among the 

Lakota Sioux. The work was extremely 

complex, and as trade beads became 

more readily available from European 

settlers, easier beadwork techniques 

replaced quilling.

Most of Blue Legs’ work is 

wrapped or stitched. In the wrapping 

technique, the flattened quills are wound 

around a strip of buckskin. This is used 

for fringes and jewelry. The stitching 

method is used for decorating buckskin 

dresses and other flat surfaces. 

Blue Legs and her 

husband live on the Pine 

Ridge Sioux reservation in 

South Dakota, and make 

their living from crafts. The 

work is long and difficult, 

but rewarding. “This is a 

dying art which I am trying 

to revive,” she said. Blue 

Legs has taught the art to her 

husband, five daughters, and 

three of her grandchildren.

1985 

Fellowship 

Winners

Eppie Archuleta

Hispanic Weaver

San Luis Valley, CO

Alice New Holy Blue Legs

Lakota Sioux Quill Artist

Oglala, SD

Periklis Halkias *

Greek Clarinetist

Astoria, NY

Jimmy Jausoro *

Basque Accordionist

Boise, ID

Meali’i Kalama *

Hawaiian Quilter

Honolulu, HI

Lily May Ledford *

Appalachian Musician/Singer

Lexington, KY

Leif Melgaard *

Norwegian-American 

Woodcarver

Minneapolis, MN

Bua Xou Mua

Hmong Musician

Portland, OR

Julio Negrón-Rivera

Puerto Rican Instrument 

Maker

Morovis, PR

Glenn Ohrlin

Cowboy Singer/ Storyteller/

Illustrator

Mountain View, AR

Henry Townsend *

Blues Musician/Songwriter

St. Louis, MO

Horace “Spoons” Williams *

Percussionist/Poet

Philadelphia, PA

*Deceased

Photo by H. Jane Nauman
1986

An award given to Khatna Peou, a 

master of Khmer dance who was living in 

Maryland, illustrates several points about 

the NEA National Heritage Fellowships. 

Born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, she 

began her dance training in the Royal 

Court at the age of seven and grew 

to be a master dancer. Following her 

retirement at the age of 30, she became 

a teacher, choreographer, and costumer 

for the royal troupe. With the downfall 

of the regime, this palace dancer and 

teacher fled to a refugee camp in 

Thailand where she began to re-form 

and develop a group of dancers. With 

the assistance of the State Department, 

international refugee organizations, and 

the National Council for the Traditional 

Arts, she came to the United States and 

began to re-assemble a group of dancers 

that later toured the country. Recognition 

of the role of significant master artists 

in more recently settled immigrant 

communities is a common thread in 

the NEA National Heritage Fellowship 

history.

Having outgrown the smaller venue 

of Ford’s Theater, the celebratory concert 

moved to the more commodious Lisner 

Auditorium on the campus of George 

Washington University.

Helen Cordero

C o c h i t i P u e b l o P o t t e r

Helen Cordero was born in 

1915 in Cochiti Pueblo, 

New Mexico, at a time when the area’s 

rich pottery tradition was in decline. 

In the late 1950s, she and her cousin, 

an accomplished potter, began making 

pottery as an alternative to leather and 

beadwork. Not satisfied with her bowls 

and pitchers, Cordero began to make 

figures instead, and through this she 

found her calling.

One of the traditional figurine 

forms was a seated female figure holding 

a child, known as the Singing Mother. 

When Cordero tried this form, she kept 

seeing her grandfather instead. “He was 

a really good storyteller,” she said, “and 

there was always lots of us grandchildren 

around him.” When she shaped the 

first portrait of her paternal grandfather, 

she used the traditional design, making 

the figure male and surrounding him 

with children. She called the piece 

“Storyteller.”

The figure brought Cordero 

to public attention, winning 

awards at the New Mexico 

State Fair and Indian 

Market and the Heard 

Museum’s Annual Indian 

Arts and Crafts Show. 

Her figures have been 

exhibited in museums 

across the United States 

and Canada. 

Cordero’s work, which initiated 

a revolution in contemporary Pueblo 

ceramics with its reinvention of Cochiti 

figurative pottery traditions, remains 

distinctive. No two Storyteller figures are 

alike, and she has made other figures, 

such as the Water Carrier, the Drummer, 

the Mother with Children, and the 

Turtle. The Storyteller, however, 

remains the favorite. She didn’t work in 

a studio, instead covering each piece of 

clay with cow manure and firing it 

on an open iron grate behind her 

house. “To make good potteries, 

you have to do it the right way, 

the old way,” she said. 

Photo by Tom Pich

Photo courtesy of Helen Cordero
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Joyce Doc Tate Nevaquaya

C o m a n c h e F l u t e P l a y e r

Joyce Doc Tate Nevaquaya was 

born in 1932 in Fletcher, 

 Oklahoma, delivered by Dr. C.W. 

Joyce after whom he was named, 

although “Joyce” was replaced by 

“Doc” at an early age. The name 

“Tate” was taken from his grandfather’s 

partner when a Christian name was 

required upon entering the Fort Sill 

Indian School. His Comanche name, 

“Nevaquaya,” means “well-dressed” in 

English.

Growing up, Nevaquaya learned 

to make traditional Comanche crafts 

and became interested in the courting 

flute, a traditional instrument common 

to many Native American tribes. The 

courting flute is an end-blown instrument 

generally made of wood and constructed 

with a movable block through which the 

musical intonation can be changed. 

It is one of the few Native 

American instruments 

reserved for solo 

performance, and 

traditionally is 

played only by 

men in contexts 

of courtship, 

love, magic, or 

fertility rituals. 

Around the turn of the century, the 

traditional role of the courting flute began 

to wane, and flute music was rarely heard 

outside the home or at an occasional 

powwow. In the 1970s, however, 

a few Native American musicians 

began to bring the flute tradition to 

wider public attention. Nevaquaya 

was one of the leaders of this revival, 

researching construction and playing 

techniques, learning the old repertoire, 

and developing new compositional 

styles, one of which is a creative mode 

through which an individual musician 

can improvise while remaining within 

the aesthetic parameters of Plains Indian 

musical forms.

Nevaquaya released two recordings, 

Indian Flute Songs from Comanche 

Land (1976) and Comanche Flute Music 

(1979), and appeared in numerous 

performances around the United States 

and abroad. He taught his three sons 

how to make and play the 

courting flute, and all are 

committed to keeping 

the tradition alive. 

1986 

Fellowship 

Winners

Alfonse “Bois Sec” Ardoin *

Creole Accordionist

Eunice, LA

Earnest Bennett *

Anglo-American Woodcarver

Indianapolis, IN

Helen Cordero *

Pueblo Potter

Cochiti Pueblo, NM

Sonia Domsch

Czech-American Bobbin 

Lacemaker

Atwood, KS

Canray Fontenot *

Creole Fiddler

Welsh, LA

John Jackson *

African-American Singer/ 

Guitarist

Fairfax Station, VA

Khatna Peou *

Cambodian Court Dancer/ 

Choreographer

Silver Spring, MD

Valerio Longoria *

Mexican-American 

Accordionist

San Antonio, TX

Joyce Doc Tate Nevaquaya *

Comanche Flutist

Apache, OK

Luis Ortega *

Hispanic-American Rawhide 

Worker

Paradise, CA

Ola Belle Reed *

Appalachian Banjo Picker/ 

Singer

Rising Sun, MD

Jenny Thlunaut *

Tlingit Chilkat Blanketweaver

Haines, AK

Nimrod Workman *

Appalachian Ballad Singer

Mascot, TN/Chattaroy, WV

*Deceased

Photo by Alan Govenar
1987

The 1987 NEA National Heritage 

Fellowships seemed to take particular 

note of the various forms of cultural and 

calendrical forms of celebration. Among 

the honorees were Juan Alindato, a 

carnaval mask-maker from Ponce, 

Puerto Rico, who makes papier maché

masks noted both for their brilliant and 

variegated color and their fearsome and 

plentiful horns; Sylvester McIntosh from 

St. Croix, Virgin Islands, whose bands 

accompany quadrilles and masquerades 

during carnaval; Allison “Tootie” 

Montana, an African-American costume 

maker from New Orleans who is Big 

Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Tribe and 

continues the age-old tradition of making 

elaborate costumes and parading during 

Mardi Gras; and Genoveva Castellanoz 

from Nyssa, Oregon, who makes coronas

(wax and paper crowns) and other items 

for use at weddings and quinceanera

(fifteenth birthday) celebrations. These 

artists all illustrate the importance of 

ceremony, of rites of passage, and 

public display within communities. Often 

these seemingly ephemeral trappings 

of celebration, formed from commonly 

found materials in uncommonly beautiful 

ways, endure in social memory with 

a permanence lent by shared social 

meaning.

Louis Bashell

S l o v e n i a n - A m e r i c a n P o l k a A cc o r d i o n i s t / B a n d l e a d e r

Louis Bashell was born in 1914 

in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 

to a family that had recently emigrated 

from Slovenia, then a part of the AustroHungarian empire. Bashell’s father had 

learned to make good wine and beer in 

his homeland and was a master of the 

diatonic button accordion. Both skills 

served him well when he opened his 

own corner tavern in the Walker’s Point 

neighborhood, where he settled with 

his family. 

By the age of seven, Bashell was 

playing the button accordion himself, 

learning the basics from his father. In 

the 1930s, he formed a trio, hiring a 

drummer and saxophonist who doubled 

on clarinet and violin. By the late 1940s, 

he had his own five-piece band and 

recorded a Slovenian folk song, “Zidana 

Marela (Silk Umbrella),” which was an 

immediate success. “It sold out as fast 

as they could make the records,” he 

recalled.

For more than 50 years, Bashell 

and his band played in his father’s 

tavern. “We played polkas and waltzes,” 

he said, “and a lot of Slovenian music 

my father played...I try and hang 

onto the Slovenian heritage because a 

lot of things are slipping away.” Over 

the years, Bashell played mostly in 

Wisconsin, preferring to perform in 

neighborhood clubs, taverns, VFW

halls, as well as at private parties and 

community-based events. Though he 

didn’t like traveling too far away from 

home, he did periodically tour the 

so-called “polka belt,” running north to 

Buffalo, New York, east to Newark, New 

Jersey, south to the Pennsylvania line, 

and west through Michigan, Wisconsin, 

Iowa, the Dakotas, and Nebraska. 

Dozens of younger musicians who have 

either worked with or followed Bashell’s 

band have gone on to form groups of 

their own.

Photo by Tom Pich
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Newton Washburn S p l i t A s h B a s k e t m a k e r Newton Washburn was born 

in 1915 in Stowe, Vermont, 

the grandson of Gilman Sweetser. 

The Sweetsers were known for their 

brown ash split baskets since at least 

1850. When 

Washburn was eight years 

old, he began to learn to make baskets. 

“Dad showed us how to get it off 

the log,” he said. “Then it was up to 

Mother....She’d tell me, ‘Make it right, 

or make it over.’” By the age of nine, Washburn was able to make a good 

basket, as were his cousins. At one time, 

there were 17 different branches of the 

family making baskets, and they often 

assembled for basketmaking parties. 

However, basketmaking was never 

taught to anyone outside of the family.

Until the 1930s, Sweetser baskets 

were used by working farmers, but 

with the advent of readily galvanized 

containers, the demand for baskets 

declined. Prices dropped and the older 

generation eventually stopped making 

baskets for such little pay. Washburn ended up working at an 

auto body shop for 20 years following 

the end of World War II, and put aside 

basketmaking until two heart attacks 

forced him to slow down. During his 

recovery, he decided to make his wife 

a laundry basket, and then two sewing 

baskets. Before long, his friends and 

family were asking for more. 

As the last Sweetser basketmaker, 

Washburn was in a unique position. 

Many of the people who bought the 

baskets were eager to learn to make 

them, but at first he didn’t want to 

violate the tradition of keeping the 

basketmaking in the family. Gradually, 

to keep the art alive, he accepted

young people who wanted to learn 

the Sweetser style of basketmaking, 

and over the years he taught more than 

80 apprentices.

1987 

Fellowship Winners

Juan Alindato *

Carnival Maskmaker

Ponce, PR

Louis Bashell *

Slovenian-American Polka 

Accordionist

Greenfield, WI

Genoveva Castellanoz

Mexican-American Corona 

Maker

Nyssa, OR

Thomas Edison “Brownie” 

Ford *

Anglo-Comanche Cowboy 

Singer/Storyteller

Hebert, LA

Kansuma Fujima

Japanese-American Dancer

Los Angeles, CA

Claude Joseph Johnson *

African-American Religious 

Singer/Orator

Atlanta, GA

Raymond Kane *

Hawaiian Slack-Key Guitarist/

Singer

Wai’anae, HI

Wade Mainer

Appalachian Banjo Picker/

Singer

Flint, MI

Sylvester McIntosh

Crucian Singer/Bandleader

St. Croix, VI

Allison “Tootie” Montana *

Mardi Gras Chief/Costume 

Maker

New Orleans, LA

Alex Moore, Sr. *

Blues Pianist

Dallas, TX

Emilio * and Senaida *

Romero 

Hispanic-American 

Craftsworkers in Tin 

Embroidery

Santa Fe, NM

Newton Washburn *

Split Ash Basketmaker

Littleton, NH

*Deceased

Photo by Tom Pich
1988

Reflecting on the NEA National Heritage 

Fellowships, Bess Lomax Hawes, 

director of Folk Arts, and Frank Hodsoll, 

chairman of the National Endowment for 

the Arts, stated in 1988: “Overall, it came 

to seem that this American program 

should be conducted gently and slowly, 

including ever more artists and art 

forms, more home towns, more cities, 

more languages, more cultures and 

occupations, recognizing that traditional 

skills in our far-flung nation are more 

often features on a local landscape than 

widely acclaimed monuments.”

The age of recipients became a little 

more far-flung as well, with 97-year-old 

Sister Rosita Haberl, a bobbin lace maker 

from Hankinson, North Dakota, joining 

30-year-old Michael Flatley, the youngest 

recipient to that point, on the celebratory 

concert stage.

Michael Flatley

I r i s h - A m e r i c a n S t e p d a n c e r

Michael Flatley’s parents, 

immigrants from County 

Sligo, Ireland, instilled in their children 

a love and respect for the traditions of 

their homeland, especially music and 

dance. He learned from his mother the 

rudiments of Irish stepdance—a highly 

stylized form in which the upper body is 

held rigid while the legs and feet perform 

with athletic and rhythmic virtuosity. 

Flatley was born in 1958 in 

Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 11 Flatley 

tried to take formal dance lessons, but 

was told that he was already too old to 

learn properly. Instead, he spent hours 

on his own practicing. “And then I 

started adding my own steps,” he said. 

“It was the only way to win.” Irish 

step- dancing is highly competitive, 

with contests beginning on the local 

level and ending in the annual AllWorld Championships in Ireland. At 

17, Flatley became the first American 

to win the championship while also 

winning the All-Ireland Concert Flute 

Championship for three consecutive 

years for his Irish flute playing. 

Flatley was a Golden Gloves boxing 

champion as well and considered 

becoming a professional boxer. An offer 

from the Irish musical ensemble the 

Chieftans made him reconsider, and he 

joined them for a worldwide tour. By 

the time Flatley received his National 

Heritage award in 1988, he had virtually 

retired from public performance. He 

worked up a short program for the 

award celebration concert, and, based 

on the enthusiastic audience response, 

he decided to take up dancing again.

In 1994, Flatley created 

Riverdance, originally an interval act 

for the Eurovision Song Contest. The 

popularity of his performance caused 

him to develop it into a full-length show, 

which received critical and popular 

acclaim. Two years later, he developed 

a new show, Lord of the Dance, which 

he choreographed, produced, directed, 

and starred in. The show again received 

acclaim internationally, as Flatley has 

brought the traditional Irish dance to 

worldwide attention. 

When asked about his performing, 

Flatley said, “I wonder if my legs are 

going to be there when I get down...I’m 

definitely setting out to prove that I’m 

still the best dancer in the world.”

Photo courtesy of Michael Flatley
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Arthel “Doc” Watson

A pp a l a c h i a n G u i t a r i s t a n d S i n g e r

Doc Watson was born in 

1923 in Stoney Fork, North 

Carolina, the sixth of nine children. 

He contracted glaucoma when he was 

an infant, causing him to lose his sight 

by the age of two. Watson entered the 

Raleigh School for the Blind at the age 

of 10, staying four years. While there, 

he heard a classmate playing a guitar 

and learned a few chords himself. When 

he returned home that summer, he was 

eager to play guitar and his brother 

Linny borrowed a cousin’s guitar on 

which Watson 

practiced. 

“Daddy 

heard me messing 

with it one 

morning,” Watson 

remembered, “and 

said, ‘Son, if you 

can learn a tune 

on that by the time 

I get back from 

work this evening, 

we’ll go find you 

a guitar of some 

kind.’” By the time 

his father returned home, he was picking 

the chords to “When the Roses Bloom 

in Dixieland,” and as promised, they 

went and got his first guitar, a $12 Stella. 

When Watson was 18, he joined 

a group that sometimes played on 

local radio stations. Before a remote 

radio broadcast at a furniture store, the 

announcer decided that “Arthel” was 

too cumbersome to use on the air. A 

woman in the crowd suggested, “Call 

him ‘Doc,’” and the name stuck. 

To support his wife and two 

children, Merle and Nancy, Watson 

tuned pianos and played music 

whenever he could, for local dances 

and on the radio. In 1953, he joined 

pianist Jack Williams’ band, playing 

lead guitar in the country swing and 

rockabilly band, for which he bought 

his first electric guitar. He remained 

with the band for eight years, doubling 

as lead fiddler and vocalist when the 

band played for square dances, traveling 

throughout eastern Tennessee and 

North Carolina. 

In 1960, Watson joined Clarence 

“Tom” Ashley on a recording session, 

playing the acoustic 

old-time music they 

performed together 

at each other’s 

homes as neighbors 

in North Carolina. 

The resulting 

albums, Old Time 

Music at Clarence 

Ashley’s, Volumes 

1 & 2, were 

highly acclaimed 

and helped 

launch Watson’s 

professional career. 

Watson’s son Merle began playing 

guitar with his father in 1964, gathering 

renown for his playing prowess. 

Together, they recorded and toured 

nationally for more than 20 years, until 

Merle’s untimely death in 1985 in a 

tractor accident. In 1988, Watson put 

together a festival in North Carolina to 

honor his son. Since then, Merlefest 

has become one of the most critically 

acclaimed acoustic music festivals in 

the world, featuring the old-time music 

that Watson loves and continues to 

perform.

1988 

Fellowship 

Winners

Pedro Ayala *

Mexican-American 

Accordionist

Donna, TX

Kepka Belton

Czech-American Egg Painter

Ellsworth, KS

Amber Densmore *

Quilter/Needleworker

Chelsea, VT

Michael Flatley

Irish-American Stepdancer

Palos Park, IL

Sister Rosalia Haberl *

German-American Bobbin 

Lacemaker

Hankinson, ND

John Dee Holeman

African-American Dancer/

Musician/Singer

Durham, NC

Albert “Sunnyland Slim”

Luandrew *

African-American Blues 

Pianist/Singer

Chicago, IL

Yang Fang Nhu

Hmong Weaver/Embroiderer

Detroit, MI

Kenny Sidle

Anglo-American Fiddler

Newark, OH

Willie Mae Ford Smith *

African-American Gospel 

Singer

St. Louis, MO

Clyde “Kindy” Sproat *

Hawaiian Cowboy Singer/

Ukulele Player

Kapa’au, HI

Arthel “Doc” Watson

Appalachian Guitarist/Singer

Deep Gap, NC

*Deceased

Photo by Peter Figen
1989

While NEA National Heritage Fellowships 

were intended to honor individual artists, 

certain genres by nature involve group 

participation. Gospel music is one such 

artistic tradition. The year 1989 marked 

the first year that a group was honored. 

The Fairfield Four, an ensemble of 

members ranging in number from four to 

seven at various times, was recognized. 

First organized in the 1920s this group 

has endured to this day, enjoying a 

resurgence of popularity with recent 

appearances on recordings of popular 

Nashville country artists and in the movie 

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

In 1989, Charles Kuralt, the CBS 

Sunday Morning host, emceed the NEA

National Heritage Fellowships concert. 

Opening the program, he pointed out that 

through the years he had encountered 

many of the previous fellows in his 

journeys “on the road.” Kuralt hosted 

the event for four years until health 

problems prevented further participation.

Richard Hagopian

A r m e n i a n - A m e r i c a n O u d P l a y e r

Richard Hagopian 

was born in 1937 

to Armenian parents in the 

small town of Fowler in the 

central valley of California. 

He showed musical interest 

and talent early, studying 

the violin at age nine and the 

clarinet a year later. At 11, he 

took up the oud, a plucked 

lute that is a direct ancestor 

of the European lute. It is 

the principal instrument of 

the Arab world, and is also 

important in Turkey, Iran, 

Azerbaijan, and Armenia. 

At 13, Hagopian began 

studying the oud with internationally 

renowned Armenian artist Kanuni 

Garbis Bakirgian. He also learned 

the clarinet, dumbeg, and kanoun, 

essential elements in a traditional Near 

Eastern orchestra, and he mastered the 

accompanying musical theory, notation 

techniques, and both the classical and 

folk repertoires. 

Hagopian learned not just 

the music, but the entire tradition, 

questioning his elders about life in 

Armenia, how they celebrated, how they 

worshipped, and what new elements 

had been added in the United States. 

He examined millennia-old liturgical 

music of the Armenia Church to see 

if the modes used there were the 

same as those of the folk music, and 

he learned the dance steps that 

accompanied the tunes. 

Hagopian has released several 

albums of Armenian music, and worked 

hard to keep the cultural traditions of 

his ancestors alive. He was given the title 

“Oudi” in 1969 by the internationally 

famous virtuoso Oudi Hrant, the highest 

honor an oud player can receive.

Photo by Alan Govenar
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Mabel E. Murphy

Q u i l t e r

Mabel Murphy was born in 

1907 in Callaway County, 

the agricultural heartland of Missouri. 

When she was eight years old, she 

pieced her first quilt top—a Four Patch 

pattern, the standard design taught to 

children in those days. From then on, 

Murphy made quilting an integral part 

of her daily life, making more than 100 

quilts, all in the same basic pattern. After 

deciding on the general idea of the quilt 

she wanted to make, she 

selected the design and 

the materials needed, 

then started piecing the 

quilt together. When 

that was completed, 

she would call her 

neighbors and friends 

to help with the lengthy 

job of quilting. Each 

finished quilt is a kind 

of map of the social 

relationships that 

created it, between the 

individual artist and the 

supporting family or 

community.

Murphy taught 

hundreds of women to quilt, and 

opened her home every Thursday 

and Friday morning to quilting circles 

for many years. She never received 

any compensation for her services or 

advice, nor did she ever sell one of her 

completed quilts, instead giving them to 

her children and grandchildren. Each 

received a quilt upon graduation from 

college and two matching quilts upon 

his or her wedding day. The boys in 

the family received a Bow Tie quilt 

when they turned 21, signifying their 

attainment of manhood. In explaining 

her motivations for spending so much of 

her time quilting, Murphy said, “I just 

don’t like to sit and hold my hands.”

1989 

Fellowship 

Winners

John Cephas *

Piedmont Blues Guitarist/

Singer

Woodford, VA

Fairfield Four

African-American Gospel 

Singers

Nashville, TN

José Gutiérrez

Mexican Jarocho Musician/

Singer

Norwalk, CA

Richard Avedis Hagopian

Armenian Oud Player

Visalia, CA

Christy Hengel *

German-American Concertina 

Maker

New Ulm, MN

Vanessa Paukeigope

Jennings

Kiowa Regalia Maker

Anadarko, OK

Ilias Kementzides *

Pontic Greek Lyra Player

Norwalk, CT

Ethel Kvalheim

Norwegian Rosemaler

Stoughton, WI

Mabel E. Murphy *

Anglo-American Quilter

Fulton, MO

LaVaughn E. Robinson *

Tap Dancer

Philadelphia, PA

Earl Scruggs

Bluegrass Banjo Player

Madison, TN

Harry V. Shourds

Wildfowl Decoy Carver

Seaville, NJ

Chesley Goseyun Wilson

Apache Fiddle Maker

Tucson, AZ

*Deceased

Photo by Jerry Baumeister
1990

While 1989 witnessed the first award 

for a group, the award process had 

found no way to honor a community. 

In the early years of the nomination 

process someone had nominated the 

Sodom-Laurel area of Madison County, 

North Carolina, an area at one time rife 

with unaccompanied ballad singers 

in the Anglo tradition. Ballad collector 

Cecil Sharp visited this region over 

eighty-five years ago and described it 

as “a community in which singing was 

as common and almost as universal a 

practice as speaking.” Douglas Wallin, 

whose mother had been documented 

by Sharp, served as a representative of 

this tradition as he received a fellowship 

in 1990.

Natividad Cano

M a r i a c h i M u s i c i a n

Natividad Cano was born in 

1933 in the small village 

of Ahuiscilco, Mexico, in the region 

where the musical tradition known as 

mariachi originated in the 16th and 17th 

centuries using stringed instruments 

brought from Spain. Cano’s family were 

jornaleros (day laborers) who played 

mariachi music in their free time. In 

1939, Cano’s father began teaching 

him to play the vihuela, a small rhythm 

guitar. Two years later, Cano enrolled at 

the Academia de Música in Guadalajara 

to study the violin. After six years at the 

Academia, Cano returned home to help 

support his family by playing with his 

father in local cantinas and cafes.

In 1950, Cano persuaded his father 

to let him travel to the border town of 

Mexicali to join the Mariachi Chapala, 

where he soon became the band’s 

musical arranger. He stayed with 

the band until he emigrated to 

Los Angeles, California. There 

he joined Mariachi Aguila, the 

house ensemble at the famous Million 

Dollar Theatre, a major stopping point 

on the Mexican professional circuit. 

Upon the death of the group’s director, 

Cano became the new leader and 

renamed the band Los Camperos.

After spending several years touring 

the United States, Los Camperos 

opened a restaurant, La Fonda, in 

Los Angeles in 1967 where they have 

performed five nights a week ever since. 

La Fonda soon gained a reputation 

as an important center of Mexican 

culture in Los Angeles. In the 1990s, 

Cano devoted himself to sharing his 

musical knowledge with young people 

and cultivating greater knowledge and 

respect in the general public for the 

music. His collaborations with Linda 

Ronstadt brought even wider 

recognition of traditional 

mariachi music. 

Photo by Tom Pich
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Wallace McRae

C o w b o y P o e t

Wallace McRae is the 

son of a secondgeneration rancher from the 

Rosebud Creek area near Colstrip, 

Montana. Both of his parents 

were born and raised on Rosebud 

Creek, and his family has raised 

sheep and cattle in this region 

since 1885.

McRae was born in 1936 and 

as a youth worked on his family’s 

ranch, spending much of his 

time as a cowboy. He received a 

bachelor’s degree in zoology from 

Montana State University and was 

a naval officer in the Atlantic and 

Mediterranean fleets before taking 

over the operation of the family 

ranch upon the death of his father 

in 1960. 

Growing up in Montana, 

McRae was fascinated by the 

records left by early settlers—

diaries, letters, journals, and a distinctive 

style of poetry that recounted their 

adventures and day-to-day life in their 

settlements. A tradition of public 

recitations arose, featuring narrative 

verse that is known as the “frontier” 

style of poetry and was carried on in the 

oral tradition among working cowboys 

and ranchers. The writings of Robert 

W. Service are often cited as the best 

example of this style.

McRae has written more than 

100 of these frontier-style poems, 

among them the enormously successful 

“Reincarnation,” which has already 

become part of the oral tradition and is 

recited by cowboys around the country 

who have never met the author. He has 

published five books of poetry: Stick 

Horses and Other Stories of Ranch Life, 

It’s Just Grass and Water, Up North 

Is Down the Crick, Things of Intrinsic 

Worth, and Cowboy Curmudgeon. He 

has written not only on humorous and 

romantic topics but on matters of public 

concern as well, such as the need for 

environmental protection. McRae’s 

work preserves the tradition of oral 

narrative poetry and infuses it with 

originality and unforgettable turns of 

language and inspiration. McRae served 

on the NEA’s National Council on the 

Arts from 1996-98.

1990 

Fellowship 

Winners

Howard Armstrong *

African-American String Band 

Musician

Detroit, MI 

Em Bun

Cambodian Silk Weaver

Harrisburg, PA

Natividad Cano

Mexican-American Mariachi 

Musician

Monterey Park, CA

Giuseppe * and Raffaela 

DeFranco

Southern Italian Musicians 

and Dancers

Belleville, NJ

Maude Kegg *

Ojibwe Tradition Bearer

Onamie, MN

Kevin Locke

Lakota Flute Player/Singer/ 

Dancer/Storyteller

Mobridge, SD

Marie McDonald

Hawaiian Lei Maker

Kamuela, HI

Wallace McRae

Cowboy Poet

Forsyth, MT

Art Moilanen *

Finnish Accordionist

Mass City, MI

Emilio Rosado *

Woodcarver

Utuado, PR

Robert Spicer *

Flatfoot Dancer

Dickson, TN

Douglas Wallin *

Appalachian Ballad Singer

Marshall, NC

*Deceased

Photo by Tom Pich
1991

By the tenth anniversary of the NEA

National Heritage Fellowships nearly 

150 artists had received awards, 

representing 37 states and special 

jurisdictions. Two-thirds of the recipients 

were musicians and singers, while onethird represented crafts and other forms 

such as storytelling and dance, reflecting 

roughly the proportions of the pool of 

nominees. The program book pointed 

out: “As we begin the second decade of 

the National Heritage Fellowships, it is 

apparent that the especial responsibility 

of the Folk Arts Program is... to make 

sure that artistry is celebrated across the 

nation but even more plainly recognized 

in the place where it counts—back 

home—thus assuring opportunities for 

senior artists to carry on their essential 

work of nourishing the generations to 

come.”

The January issue of National 

Geographic published a photo-illustrated 

retrospective article on the NEA National 

Heritage Fellowships entitled “Masters 

of Traditional Arts.” Writers Marjorie 

Hunt and Boris Weintraub describe 

these artists as masters who “by 

diligently tending their own traditions and 

passing them along to the succeeding 

generations, have kept the big tree of 

American culture flourishing.”

Don King

W e s t e r n S a d d l e m a k e r

Don King was born in 1923 

in Douglas, Wyoming, on 

the North Platte River about 100 miles 

north of Laramie. His father was a 

cowboy and itinerant ranch hand who 

traveled all over the western United 

States. By the age of 14, King was 

beginning to support himself doing 

odd jobs on ranches and at rodeos, and 

trying to learn to tool leather in his spare 

time. Within a year, he was selling and 

trading belts, wallets, and various small 

gear of his own making. 

After working in saddle shops in 

California, Montana, and Arizona, King 

returned to Wyoming and became an 

apprentice to his friend Rudy Mudra, 

an expert saddlemaker. In 1957, 

King devoted himself full-time to 

saddlemaking and leather tooling, 

focusing primarily on highly ornamental 

trophy saddles, which are given as 

prizes in rodeo competitions. He 

developed his own style of tooling, 

characterized by wild roses with 

a distinctive shape and arranged 

in complex, scroll-like patterns of 

interlocking circles.

King became known for his 

impeccable craftsmanship, 

developing what is 

now known as 

the “Sheridanstyle” saddle, a classic high plains 

roping saddle. King was one of several 

saddlemakers who were responsible for 

the increasing popularity of this saddle.

Over the years, King’s saddles have 

been acquired by working cowboys and 

celebrities such as Queen Elizabeth, 

Ronald Reagan, and the Crown Prince 

of Saudi Arabia. He made trophy 

saddles for virtually every rodeo event. 

His work has been exhibited widely in 

museums, including the Edward-Dean 

Museum of Decorative Arts in Cherry 

Valley, California, and the 

Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame 

in Colorado Springs, 

Colorado. 

Photo by Debbie King

Photo courtesy of Don King
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Riley “B.B.” King

B l u e s G u i t a r i s t a n d S i n g e r

Riley King was born on 

a cotton plantation in 

northwest Mississippi between the 

towns of Indianola and Itta Bena in 

1925. His schooling was sporadic; 

like many other African-American 

children in the rural Mississippi 

Delta region, he worked in 

the fields when he was 

needed. 

King was interested 

in music at an early 

age, singing in local 

churches and learning 

chords on the guitar 

as soon as he was able 

to hold it. His aunt 

had an old Victrola, and 

he listened to the 78 rpm 

recordings of Blind Lemon 

Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Peetie 

Wheatstraw, and Leadbelly, along 

with the recordings of his older cousin, 

Booker “Bukka” White, famous for his 

bottleneck-style guitar playing in which 

the neck of a bottle on the guitarist’s 

finger is used as a slide to bend and slur 

the notes. 

In the early 1940s, King honed his 

guitar and vocal skills, singing in gospel 

groups, and after serving in the U.S. 

Army during World War II he moved 

to Memphis and stayed with White. He 

performed on the radio as the “Beale 

Street Blues Boy,” later shortening it to 

“Blues Boy” before settling on B.B. as 

his moniker. 

In the early 1950s he began 

recording, scoring a hit with his cover 

of “Three O’Clock Blues,” a song 

originally recorded by Lowell Fulson. 

He continued to have hits on the R&B 

charts with songs such as “You Upset 

Me Baby,” “Woke Up This Morning,” 

and “Sweet Little Angel,” recording 

more than 200 songs between 1950 and 

1961. It was during this time that 

he famously named his guitar Lucille 

after a woman who 

1991 

Fellowship 

Winners

Etta Baker *

African-American Guitarist

Morgantown, NC

George Blake

Hupa-Yurok Craftsman

Hoopa, CA

Jack Coen

Irish-American Flautist

Bronx, NY

Rose Frank *

Nez Perce Cornhusk Weaver

Lapwai, ID

Eduardo “Lalo” Guerrero *

Mexican-American Singer/

Guitarist/Composer

Cathedral City, CA

Khamvong Insixiengmai

Laotian Singer

Fresno, CA

Don King *

Western Saddlemaker

Sheridan, WY

Riley “B.B.” King

Blues Guitarist/Singer

Itta Bena, MS/Las Vegas, NV

Esther Littlefield *

Tlingit Regalia Maker

Sitka, AK

Seisho “Harry” Nakasone *

Okinawan-American Musician

Honolulu, HI

Irvan Perez *

Isleno (Canary Islands) Singer

Poydras, LA

Morgan Sexton *

Appalachian Banjo Player/ 

Singer

Linefork, KY

Nikitas Tsimouris *

Greek-American Bagpipe 

Player

Tarpon Springs, FL

Gussie Wells *

African-American Quilter

Oakland, CA

Arbie Williams *

African-American Quilter

Oakland, CA

Melvin Wine *

Appalachian Fiddler

Copen, WV

*Deceased

Photo by Michael P. Smith

started a fight in a bar where he was 

playing. 

In 1969, his recording of the “The 

Thrill is Gone” was a crossover hit, 

appealing to black and white audiences. 

“My audiences had starting mixing 

before that,” King said, “but that really 

pushed it over the top...It was soon after 

that the Rolling Stones invited me to tour 

with them...A lot of people heard me 

on that Rolling Stones tour that hadn’t 

heard of me before.”

Over the last six decades, King has 

been a profound influence on both rock 

and roll and rhythm and blues. Many 

imitate his economical phrasing, precise 

slurred or bent notes, and unique lefthand vibrato. Contemporary electric 

blues guitar solos almost inevitably will 

contain recognizable bent-note licks 

inspired by King.
1992

This year, Ng Sheung-Ch, an immigrant 

from Canton, China, and master of mukyu singing, received a fellowship. This 

improvised form of unaccompanied 

singing comments about everyday life 

and often is performed on the streets or 

in parks in rural villages. At the Heritage 

concert he delivered his two songs, and 

during the second he improvised verses 

that stated how much he appreciated the 

award. The song continued by conveying 

his wish that every government worker 

who had anything to do with the receipt 

of this award would get a significant 

raise. The Washington, DC, audience 

greeted this suggestion with a mixture of 

laughter and spirited applause.

The 1992 NEA National Heritage 

Fellows received a special tour of the 

White House. At the end of visit, they 

encountered President George Bush, 

First Lady Barbara Bush, and their dog, 

Millie, in the hall. The President and First 

Lady stopped and visited with the fellows 

and their families.

In 1992, the Museum of International 

Folk Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 

mounted a touring exhibition entitled 

America’s Living Folk Traditions. This 

retrospective of the first ten years of 

the awards opened in New Mexico and 

toured to eight states: Alaska, Arizona, 

California, Nevada, Pennsylvania, 

South Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin. 

Accompanying the exhibition, Harry N. 

Abrams published a coffee-table size 

book by Steve Siporin entitled American 

Folk Masters: The National Heritage 

Fellows. 

Walker Calhoun

C h e r o k e e M u s i c i a n a n d D a n c e r

Walker Calhoun was born 

about 1915 in the Great 

Smoky Mountains of western North 

Carolina, near the town of Cherokee, on 

the Qualla Boundary Cherokee Indian 

Reservation. For the first 12 years of 

his life, Calhoun heard only Cherokee 

language spoken and sung. When he 

joined the armed forces in World War 

II, he spoke little English but was fluent 

by the end of his tour of duty. 

Calhoun recalled listening to his 

father, who died when he was nine 

years old, playing “Shoo Fly” on a 

factory-made banjo. When Calhoun 

was 13 years old, after listening to 

others play the banjo, he started 

teaching himself to play using his older 

brother’s instrument. Eventually he 

learned some of the songs he heard 

others perform, such as “Cripple 

Creek,” developing a modified threefinger picking style and sometimes 

using a drop-thumb rapping style he 

remembered hearing his father play.

In addition to playing the banjo, 

Calhoun is committed to perpetuating 

Cherokee music and dance. Dances and 

songs celebrated almost every aspect 

of life for Calhoun’s family and his 

Cherokee neighbors. From harvest and 

hunt to spiritual protection, the songs 

validated and strengthened everyday 

living. In the 1980s, Calhoun founded 

the Raven Rock Dancers with his family 

members to keep the traditional dances 

and songs a part of his community’s life. 

Calhoun is widely recognized as a 

keeper of ancient Cherokee traditions, 

and frequently travels to Oklahoma to 

share his knowledge with the western 

Cherokee tribe. He has been presented 

the Sequoyah Award in recognition of 

his contributions to the folklife of the 

Cherokee nation.

1992 National Heritage Fellowships ceremonies, NEA file photo
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John Yoshio Naka B o n s a i S c u l p t o r J ohn Yoshio Naka was born in 

1914 in Ft. Lupton, Colorado, 

 but at eight years old moved with 

his family to Fukuoka, Japan, to care for 

his aging grandfather. While there, he 

learned about bonsai (miniature trees), 

an art form that dates back to as early as 

700 AD in China. The Chinese form, 

penjing, is still in use though there are 

significant differences between the two 

traditions. In the early years in Japan, 

bonsai was the sole property of the 

samurai aristocracy, but by the 1800s it 

had become a widely accepted art form.

Naka returned to the United States 

in 1935 and settled in Wattenberg, 

Colorado, where he worked as a farmer 

with his brother Sadao, then moved to 

Los Angeles in 1946. There he lived 

next door to a disciple of the bonsai 

teacher Sam Takekichi Doi, and under 

Doi’s tutelage he studied all facets of the 

art form.

In the early 1950s, he began 

exhibiting his works to great acclaim and 

lectured widely on bonsai in Japanese 

and English. In 1973, after 14 years of 

preparation, his book Bonsai Techniques

was published, and three years later 

he helped launch the National Bonsai 

Foundation to establish a permanent 

public display of North American 

bonsai at the National Arboretum in Washington, DC. 

Naka published a second book, 

Bonsai Techniques II in 1982, and in 

1985 the emperor of Japan conferred 

upon him that country’s highest award 

given to a noncitizen, The Fifth Class 

Order of the Rising Sun. Throughout 

his life, he continued to teach and 

promote his art. “What I like about 

bonsai is that it has a beginning, but no 

end,” he said. “A bud today becomes 

a branch tomorrow. It’s like searching 

for the rainbow’s end: the farther it is 

pursued, the farther away it is.”

1992 

Fellowship Winners

Francisco Aguabella *

Afro-Cuban Drummer

Manhattan Beach, CA

Jerry Brown

Stoneware Potter

Hamilton, AL

Walker Calhoun

Cherokee Musician/Dancer/ 

Teacher

Cherokee, NC

Clyde Davenport

Appalachian Fiddler

Monticello, KY

Belle Deacon *

Athabascan Basketmaker

Grayling, AK

Nora Ezell *

African-American Quilter

Eutaw, AL

Gerald R. Hawpetoss

Menominee/Potowatomi 

Regalia Maker

Milwaukee, WI

Fatima Kuinova

Bukharan Jewish Singer

Rego Park, NY

John Yoshio Naka *

Bonsai Sculptor

Los Angeles, CA

Ng Sheung-Chi

Chinese Toissan Muk-yu 

Folk Singer

New York, NY

Marc Savoy

Cajun Accordion Maker/ 

Musician

Eunice, LA

Othar Turner *

African-American Fife Player

Senatobia, MS

Tanjore Viswanathan *

South Indian Flute Master

Middletown, CT

*Deceased

Photo courtesy of LA Times

Photo courtesy of John Yoshio Naka
1993

Presenting master crafts artists at the 

NEA National Heritage Fellowships 

programs has always proven to be a 

challenge. While musicians are used 

to the stage and their performances 

play naturally beyond the footlights, 

the master of crafts often works alone 

with neither the need nor often the 

desire for an audience. Skills such 

as needlework, basketweaving, and 

woodcarving are performed on or near 

one’s lap, in dimensions that do not 

carry across a stage. Not so with boats. 

The audience at the Heritage concert 

broke into spontaneous applause as 

Charles Hankins’ 18-foot Sea Bright 

skiff was wheeled onto the stage for his 

presentation at Lisner Auditorium. As 

years went on, the presentation of crafts 

at the ceremonies took more and more 

advantage of video, slides, and mini-cam 

live projection to complement the live 

interviews with the craft artists.

Inez Catalon

C r e o l e S i n g e r

Inez Catalon was born in 1918 in 

Kaplan, Louisiana, the youngest 

of 10 children. “My granddaddy on 

my father’s side was Spanish,” she 

said, “son of a Spanish father and black 

mother, who was a slave. My greatgrandfather had bought him 1,000 

acres of land at 25 cents an acre, and 

he married a woman from France, 

Marcellete Bouquet...My mother’s 

father [a German] married a Broussard. 

So, you see, we are a very culturally 

mixed-up family.”

Catalon began singing at an early 

age, singing along with her mother, 

even though her mother was sometimes 

critical of her. “She would say, ‘Oh 

Lord, you don’t know how to sing. 

Your tongue is too heavy,’” Catalon 

said. “She had a beautiful voice, but I 

told my mother I liked to sing. And I 

liked to hear myself sing, and 

I like the way I sound when I sing, but 

my mother could speak better French 

than I could because she didn’t speak 

English. She was French.”

Catalon learned most of the songs 

with French lyrics that her mother 

knew. In both France and Louisiana 

they are known as cantiques, sometimes 

telling humorous stories or recounting 

tales of love. In addition, Catalon sings 

lullabies, ballads, and historical songs. 

Her artistry epitomizes genuine folk 

song, in which the singer learns the song 

as something inseparable from lifestyle, 

family, and community associations. 

She represents the rich tradition 

of home singing, in sharp contrast 

to Creole zydeco and Cajun dance 

hall music, which until recently was 

performed almost exclusively by men. Photo by Alan Govenar

Inez Catalon with her daughter Mary.
 N ea N ational H erita g e F ello w ships 33

Charles Hankins B o a t b u i l d e r Charles Hankins was born in 

1925 and grew up along the 

New Jersey shore. At an early age, he 

helped his father make Sea Bright skiffs, 

a type of wooden boat well suited for 

the coastal area in which they lived. The 

Sea Bright skiff, first built in the 1830s in 

the area known as Sea Bright, has a flat 

bottom with curved rocker and rounded 

or sheer sides to let it skid over the sand 

and turn easily in the water instead of 

upsetting. 

Hankins’ father established a 

boatbuilding business in 1912, creating 

an identity as a skilled craftsman who 

met the needs of his clientele, whether 

it was a 33-foot skiff for fishermen to 

get out beyond the breaking waves or 

a more versatile 28-foot skiff for the 

rum-runners. The family sometimes 

built pursuit boats for the Coast Guard 

so they were able to chase the rumrunners. The business began supplying 

the Lifeguard Service with skiffs in the 

1920s.

Hankins took over the family 

business after the death of his father and 

brother. Over the years, he made some 

subtle but important changes to the 

skiff’s design to meet the changing needs 

of lifeguards, such as designing a new 

oarlock to replace the more dangerous 

horseshoe prongs of older oarlocks. 

Hankins’ reputation as a boatbuilder was 

considerable, with orders coming from 

as far away as Alaska, South America, 

Europe, and Greenland. He made more 

than a thousand boats since 1945, and 

two Hankins boats (one by him and the 

other by his father) are on permanent 

display at the Mystic Seaport Museum 

in Connecticut.

1993 

Fellowship Winners

Santiago Almeida *

Conjunto Musician

Sunnyside, WA

Kenny Baker *

Bluegrass Fiddler

Cottontown, TN

Inez Catalon *

French Creole Singer

Kaplan, LA

Nicholas * & Elena Charles

Yupik Woodcarvers/ 

Maskmakers/Skinsewers

Bethel, AK

Charles Hankins *

Boatbuilder

Lavallette, NJ

Nalani Kanaka’ole & 

Pualani Kanaka’ole 

Kanahele

Hula Masters

Hilo, HI

Everett Kapayou *

Mesquakie Singer

Tama, IA

McIntosh County Shouters

African-American Spiritual/

Shout Performers

Townsend, GA

Elmer Miller *

Bit & Spur Maker/Silversmith

Nampa, ID

Jack Owens *

Blues Singer/Guitarist

Bentonia, MS

Mone & Vanxay 

Saenphimmachak

Laotian Weavers/ 

Needleworkers/Loommakers

St. Louis, MO

Liang-xing Tang

Chinese-American Pipa (lute) 

Player

Bayside, NY

*Deceased

Photo by Tom Pich
1994

Coming full circle in a sense, in the 

summer of 1994 the Smithsonian 

Festival of American Folklife presented 

a retrospective of the NEA National 

Heritage Fellowships. In the festival 

program book Dan Sheehy, who became 

director of NEA’s Folk & Traditional Arts 

program after Bess Hawes’ retirement, 

described the fellowships as fitting within 

three key concepts: 1) frames––drawing 

attention to the artist, putting a frame 

around the individual; 2) fames––bringing 

the master artist attention and enhancing 

the artist’s role within his or her own 

community; and 3) aims––demonstrating 

for our nation our diverse and democratic 

living cultural heritage.

At the awards banquet Western 

Swing fiddler and longtime studio 

accompanist for Willie Nelson, Johnny 

Gimble, related that when he got the 

call from Dan Sheehy about a $10,000 

fellowship from the government, he 

paused for a moment, caught his breath, 

and in a soft voice asked: “Well, can I

pay it off in installments, or do I have to 

give you a lump sum?”

In 1994 the Great Performances 

series on public television broadcast a 

90-minute program entitled “Songs of Six 

Families” about NEA National Heritage 

Fellows. Featured artists included Cajun 

fiddler Dewey Balfa, Inupiaq elder and 

musician Paul Tiulana, Irish flute player 

Jack Coen, mariachi leader Natividad 

Cano, Mardi Gras costume maker Tootie 

Montana, and bluesman B.B. King.

The Blind Boys of Alabama

G o sp e l S i n g e r s

Clarence Fountain grew up in 

a churchgoing and musical 

family in Selma, Alabama. He lost his 

sight at the age of two, and enrolled in 

the Talladega Institute for the Deaf and 

Blind at eight years old, where he joined 

the boys choir and learned to read music 

in Braille. Inspired by the weekly radio 

broadcasts of the Golden Gate Quartet, 

a popular gospel group at the time, he 

and his friends decided to form their 

own gospel singing group. They began 

singing together as a sextet in 1939, 

calling themselves the Blind Boys. They 

moved to Birmingham and performed 

daily on the radio station WKAX.

The Blind Boys were at the 

forefront of the transition from the 

“jubilee harmony style” of gospel 

singing, a relatively restrained style that 

originated in the 19th century among 

minstrels and black college quartets, to 

the gospel group style, which featured 

a shouting and preaching lead singer, 

usually accompanied by rhythm-andblues-based instrumentation. They 

quickly rose to prominence as premier 

interpreters of this postwar “hard” 

gospel sound, often stirring their 

listeners into states of spiritual ecstasy. 

“You have to feel the spirit deep in 

your gut,” Fountain said, “and you 

have to know how to make someone 

else feel it.”

By the late 1940s, the Blind 

Boys were touring full-time. After 

the accidental death of lead singer 

Velma Trailer in 1947, 

Fountain took over lead 

vocals and leadership of 

the group. Although there 

were pressures to perform 

pop and rock songs, the 

group continued to focus 

on gospel. Fountain said, 

“See, I was head of the 

Blind Boys, I was the lead 

singer. And there was no 

way we were going pop 

or rock. Who needed it? 

Our bellies were full, we 

had no headaches, we 

were happy. At least I was 

happy singing real gospel.”

Over the years, the group 

modernized its sound as needed, 

adding more vocalists, guitarists, 

and a drummer, but essentially they 

continued to play the hard-driving 

traditional gospel sound they have 

always played. Currently, Jimmy 

Carter is the only original member of 

the group, and has taken over lead 

vocals and leadership of the band 

since Fountain’s health has limited his 

participation. 

Photo courtesy of the Blind Boys of Alabama
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Lily Vorperian

M a r a s h - s t y l e E mb r o i d e r e r

Lily Kambourian was born 

in 1919 in Aleppo, Syria, 

three years after her parents had fled 

the Armenian city of Marash. Raised 

in the refugee community of Aleppo, 

she married Haroutioun Vorperian, 

a prominent community leader and 

businessman, in 1937. After the death 

of her husband in 1953, she eventually 

immigrated to the United States in 

1978, settling in southern California 

where more than 300,000 Armenians 

live today.

Vorperian began embroidering at 

the age of 12, learning from the elderly 

Marash women who gathered at her 

house daily to wait for the refugee aid 

her father distributed for a missionary 

organization. Though 

she is familiar with 

18 other regional 

Armenian embroidery 

styles, Vorperian 

said she preferred the 

Marash embroidery 

“because it was the 

hardest.”

Marash embroidery is known for its 

color combinations, 

intricate designs, and 

complex, demanding 

stitching. There are 

three fundamental stitches in Marash 

embroidery: the hartagar or suntousi 

gar and godtgar stitches, which use 

patterns of birds, flowers, trees, leaves, 

or fruits in rich multicolored silk, highly 

twisted mercerized cotton, or gold 

thread; and the heusvadz gar stitch, 

which uses an intricate weaving style 

and geometric patterns, such as crosses, 

circles, and squares. Traditionally, 

Marash embroidery is done on dark 

velvet so that the colors stand out. 

Vorperian incorporated traditional 

designs she recalled from childhood 

in her pieces, as well as adapting the 

Marash stitch to create letters and words 

and unique images of Armenian culture 

and history. She signs each piece with 

a hand-stitched signature in Armenian 

and English letters. 

1994 

Fellowship 

Winners

Liz Carroll

Irish-American Fiddler

Chicago, IL

The Blind Boys of Alabama

African-American Gospel 

Singers

Atlanta, GA

Mary Mitchell Gabriel *

Passamaquoddy Basketmaker

Princeton, ME

Johnny Gimble

Western Swing Fiddler

Dripping Springs, TX

Frances Varos Graves *

Hispanic-American Colcha 

Embroiderer

Ranchos de Taos, NM

Violet Hilbert *

Skagit Storyteller

Seattle, WA

Sosei Shizuye Matsumoto

Japanese Tea Ceremony 

Master

Los Angeles, CA

D.L. Menard

Cajun Musician/Songwriter

Erath, LA

Simon Shaheen

Arab-American Oud Player

Brooklyn, NY

Lily Vorperian

Armenian Marash-Style 

Embroiderer

Glendale, CA

Elder Roma Wilson

African-American Harmonica 

Player

Blue Springs, MS

*Deceased

Photo by Tom Pich
1995

In 1994, in a first for the NEA National 

Heritage Fellowships, First Lady Hillary 

Rodham Clinton went to the historic 

Senate Caucus Room in the Russell 

Senate Office Building to present the 

certificates to the National Heritage 

Fellows. Chairman Jane Alexander 

recalled that after the event the First 

Lady expressed her pleasure with the 

proceedings and off-handedly asked 

“Why can’t we do this at the White 

House?” In another first for the awards, 

the 1995 ceremony was hosted at the 

White House. Previous recipients the 

Blind Boys of Alabama entertained 

prior to the ceremony. The First Lady, 

after pointing out that the East Room 

in which the ceremony was held was 

used by Abigail Adams to hang laundry, 

was the site of raucous parties during 

the administration of Andrew Jackson, 

and housed balls during the Lincoln 

presidency, went on to observe: “But 

I doubt that there have been many 

occasions where more people who 

represent the kind of cultural richness 

that makes America great have been 

gathered together.”

Mary Holiday Black

N a v a j o B a s k e t w e a v e r

Mary Holiday Black 

was born atop the 

Douglas Mesa in 1934, near the 

northern boundary of the Navajo 

reservation in Utah’s Monument 

Valley. A member of the Bitter 

Water Clan, she was raised in a 

community of traditional Navajo 

artists and religious practitioners using 

the Navajo language exclusively. At age 

11, she learned to weave rugs from her 

mother and baskets from a friend of her 

grandmother’s. 

Beginning in the late 19th century, 

Navajo basketweaving went into a 

severe decline, and the tribe became 

accustomed to buying ceremonial 

baskets from their Ute and Paiute 

neighbors. In the 1970s, innovations in 

basket design, fabrication, and use—led 

by women such as Black—sparked a 

renaissance of weaving Navajo baskets.

Black focused her creative work on 

basketweaving, stretching the traditional 

limitations of design by keeping the 

black, white, 

and red color 

scheme but 

expanding 

the baskets 

beyond 

the size 

appropriate 

for ceremonial 

use. Later, Black 

took up the vegetable dyes she learned 

to use from her mother, creating subtle 

hues and shades not possible with 

artificial dyes. She introduced new 

motifs gleaned from prehistoric Anasazi 

and Mimbres pottery and rock art and 

from other tribes of the Southwest. 

She also borrowed imagery from other 

Navajo crafts, especially sand painting 

and rug weaving, incorporating both 

geometric designs and images with 

religious significance. 

In many instances, this pictorial 

style alludes to mythological scenes, 

spiritual figures, legends, and scenes 

from everyday life, leading many to 

label these creations “story baskets.” By 

pushing the parameters of technique, 

aesthetics, and custom, Black has 

led a contemporary revival of Navajo 

basketry. “There are many basket 

stories,” she said. “If we stop making 

the baskets, we lose the stories.”

Photo by Carol Edison

Photo by Carol Edison
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Israel “Cachao” López

A f r o - C u b a n B a ss i s t , C o mp o s e r , a n d B a n d l e a d e r

Israel López was born in 1918 in 

Havana, Cuba, into a family of 

musicians. At least 35 family members 

played the bass, which became López’s 

primary instrument. As a young 

boy, López gained recognition as a 

performer. When he was 13, he joined 

the Havana Philharmonic, where he 

remained as a bass player for 31 years. 

While in his teens, he also became a 

member of the pioneering orchestra 

tipica Arcaño y Sus Maravillas, working 

as a bass player, composer, and 

arranger. His brother Orestes served as 

co-director of the group. 

Through his compositions, López 

introduced several new elements into 

danzón, a Cuban ballroom dance, and 

with his brother Orestes created the 

musical form known as the mambo in 

1937. Gradually, the public accepted 

this general Africanization of Cuban 

music, and Afro-Cuban music emerged. 

In 1957, López again had a 

profound influence on traditional Cuban 

music when he introduced jazz-like 

improvisation into the highly structured 

format of the traditional repertoire. In 

1962, he left Cuba, eventually settling in 

New York City, working with several of 

the leading Latin or salsa bands.

In 1983, he moved to Miami, 

where he decreased his performing to 

only weddings, christenings, and bar 

mitzvahs for several years. In the 1990s, 

he became more active in recording, 

and was featured in a documentary by 

Cuban-American actor Andy Garcia, 

entitled Cachao—como su ritmo no 

hay dos (Cachao—Like His Rhythm 

There Is No Other). The film focused 

primarily on the July 1992 “Cachao 

Mambo & Descarga” concert in 

Miami, but also explored López’s role 

as an innovator in the development 

of Cuban music. The film earned 

positive reviews, especially for the 

music. In 1994, López’s compositions 

and arrangements were featured on 

the first of a multivolume series called 

Master Session, Volume 1, which won a 

Grammy Award.

1995 

Fellowship 

Winners

Bao Mo-Li

Chinese-American Jing Erhu 

Player

Flushing, NY

Mary Holiday Black

Navajo Basketweaver

Mexican Hat, UT

Lyman Enloe *

Old-Time Fiddler

Lees Summit, MO

Donny Golden

Irish-American Stepdancer

Brooklyn, NY

Wayne Henderson

Appalachian Luthier/Musician

Mouth of Wilson, VA

Bea Ellis Hensley

Blacksmith

Spruce Pine, NC

Nathan Jackson

Tlingit Woodcarver/ 

Metalsmith/Dancer

Ketchikan, AK

Danongan Kalanduyan

Filipino-American Kulintang 

Musician

San Francisco, CA

Robert Lockwood, Jr. *

Delta Blues Guitarist/Singer

Cleveland, OH

Israel “Cachao” López *

Afro-Cuban Bassist/Composer/ 

Bandleader

Miami, FL

Nellie Star Boy Menard *

Lakota Sioux Quiltmaker

Rosebud, SD

Buck Ramsey *

Cowboy Poet/Singer

Amarillo, TX

*Deceased

Photo courtesty of Israel López
1996

Occupational traditions, from coopers 

and saddlemakers to boatbuilders 

and blanketweavers, have been 

recognized by the NEA National Heritage 

Fellowships and 1996 was no exception. 

In that year both a blacksmith and a 

pair of railroad work song singers 

were honored. John Henry Mealing 

and Cornelius Wright, Jr. represented 

the disappearing tradition of “gandy 

dancers,” men who worked in groups 

to lay and straighten railroad tracks and 

who used rhythmic singing to coordinate 

their efforts and shorten the day.

NEA National Heritage Fellows 

frequently act as ambassadors for their 

art form and cultural ambassadors 

for our country abroad. Fellows such 

as bluesmen John Cephas, John D. 

Holeman, and John Jackson; Puerto 

Rican musician Juan Gutiérrez; and 

Cajun performer D. L. Menard have 

toured in Africa, Asia, Latin America, 

the Middle East, and Russia as part of 

the Arts America program of the U. S. 

Information Agency. It was perhaps 

fitting, then, that the NEA National 

Heritage Fellowship banquet moved 

in 1996 to the Benjamin Franklin State 

Dining Room at the State Department. 

This venue, filled with magnificent art 

work and historical items—including 

the desk on which Franklin signed the 

Treaty of Paris—was to be the site of the 

Heritage banquet for four years.

Juan Gutiérrez

P u e r t o R i c a n P e r c u ss i o n i s t a n d B a n d l e a d e r

Juan Gutiérrez was born in 1951 in 

Santurce, Puerto Rico, growing up 

 in Caparra Heights, a suburb of San 

Juan. As a boy, he was drawn to the 

Afro-Puerto Rican percussion music 

that surrounded him. His father bought 

him a set of timbales when he was 

seven, and he later went on to 

study Caribbean percussion at 

the Escuela Libra de Música. 

He was first attracted 

to the plena, a popular 

form of Puerto Rican 

urban music—based on 

the interlocking rhythms 

of three or more panderetas

(round-frame drums)—that 

alternates a group refrain with 

solo quatrains. Gutiérrez moved to 

New York City to continue his studies, 

working with the legendary plenero

Marcial Reyes Avelo, who introduced 

him to other master pleneros in the city. 

Later, Gutiérrez focused his attention on 

the bomba, a style featuring underlying 

drum patterns over which a lead drum 

“converses” with improvised solo 

dancing, a declamatory vocal style, and 

sometimes spiritual overtones. 

As Gutiérrez’s involvement with 

music grew, so did his vision of what 

could be done through music for the 

benefit of his community. In 1983, 

he and Reyes formed the ensemble 

Los Pleneros de la 21, named after a 

neighborhood in Santurce famed for its 

pleneros. The group has become one 

of the most celebrated of New York’s 

traditional music ensembles. Under 

Gutiérrez’s guidance, it has performed 

regularly in urban 

public schools for over a decade. 

“When I demonstrate bomba and plena

music in the schools,” he said, “I ask 

the students to reach out and take our 

traditions in.” 

Los Pleneros de la 21 has 

performed throughout the United States 

and has toured abroad to Puerto Rico 

and Russia, making Gutiérrez’s vision 

a reality by promoting the recognition, 

celebration, and practice of Afro-Puerto 

Rican music and dance.

Photo by Tom Pich
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Joaquin “Jack” Lujan

G u a m a n i a n C h a m o r r o B l a c k sm i t h

Joaquin Lujan, nicknamed Jack, was 

born in 1920 in Guam and learned 

 his forging techniques from his 

father, the only child in his family to 

learn these skills. He mastered the 

graceful lines and fine finishes of the 

short Guamanian machete with inlaid 

buffalo horn or imported Philippine 

hardwood handles. 

“We were basically a farming 

community, and the people needed 

tools to aid them during work,” Lujan 

said. “There was always a great demand 

for basic tools such as machetes, fosinos

(hoes), and kamyos (coconut graters).” 

Lujan is one of the sole surviving 

links to Guam’s blacksmithing past, 

an aspect of the island’s Chamorro 

culture that combines Spanish 

colonial and local influences. 

The time-consuming work 

and diminishing economic 

incentives to produce handforged tools discouraged 

others from taking it up as a 

profession. 

Lujan himself made a 

living as a welder and didn’t 

resume blacksmithing until 

he retired. To demonstrate 

the beauty of Guam’s culture, he would 

hold demonstrations of his blacksmithing at schools, festivals, and other 

public events. In 1985, he took on three 

apprentices, all members of the Guam 

Fire Department who had developed 

a passion for Lujan’s art after seeing 

him at a demonstration. “Without Jack 

here guiding us,” said apprentice Frank 

Lizama, “this art would have died. 

Hopefully, we’ll continue to move on. 

The more we make, the more we want 

to do.”

Lujan received the annual 

Governor’s Art Award on numerous 

occasions and the Governor’s Lifetime 

Cultural Achievement Award in 1996 

for his work. 

1996

Fellowship 

Winners

Obo Addy

Ghanian-American Drummer

Portland, OR

Betty Pisio Christenson

Ukranian-American Egg 

Decoration

Suring, WI

Paul Dahlin

Swedish-American Fiddler

Minneapolis, MN

Juan Gutiérrez

Puerto Rican Drummer

New York, NY

Solomon * & Richard 

Ho’opi’i

Hawaiian Falsetto Singers/

Musicians

Pukalani and Wailuku, HI

Will Keys *

Appalachian Banjo Player

Gray, TN

Joaquin “Jack” Lujan

Chamorro Blacksmith

Barrigada, GU

Eva McAdams

Shoshone Regalia Maker

Fort Washakie, WY

John Mealing * & 

Cornelius Wright, Jr. *

African-American Railroad 

Work Song Singers

Birmingham, AL

Vernon Owens

Stoneware Potter

Seagrove, NC

Dolly Spencer *

Inupiat Dollmaker

Homer, AK

*Deceased

Photo courtesy of Joaquin Lujan
1997

Popular artists Bonnie Raitt and Herbie 

Hancock witnessed the awarding of 

the NEA National Heritage Fellowships 

at the White House in 1997. Prior to 

the ceremony the walls of the historic 

Gold Room rocked with the sounds 

of recipient Edward Babb and the 

McCullough Sons of Thunder, a “shout 

gospel” band from Harlem’s United 

House of Prayer, featuring a trombone 

chorus accompanied by drum and 

cymbal. The First Lady commented after 

the performance: “I believe we have set 

a new record, unlikely ever to be broken, 

for the number of trombones in the White 

House at one time.”

Persistence and determination 

are themes that run through the 

biographies of NEA National Heritage 

Fellows. Francis Whitaker, a 90-year-old 

blacksmith when he received the award, 

had been given worldwide recognition 

for his artwork, but he referred to the 

fellowship as “the diamond in the 

crown.” He often illustrated his belief in 

finishing a job by presenting his students 

with this dilemma: “Say you’re doing a 

forge weld and you take it out and put it 

on the anvil. You hit a couple of licks and 

a piece of molten steel gets between 

your thumb and your hammer handle. Do 

you drop the hammer or do you finish the 

forge weld?” Two years after the award 

ceremony, as he lay in the hospital, he 

asked friends to bring him his hammer so 

that he could fulfill his lifelong wish to die 

with his hammer in his hand. 

Ali Akbar Khan

S a r o d P l a y e r a n d R a g a C o mp o s e r

Ali Akbar Khan, 

properly known 

as Khansahib, was born in 

1922 in Shivpur, Bangladesh, 

son to one of the Indian 

subcontinent’s greatest 

musicians, Allaudin Khan. 

Khan’s family traces its 

ancestry to Mian Tansen, a 

16th-century musician for the 

emperor Akbar.

Khan began his musical 

training at the age of three, 

studying under his father, 

who also taught other 

celebrated Indian artists 

such as sitarist Ravi Shankar and flutist 

Pannallal Ghosh. Khan first learned 

vocal music, then studied drums with 

his uncle before taking up the sarod, a 

25-string lute-like instrument. Melodies 

are played on the primary 10 strings 

with a coconut shell plectrum, while the 

remaining 15 strings create a droning 

accompaniment. The sarod has two 

resonating chambers that produce 

contrasting types of sounds. 

Over the course of 20 years, Khan 

learned more than 75,000 ragas from 

his father. Ragas are the melodic motifs 

that form the basis of Indian music, 

keyed to a particular time of day or year. 

A primary component of disciplined 

improvisation, the musician must learn 

the techniques to improvise from them. 

Like most Eastern musical traditions, 

Indian music is intimately connected 

with religious meditation and spiritual 

healing. 

Khan gave his first public performance when he was 14, and in his early 

twenties became the court musician 

for the Maharaja of Jodhpur. He soon 

acquired the title “Ustad,” the Persian 

word meaning “master musician.”

He first visited the United States 

in 1955 at the request of the classical 

musician Yehudi Menuhin and 

settled in California in the 1960s with 

his family. In 1967, inspired by the 

increasing interest in Indian music by 

American students, he founded the Ali 

Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, 

California. Through the college, more 

than 7,000 American devotees have 

seriously pursued North Indian music. 

“If you practice for 10 years, you may 

please yourself,” Khan said. “After 20 

years, you may become a performer and 

please your audience. After 30 years, 

you may please even your guru. But 

you must practice for many more years 

before you finally become a true artist—

then you may please even God.”

Photo by Kamal Bakshi
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Hystercine Rankin

A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n Q u i l t e r

Hystercine Rankin was 

born on a farm in the Blue 

Hill community of Jefferson County, 

Mississippi, in 1929. “My daddy was a 

sharecropper who raised cotton, corn, 

anything else that we could grow that 

we could eat,” she said. “My father 

was killed in 1939. He was 33 years 

old. A white man shot him down in the 

highway and left him. No reason was 

ever given. So, we had to move to my 

grandmother’s on my mother’s side—

Alice Whelman.”

When Rankin was 12 years old, her 

grandmother told her that her playing 

days were over and began teaching 

her to quilt to provide cover for her 10 

siblings. “When you had 11 kids, that 

was a lot of covers,” Rankin said. 

By the time she married Ezekiel 

Rankin in her late teens, her mother had 

died, leaving her seven siblings to raise. 

In addition to them, Rankin had seven 

children of her own. After working in 

the fields all day with her husband, 

she would create quilts in the evening, 

maintaining the family tradition of giving 

each child a quilt when he or she left 

home.

In 1981, Rankin was invited to be a 

resident artist at the junior high school in 

her hometown of Lorman, Mississippi, 

opening her eyes for the first time to 

the artistic dimensions of her work. 

She began selling the quilts with the 

assistance of Mississippi 

Cultural Crossroads, an 

arts organization. 

Teaching and 

exhibiting her work 

heightened Rankin’s 

creative sense, and she 

began creating “memory 

quilts” that portrayed 

recollections such as 

picking cotton, plowing 

with a mule, and her 

father’s murder. For this 

last one, the stitched 

narrative reads, “I will 

never forget that morning. 

He sent me to the spring...

as I went to dip the water, 

I heard the four shots that 

killed my father.” In 1988, 

Rankin became the master quilter

 and teacher at Mississippi Cultural 

Crossroads, and exhibited her 

work throughout the South. 

1997

Fellowship 

Winners

Edward Babb

Shout Gospel Trombonist/

Band Leader

Jamaica, NY

Charles Brown *

Blues Pianist/Composer

Berkeley, CA

Gladys LeBlanc Clark

Cajun Spinner/Weaver

Duson, LA

Georgia Harris *

Catawba Potter

Atlanta, GA

Wen-yi Hua

Chinese Kunqu Opera Singer

Arcadia, CA

Ali Akbar Khan *

Sarod Player/Raga Composer

San Anselmo, CA

Ramón José López

Santero/Metalsmith

Santa Fe, NM

Jim * & Jesse McReynolds

Bluegrass Musicians

Gallatin, TN

Phong Nguyen

Vietnamese Musician/Scholar

Kent, OH

Hystercine Rankin *

African-American Quilter

Lorman, MS

Francis Whitaker *

Blacksmith/Ornamental 

Ironworker

Carbondale, CO

*Deceased Photo by Roland Freeman
The United States is a nation largely 

populated by immigrants, a nation of 

nations. Today, one in five residents 

was either born in another country 

or is a first-generation American. 

Throughout our history, we have 

benefited from the fact that when 

people come to our shores they carry 

more than their baggage with them. 

New arrivals bring ways of knowing, 

ways of doing, and ways of being, 

including highly refined and timetested artistic traditions. The NEA

National Heritage Fellowships have 

always recognized the importance 

and the excellence of first-generation 

Americans. In 1998 the list of recipients 

reflects that heritage: the members 

of the Apsara Ensemble, a music and 

dance group, were born in Cambodia; 

Nadjeschda Overgaard, 

a needleworker from Iowa, was 

born in Siberia to Danish parents; 

and Harilaos Papapostolou was 

born in Agrinion, Greece. Mrs. 

Overgaard explained her feelings 

about maintaining the traditions of her 

heritage by saying: “We certainly were 

American, but I treasure my Danish 

heritage... I was brought 

up Danish and I’m not satisfied with 

a substitute.”

Epstein Brothers

K l e zm e r M u s i c i a n s

The Epstein brothers—Max, 

William, Julius, and Isidore 

“Chi”—were raised on Manhattan’s 

Lower East Side and in Brooklyn. Max 

began playing violin for silent movies 

at the age of 12, and soon learned the 

saxophone and clarinet that he played in 

Rumanian and Russian Jewish cabarets. 

There, through the older immigrant 

musicians, he broadened his repertoire 

to include the traditions of previous 

generations of klezmorim (professional 

musicians) from Eastern Europe. Chi 

played saxophone and 

clarinet as well, helping 

to interest the other 

brothers in the music. 

William began working 

with prominent Jewish 

dance and theater 

orchestras, becoming 

a leading Yiddish 

trumpeter, and Julius 

began accompanying 

Max at the age of 

17, quickly earning 

a reputation as the 

leading drummer in 

Jewish music. 

“We learned to play from people 

who came from all over Europe—

Hungary, Romania, Germany—

wherever they were from, we learned 

the music of their land,” Julius said. 

“Gypsies had a huge influence on 

music because they traveled throughout 

Europe, bringing the music with them to 

each new location.”

The Epstein brothers began 

playing together as an act in the late 

1940s, performing traditional music 

for the Hasidic community, which 

had expanded through immigration 

in the wake of the Holocaust. The 

brothers toured throughout New 

Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, 

Massachusetts, and Michigan, as well as 

Canada, primarily playing for the Jewish 

communities although their music 

was also popular for Greek and Italian 

wedding parties.

The brothers recorded albums of 

Hasidic music for the Tikva and Menora 

labels and played on sessions for other 

bandleaders. Because they could read 

music, the brothers were not limited to 

playing traditional Jewish music and 

also played popular and jazz styles of 

dance music.

In the 1960s, the brothers oneby-one moved down to Florida, and 

once they were all there, resumed their 

klezmer group. At present, Julius is the 

only surviving brother. 

1998

Photo courtesy of Epstein Brothers
1998

Fellowship

Winners

Apsara Ensemble

Cambodian Dancers 

and Musicians

Reston, VA & Fort 

Washington, MD

Eddie Blazonczyk

Polish-American Polka 

Musician/Bandleader

Bridgeview, IL

Dale Calhoun *

Boatbuilder

Tiptonville, TN

Bruce Caesar

Sac and Fox-Pawnee 

Silversmith

Anadarko, OK

Antonio De La Rosa *

Tejano Conjunto Accordionist

Riviera, TX

Epstein Brothers

Klezmer Musicians

Tamarac, FL

Sophia George

Yakama-Colville Beadworker

Gresham, OR

Nadjeschda Overgaard *

Danish-American Hardanger 

Embroiderer

Kimballton, IA

Harilaos Papapostolou *

Greek Byzantine Chanter

Potomac, MD

Roebuck “Pops” Staples *

Gospel/Blues Musician

Dolton, IL

Claude “The Fiddler” 

Williams *

Jazz/Swing Fiddler

Kansas City, MO

*Deceased

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Roebuck “Pops” Staples was 

born in Winona, Mississippi, 

in 1914, growing up on the same 

plantation as bluesman Charley Patton. 

Staples drew from both the gospel and 

blues traditions to forge a sound that 

transcends their stylistic divide. Though 

he admired and was influenced by 

bluesmen such as Muddy Waters and 

Big Bill Broonzy, Staples developed 

a guitar style to accompany religious 

music and sang with a local gospel 

group, the Golden Trumpets. 

In 1936, he moved to Chicago, 

Illinois, with his wife, working day jobs 

in meatpacking, steel, and construction 

while continuing his work in gospel 

music. In 1948, he formed the Staple 

Singers with daughters Cleotha and 

Mavis and son Pervis. The group’s 

first gigs on the road took them to New 

Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi, and 

in 1953 they began recording. Staples 

kept his day job until Mavis graduated 

from high school, and then began to 

pursue music full-time. The group 

perfected their distinctive sound of vocal 

harmonies intertwined with Staples’ 

guitar and became known as the “the 

First Family of Gospel.”

As the Civil Rights movement 

gained momentum, the Staple Singers 

became good friends with Dr. Martin 

Luther King, Jr. and his family, and 

expanded their repertoire to include 

songs reflecting social change and the 

civil rights struggle. The group began 

to achieve commercial success in the 

1970s with the funk-inspired “Respect 

Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There” 

featuring Mavis’ singing and Pops’ 

reverb-drenched guitar.

In the 1990s, Staples began a solo 

career, releasing two well-respected 

albums, Peace in the Neighborhood

(1992) and Father Father (1994), which 

won a Grammy Award. Besides his own 

and traditional songs, he reinterpreted 

works by contemporary composers 

(as he did with the Staple Singers, 

who covered songs by Stephen Stills 

and Talking Heads) such as Jackson 

Browne, Bob Dylan, and Los Lobos, 

mixing the gospel and blues into an 

inviting stew. “I don’t consider myself 

a blues singer,” he said, “I try to carry a 

message of good news to everybody. I’m 

not a bluesman, I’m a message-man.”

In addition to his music, Staples 

also appeared in movies in the 1980s 

and 1990s, including a significant role 

in David Byrne’s True Stories (1986), 

in which he performed a Talking Heads 

song, and a cameo in Barry Levinson’s 

Wag the Dog (1998). 

Photo courtesy of AfricanAmerican Museum of Dallas

Roebuck “Pops” Staples

G o sp e l / B l u e s G u i t a r i s t

a n d S i n g e r
It is sometimes easy to forget how 

important an award such as the 

NEA National Heritage Fellowships 

can be to source communities from 

which the traditions have sprung up. 

The pan or steel drum has a pretty 

clear link to the Caribbean islands 

of Trinidad and Tobago. Only half a 

century old, the instruments resulted 

from a British colonial government ban 

on the use of drums with skinheads 

for fear of social unrest. Citizens 

responded by fashioning instruments 

out of paint cans, biscuit tins, and, 

later, lids of oil drums. Ellie Mannette, 

a steel drum builder and player, who 

settled in West Virginia to teach, was 

honored for his contribution to this 

tradition. The award was important 

enough to the residents of Trinidad 

and Tobago that they broadcast the 

ceremonies live back to the islands.

1999 Mary Louise Defender Wilson

D a k o t a h - H i d a t s a S t o r y t e l l e r

Mary Louise Defender 

Wilson was born in 1930 

on the Standing Rock (Sioux) Indian 

Reservation near Shields, North Dakota, 

where she still lives. She is primarily 

Dakotah Sioux, though a grandmother 

was Hidatsa. Defender Wilson was born 

into a family of storytellers. The first 

story she remembers hearing was the 

tale of how the Dakotah cultural hero 

Stone Boy was tricked out of his fancy 

clothes by Unktomi (Spider Man), a 

trickster figure. By the time she was 

in fifth grade, she was telling stories to 

her classmates. “Sometimes I got off 

the beaten path, but everyone laughed, 

especially at the Spider Man stories,” 

she recalled. 

Defender Wilson held 

administrative jobs with Indian-related 

government agencies, but was struggling 

with the issue of her identity. In 1976, 

she returned to the reservation, having 

realized that forcing herself to assimilate 

into white culture would be a form of 

suicide. For several years in the 1980s, 

she taught tribal culture and language at 

Fort Yates Community College.

She has taught Dakotah 

storytelling through the North Dakota 

Council on the Arts Traditional Arts 

Apprenticeship Program, and educates 

teachers in Dakotah-Hidatsa storytelling 

and culture. The stories taught that 

people came to earth in animal form 

and had a lot to learn in order to live 

in harmony with others. Many stories 

also related to the land. She also has 

produced a radio program to teach the 

Sioux language and to promote the 

value of traditional knowledge. 

“The entire life I’ve come through 

so far with our stories has helped 

me relate to, communicate with, and 

respect other people because I relate to, 

communicate with, and respect my own 

culture,” she said. 

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1999

Fellowship

Winners

Frisner Augustin

Haitian Drummer

Brooklyn, NY

Lila Greengrass Blackdeer

Hocak Black Ash Basketmaker/

Needleworker

Black River Falls, WI

Shirley Caesar

Gospel Singer

Durham, NC

Alfredo Campos 

Horse-Hair Hitcher 

Federal Way, WA

Mary Louise Defender Wilson

Dakotah-Hidatsa Traditionalist/

Storyteller

Shields, ND

James “Jimmy Slyde” 

Godbolt *

Tap Dancer 

Hanson, MA

Ulysses “Uly” Goode *

Western Mono Basketmaker

North Fork, CA

Bob Holt *

Ozark Fiddler

Ava, MO

Zakir Hussain 

North Indian Tabla Drummer 

San Anselmo, CA

Elliott “Ellie” Mannette 

Trinidadian Steel Pan Builder/

Tuner/Player

Morgantown, WV

Mick Moloney 

Irish Musician 

Philadelphia, PA

Eudokia Sorochaniuk 

Ukrainian Weaver/Textile Artist

Pennsauken, NJ

Ralph W. Stanley 

Boatbuilder

Southwest Harbor, ME

*Deceased

James Godbolt was born in 1927 in 

Atlanta, Georgia, but his family 

 moved to Boston, Massachusetts, 

when he was young. His mother 

enrolled him in violin classes. “My 

mother always wanted me to play the 

violin,” he said. “At 10 years old, the 

violin was my first introduction to music 

and the arts, and I was doing very well 

with it. But I just got so I wanted to be a 

dancer.”

Godbolt would go from his 

music school across the street to Stanley 

Brown’s dance studio, where he watched 

tap dancers practice, including such 

prominent artists as Bill “Bojangles” 

Robinson, Honey Coles, and Derby 

Wilson. When he was 12 years old, 

Godbolt began studying with Stanley 

Brown. There he met Jimmy Mitchell, 

who went by the name “Sir Slyde.” 

The two developed an act called the 

Slyde Brothers and began appearing 

on the club and burlesque circuit in New 

England. Godbolt took the stage 

name “Jimmy Slyde.” 

As their reputation grew, they 

received invitations to perform in the 

shows the big bands were developing, 

and they appeared with such greats as 

Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Louis 

Armstrong. “When I was dancing with 

the bands, people loved it,” Godbolt 

said. “During a song, I would tap about 

three choruses, and then the band 

would come back in, and I’d do another 

two and a half, three choruses. Then I’d 

close it up and whip it out.”

In the 1950s, Godbolt appeared in 

several films and television programs, 

and when work in the United States 

waned in the 1970s, he moved to 

Europe. He taught and performed 

in Paris for several years, becoming a 

featured performer in the show Black 

and Blue, which opened on Broadway 

in 1989. This led to a career revival and 

a Tony nomination. He appeared in 

the movies Tap, Round Midnight, and 

The Cotton Club and opened the 1996 

Jacob’s Pillow Summer Dance Festival 

with a group called Jimmy Slyde and 

Friends. He also served as mentor to 

new artists by hosting weekly sessions at 

the La Cave club in New York City. 

James “Jimmy Slyde” Godbolt

T a p D a n c e r

Photo by Tom Pich
The year 2000 saw the introduction of 

the Bess Lomax Hawes Fellowship. 

This addition, a tribute to the former 

director of the Folk Arts Program and 

initiator of the fellowship program, 

was seen as a vehicle to honor 

“keepers of tradition.” This included 

those who, through their efforts 

as conservers of tradition, cultural 

advocates, teachers of artistic skills, 

or caretakers of unique knowledge or 

artistic repertoires, have had a major 

impact on the traditional arts in the 

United States. Chris Strachwitz, record 

producer and cultural advocate, 

received the first of these awards.

With a mounting sense that the 

documentary materials accumulated 

through the history of the NEA

National Heritage Fellowship program 

were becoming an important and 

rapidly growing historical and cultural 

asset, working with Documentary Arts 

of Dallas, Texas, and the American 

Folklife Center of the Library of 

Congress, efforts were initiated to 

conserve the materials, documents, 

recordings, and photographs related 

to the program. It was agreed that 

the American Folklife Center would 

become the primary public repository 

for these materials. Documentary 

Arts began a process of digitizing and 

restoring archival documentation. 

Reflecting the developing 

partnership between the NEA and the 

American Folklife Center, for the first 

time the banquet associated with the 

Heritage ceremonies was held in the 

beautiful and historically significant 

Great Hall of the Library of Congress.

2000 Konstantinos Pilarinos

O r t h o d o x B y z a n t i n e I c o n W o o d c a r v e r

Konstantinos Pilarinos was 

born in the Greek province 

of Nafpaktos in 1940. Orphaned at the 

age of 13, he was sent to the Zannion 

Orphanage in Piraeus, where he was 

apprenticed to the master wood carvers 

George Kaloudis and Nick Patsakis. 

By 16, he had won first place in an 

orphanage woodcarving competition, 

and by 18 had established his own 

workshop.

In 1974, Pilarinos immigrated to 

New York City. At his workshop in 

Astoria, Queens, called the Byzantion 

Woodworking Company, he and his 

apprentices carve icon screens, bishops’ 

thrones, pulpits, chanters’ pews, and 

candle stands for Greek Orthodox 

churches throughout the United States 

and Canada. To his knowledge, he 

is the only traditional Byzantine-style 

wood carver in North America, and he 

estimates that there are only 10 such 

artists still in Greece. 

All of his work is done by hand 

with an array of chisels. He has made 

more than 60 iconostasia, intricately 

carved icon screens that separate the 

congregation from the altar. The screens 

are usually 8 to 13 feet high and 32 to 56 

feet long, and each holds several iconic 

paintings. He has also made epitaphios, 

a portable structure representing the 

funeral bier of Jesus, which is carried 

in a procession through the streets on 

Good Friday.

Pilarinos is passing on the tradition 

to his daughter Penny, who graduated 

from the architecture program at the 

New York Institute of Technology and 

who does preliminary drawings for her 

father’s carvings. Secular venues such 

as the Museum of American Folk Art in 

Manhattan have exhibited his work. “I 

like people to see my work,” Pilarinos 

said. “I enjoy contributing to the Greek 

community.”

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Don Walser

W e s t e r n G u i t a r i s t a n d S i n g e r

Don Walser was born in 

1934 in the small Texas 

Panhandle town of Brownfield, and 

grew up in nearby Lamesa. He listened 

to the music of the West Texas plains on 

the radio and watched the early cowboy 

crooners at the movie theater. “I had 

the old radio to keep me company—I 

listened to all the good old music they 

had back then,” he said. 

Walser began singing and teaching 

himself to play guitar as a boy. “When 

I was just a kid, I could hear a song one 

time and know it. It would be just like 

a record playing in my head.” At the 

age of 15, he lied about his age to join 

the National Guard, and married at 17. 

He stayed in the West Texas area and 

worked as a mechanic, superintendent, 

and auditor while playing the clubs at 

night. In 1984, he transferred to Austin. 

In 1994, he retired and put 

together his Pure Texas Band to play 

music full-time. After the release of his 

album Rolling Stone from Texas, the 

press labeled him the “Pavarotti of the 

Plains” due to his powerful tenor voice 

and unparalleled yodeling ability. He 

continued recording critically acclaimed 

albums and was featured on such 

programs as PBS’s Austin City Limits, 

ABC’s PrimeTime Live, and National 

Public Radio’s Fresh Air and All Things 

Considered. He even appeared and 

recorded with the avant-garde string 

quartet Kronos Quartet. 

Walser won a wide range of fans, 

from traditional country aficionados 

to young people. “I’d like to get some 

money, don’t get me wrong,” he said. 

“But my motivation for this is to spread 

that old music. I’m just trying to do my 

part to keep it alive.”

2000

Fellowship

Winners

Bounxou Chanthraphone

Laotian Weaver/Embroiderer

Brooklyn Park, MN

Dixie Hummingbirds

African-American Gospel 

Quartet

Philadelphia, PA

Felipe García Villamil

Afro-Cuban Drummer/Santero

Los Angeles, CA

José González

Hammock Weaver

San Sebastián, PR

Nettie Jackson

Klickitat Basketmaker

White Swan, WA

Santiago Jiménez, Jr.

Tejano Accordionist/Singer

San Antonio, TX

Genoa Keawe *

Hawaiian Falsetto Singer/

Ukulele Player

Honolulu, HI

Frankie Manning *

Lindy Hop Dancer/ 

Choreographer/Teacher

Corona, NY

Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins *

Blues Piano Player

La Porte, IN

Konstantinos Pilarinos

Orthodox Byzantine Icon 

Woodcarver

Astoria, NY

Chris Strachwitz 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Record Producer/Label Founder

El Cerrito, CA

B. Dorothy Thompson *

Appalachian Weaver

Davis, WV

Don Walser *

Western Singer/Guitarist

Austin, TX

*Deceased

Photo courtesy of Don Walser
Scheduled the week after September 

11th, the 2001 NEA National Heritage 

Fellowship ceremonies seemed to 

take on an even greater meaning than 

usual for all involved. Artists and their 

families were faced with difficult travel 

conditions and concerns for personal 

safety, organizers encountered 

uncertainty and logistical difficulties, 

and the public was experiencing a 

time of mourning and a search for 

reaffirmation. There was a discussion 

about whether to cancel the event. 

Finally, the spirit and determination 

of the artists gave everyone else the 

courage and confidence to proceed.

The evening of the concert 

on September 21st opened with a 

moment of silence. That was followed 

by a solemn cleansing ceremony 

conducted by taiko drum master 

Seiichi Tanaka, using flute and bell. 

A group of Brazilian and American 

capoeira masters led by recipient João 

Grande processed through the aisles 

of the auditorium chanting and playing 

the one-string berimbau. As they 

moved through the hall to the wings of 

the stage, the curtain opened to reveal 

Master Tanaka, who launched into the 

spirited ritual drumming of taiko.

Following this prelude, the 

recipients were introduced to a 

rousing standing ovation. Those in 

the auditorium commented that it 

suddenly felt as if one could feel 

good about feeling good again. Little 

else was said about the events of the 

preceding week, but the audience 

applauded warmly when guitarist 

Eddie Pennington included God Bless 

America in his medley of tunes.

2001

Hazel Dickens was born in 

Mercer City, West Virginia, 

in 1935 into a family of 11 children. She 

was raised in and around coal camps: 

her father hauled timber into the mines, 

and her brothers labored long hours as 

miners. Growing up, she was deeply 

affected by the 

harsh conditions 

in which her family 

lived and worked, 

with two members 

of her family dying 

from black lung 

disease.

Dickens 

learned to sing 

as a child in the 

unaccompanied 

style of the 

primitive Baptist 

church. Her father 

played banjo and 

was a Baptist 

preacher on 

weekends. Dickens 

quit school and moved to Baltimore as a 

teen, living with relatives and working in 

a factory. She eventually earned enough 

money to buy a guitar, and began to 

integrate elements of traditional country, 

bluegrass, and old-time music into her 

singing repertoire, performing at house 

parties and small clubs and bars.

In the 1960s, Dickens teamed up 

with another singer, Alice Gerrard, 

forming the duo Hazel and Alice. They 

recorded their first of four albums 

in 1965, bringing a strong feminist 

viewpoint to the traditional music. In 

the mid-1970s, Dickens pursued a solo 

career, where she acted as an advocate 

for the plight of coal miners. She 

performed at national conventions of the 

United Mine Workers Association and 

benefit concerts for those who struggle 

for fair wages and human rights. Her 

distinctive sound brought together the 

unadorned style of Baptist hymns she 

learned growing up with the socially 

conscious songwriting abilities of 

Woody Guthrie and the singing skills of 

Kitty Wells. 

Her music appeared on the 

soundtracks to the documentary Harlan 

County, U.S.A. and the movies Matewan 

and Songcatcher (she also briefly 

appeared in both movies). “Even though 

stuff was collected years and years ago,” 

she said, “I think a lot of people are just 

becoming aware of how valuable and 

precious this music is.”

Hazel Dickens

A pp a l a c h i a n S i n g e r a n d S o n g w r i t e r

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Dorothy 

Trumpold 

was born in 1912 in East 

Amana, Iowa, a Germanic 

community where she has 

lived her entire life. The 

Amana Colonies, made 

up of seven villages on 

26,000 acres of farmland, 

was founded by a Lutheran 

sect in 1714 and based on 

the belief that God may 

communicate through an 

inspired individual. As a 

girl, she learned knitting, crocheting, 

and embroidery. She spent time with 

her grandfather, observing him at his 

loom and helping him prepare shuttles 

for carpet weaving. By the time she was 

12, she had learned to make her own 

clothes.

At 14, Trumpold graduated 

from school and began working 

in the community kitchens of the 

Amana Colonies. She learned to make 

crocheted, braided, and hooked rugs. 

In 1932, she went to work in the 

spinning and weaving departments of 

one of the woolen mills that served all 

seven villages. “You usually made it in 

a hit-and-miss pattern.” she said. “You 

couldn’t buy a specific color—you had 

to buy whatever materials they were 

making then and put in sacks. You 

just bought it by the sack. It’s called 

hit-and-miss pattern because there’s 

always a little bit of each color left that 

maybe wasn’t enough to start anything 

else. You always sewed them in to get a 

mixed-up pattern. I made a lot of those.”

In 1940, she took over carpet 

weaving from her ailing grandfather. 

She began making throw rugs, and then 

for years made full-sized room carpets 

before returning to the throw rugs. She 

was one of the few practicing artists 

who lived through the dissolution of the 

Amana communal life in 1932, known 

as “the Great Change.”

In 1985, she served as a 

master artist in the Iowa Folk Arts 

Apprenticeship Program, and for the 

last few years she has been teaching a 

young local girl to weave rugs. She was 

a featured artist in the Iowa portion of 

the 1996 Festival of American Folklife 

and in 2001 her work was shown in an 

Iowa artists exhibit at the Des Moines 

Art Center. 

2001

Fellowship

Winners

Celestino Avilés

Santero

Orocovis, PR

Mozell Benson

African-American Quilter

Opelika, AL

Wilson “Boozoo” Chavis *

Zydeco Accordionist

Lake Charles, LA

Hazel Dickens *

Appalachian Singer/Songwriter

Washington, DC/Montcalm, WV

Evalena Henry

Apache Basketweaver

Peridot, AZ

Peter Kyvelos

Oud Maker

Bedford, MA

João “João Grande” Olivera 

dos Santos

Capoeira Angola Master

New York, NY

Eddie Pennington

Thumbpicking-Style Guitarist

Princeton, KY

Qi Shu Fang

Beijing Opera Performer

Woodhaven, NY

Seiichi Tanaka

Taiko Drummer/Dojo Founder

San Francisco, CA

Dorothy Trumpold

Rug Weaver

East Amana, IA

Fred Tsoodle *

Kiowa Sacred Song Leader

Mountain View, OK

Joseph T. Wilson 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Folklorist/Advocate/Presenter

Silver Spring, MD/Trade, TN

*Deceased

Photo courtesy of Dorothy Trumpold

Dorothy Trumpold

R u g W e a v e r
While in the early stages of the 

program some may have questioned 

whether at some point the awards 

would run out of strong candidates 

or the awards would lapse into 

redundancy, the opposite has proven 

true. There are still many surprises 

and many “firsts” each year, as the 

list of recipients for 2002 illustrates: the 

first Tibetan recipient, in addition to 

being the first sand mandala painter; 

the first Sephardic Jewish singer; 

the first Tolowa speaker and singer, 

one of a handful still surviving; the 

first Lebanese musician; and the first 

composer and musician connected 

with the New England contra-dance 

tradition. 

In fall 2001, ABC-CLIO published 

the two-volume Masters of Traditional 

Arts: A Biographical Dictionary, 

assembled by Alan Govenar of 

Documentary Arts. This publication 

featured biographies of all the NEA

National Heritage Fellows from 1982 

to 2001. The following January, ABCCLIO released an educational guide 

for distribution to schools and libraries, 

accompanied by a DVD-ROM featuring 

the biographies of all of the artists, 

as well as 3,000 photographs, 104 

radio features, 15 hours of recorded 

interviews and music, and 227 edited 

video clips.

2002

Flory Jagoda

S e p h a r d i c M u s i c i a n a n d C o mp o s e r

Flory Jagoda was born in 

Sarajevo, Bosnia, a member 

of the Sephardic Jewish community. 

When the Sephardic Jews were forced 

into exile from Spain and Portugal in 

the 15th century, many settled in other 

Mediterranean countries but preserved 

their native language, called Ladino. 

Her parents gave her an accordion and 

music lessons as a child, and, through 

her grandmother, Jagoda learned songs 

that had been passed down in her 

family for generations. She also became 

familiar with the region’s Balkan cultural 

traditions. 

Jagoda escaped the destruction of 

Sarajevo’s Jewish community and came 

to the United States after spending more 

than two years in an Italian internment 

camp during World War II. She has 

been recognized as an important carrier 

of a unique musical heritage and also 

as a composer and arranger of new 

Sephardic songs, writing songs about 

her own experiences in Sarajevo during 

the war, life in the internment camp, and 

the escape to America. In addition to 

passing that tradition on to her children, 

she has taught many students who now 

perform Ladino music. 

Today, she tours widely and her 

music is circulated through recordings, 

in The Flory Jagoda Songbook, and 

through the film The Key From Spain, 

a documentary about Jagoda that 

includes footage of her return to her 

native Sarajevo in 1992. She is well 

known in the Washington, DC area for 

her willingness to perform at religious 

ceremonies, family celebrations, and 

cultural events. Her performances are 

marked by musical beauty but also 

by her commitment to find meaning 

through affirmation of community in her 

personal experience.

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Losang Samten

T i b e t a n S a n d M a n d a l a P a i n t e r

Born in Ribuce Chang, Tibet, in 

1953, Losang Samten escaped 

in 1959, the year China suppressed a 

revolt against their control of the country, 

and settled in India. In 1975, while 

studying in the Namgyal Monastery—

the monastery of the Dalai Lama—he 

was chosen to enter a three-and-a-half 

year intensive training program in sand 

mandala painting, the ritual art form that 

originated in India 2,500 years ago and 

that has been practiced in Tibet since 

600 A.D. 

The sand mandala is an elaborate 

design based on instructions in ancient 

texts, and is usually done collaboratively 

as part of a religious ceremony or 

initiation. Accompanied by recitation 

of prayers, chanting, and occasionally 

ritual dance, brightly colored designs 

are created. Then, in keeping with the 

Buddhist principle of impermanence, 

2002

Fellowship 

Winners

Ralph Blizard *

Old-Time Fiddler 

Blountville, TN

Loren Bommelyn

Tolowa Tradition Bearer

Crescent City, CA

Kevin Burke

Irish Fiddler

Portland, OR

Francis * & Rose * Cree

Ojibwe Basketmakers/ 

Storytellers

Dunseith, ND

Luderin Darbone & Edwin 

Duhon *

Cajun Fiddler and Accordionist 

Sulphur, LA/Westlake, LA

Nadim Dlaikan

Lebanese Nye (reed flute) Player 

Southgate, MI

David “Honeyboy” Edwards *

Delta Blues Guitarist/Singer

Chicago, IL

Flory Jagoda

Sephardic Musician/Composer 

Falls Church, VA

Clara Neptune Keezer

Passamaquoddy Basketmaker 

Perry, ME

Losang Samten

Tibetan Sand Mandala Painter 

Philadelphia, PA

Bob McQuillen

Contra Dance Musician/ 

Composer 

Peterborough, NH

Jean Ritchie 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Appalachian Musician/ 

Songwriter/Cultural Activist

Port Washington, NY/ Viper, KY

Domingo “Mingo” Saldivar

Conjunto Accordionist 

San Antonio, TX

*Deceased

the finished product is dismantled and 

poured into a body of water. In addition 

to having artistic skills, the monks and 

artists selected for this training must be 

able to memorize 500 pages of sacred 

text. Only four of the 28 monks in 

Losang’s class finished the course in the 

three-year period. 

For centuries, sand mandala 

painting had not been seen outside of 

monasteries, but in 1988, the Dalai 

Lama selected Losang to demonstrate 

the ancient meditative art in a museum 

setting in the West. In 1989, he moved 

to Philadelphia where he established the 

Tibetan Buddhist Center and serves as 

its spiritual director. Today, he continues 

to teach and to practice mandala painting 

as one of an estimated 30 people in the 

world who are qualified to teach and 

demonstrate this spiritual art form.

Photo by Tom Pich
For the first time, artists from the 

Northern Mariana Islands, a special 

jurisdiction in political union with the 

United States, were honored. Felipe and 

Joseph Ruak, a father and son, practiced 

traditional stick dance traditions that 

Carolinians brought to Saipan more than 

100 years ago.

As the honorees from near and far 

gathered in Washington, DC, in midSeptember, Hurricane Isabel 

was working her way up the Eastern 

Seaboard. By the close of the banquet in 

the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, 

a government-wide announcement 

was made that all federal offices were 

closing down the following day, including 

the White House. As a result, the Capitol 

Hill ceremonies scheduled for the 

next morning were cancelled. Lisner 

Auditorium, the scheduled site of the 

public concert, informed the agency that 

they would not be able to open 

their doors.

Through extraordinary effort, the 

staff of the National Council for the 

Traditional Arts and the NEA coordinated 

an unrehearsed concert and ceremony 

on a hastily constructed stage in a 

banquet room of the host hotel. ABC 

news veteran Sam Donaldson, who 

welcomed the attendees and introduced 

emcee Nick Spitzer, chided “Isabel, the 

wench” for disrupting the festivities. 

However, in their comments through 

the course of the evening, the artists 

noted that the hurricane had given them 

a great opportunity to socialize and jam 

during the time they were hunkered 

down in the hotel. As weaver and singer 

Norman Kennedy observed: “We’re 

all survivors.” 

2003 Ron Poast

H a r d a n g e r F i d d l e r M a k e r

Ron Poast was born July 29, 

1940, and grew up in a 

musical Norwegian-American family in 

Dodgeville, Wisconsin. “I grew up on 

a farm, and Sunday was, of course, a 

day of rest, so we would go to visit the 

relatives or friends, or they would come 

to our place,” he said. “We always took 

our instruments and played, which was 

a very common thing back then.”

Poast was skilled in working with 

his hands and taught himself to make 

stringed instruments, starting with 

banjos. He’d heard his mother speak 

of a “very fancy violin” that her brother 

had once owned, and when Poast saw a 

couple of unusual fiddles in a storefront, 

he knew that was what she’d been 

talking about. He became fascinated 

with the instrument, which turned 

out to be a hardingfele or Hardanger 

fiddle, known as the national instrument 

of Norway. Eager to learn to make 

these beautiful instruments, he visited 

Vesterheim, the Norwegian-American 

museum in Decorah, Iowa, bought 

an instruction manual from Norway 

and talked to those who played the 

instrument.

The Hardanger fiddle is different 

from a conventional violin in several 

ways. The wood is thinner, and the 

strings are of lighter gauge. In addition 

to the normal four strings, it has four 

or five located below the fingerboard. 

These vibrate sympathetically, 

producing a droning sound that’s been 

likened to that of the Scottish bagpipe. 

The instrument is highly decorated, 

with mother of pearl in the fingerboard 

and tailpiece and sometimes around 

the top and bottom of the body. The 

body is also decorated with rosing, the 

painting of roses with pen and ink. The 

head of the instrument is usually carved 

into the head of a mythical beast, such as 

a dragon. 

At his Poastmark String 

Instruments shop in Black Earth, 

Wisconsin, Poast creates and repairs 

fiddles along with other stringed 

instruments, such as the mandolin, 

harp, lyre, conventional violin, dulcimer, 

guitar and banjo. He has shared his 

knowledge in many settings, including 

the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 

Washington, DC. 

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Manoochehr Sadeghi, born 

April 13, 1938, in Iran, 

is a leading virtuoso on the santur,

the Persian hammered dulcimer. His 

parents were both very interested in 

music and bought him a santur when he 

was seven or eight years old. When he 

was twelve, Sadeghi began studying with 

Abol Hassan Saba, a legendary figure 

in Persian classical music. Sadeghi said, 

“After two or three years, I became the 

best student in that class. He took me 

into his orchestra when I was seventeen. 

I played for two years in the orchestra, 

but he died when I was nineteen. After 

that I started to play on television. I was 

hired by the government and then hired 

as a master teacher in the conservatory.”

In 1964, when Sadeghi left Iran for 

the United States, he was honored with 

a farewell special on Iranian television. 

Living in the Los Angeles area, Sadeghi 

has continued to perform, record, 

and teach, and earned a doctorate in 

ethnomusicology from the University 

of California at Los Angeles. He also 

founded the Nakisa Music Institute and 

santur.com, an online music school, in 

order to pass along knowledge and skills 

in Persian and world music.

In the United States, he has made 

subtle changes in the presentation of 

his music. “Over time, I have found 

a way to present my art in more of a 

contemporary style. I haven’t really 

changed it but just play it in a different 

format. That’s all. Continuous 

improvisation, varieties of rhythm, 

they are all Persian, and they are all 

very artistic.”

Manoochehr Sadeghi

P e r s i a n S a n t u r P l a y e r

2003

Fellowship 

Winners

Basque (Bertsolari) Poets

Jesus Arriada

San Francisco, CA

Johnny Curutchet

South San Francisco, CA

Martin Goicoechea

Rock Springs, WY

Jesus Goni

Reno, NV

Rosa Elena Egipciaco

Puerto Rican Mundillo 

(Bobbin Lace) Maker

New York, NY 

Agnes “Oshanee” Kenmille *

Salish Beadworker/Regalia 

Maker 

Ronan, MT 

Norman Kennedy 

Weaver/Singer/Storyteller 

Marshfield, VT 

Roberto & Lorenzo Martínez

Hispanic Musicians

Albuquerque, NM 

Norma Miller

African-American Dancer/

Choreographer

Las Vegas, NV 

Carmencristina Moreno

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Mexican-American Singer/

Composer/Teacher

Fresno, CA

Ron Poast

Hardanger Fiddle Maker

Black Earth, WI 

Felipe & Joseph Ruak

Carolinian Stick Dance Leaders 

Commonwealth of the Northern 

Mariana Islands 

Manoochehr Sadeghi

Persian Santur Player

Sherman Oaks, CA 

Nicholas Toth

Diving Helmet Designer/Builder

Tarpon Springs, FL 

*Deceased

Photo by Tom Pich 
Jerry Douglas

D o b r o G u i t a r P l a y e r

Jerry Douglas was born May 28, 

1956, and grew up in Warren, 

 Ohio. He has been compared to 

such musical giants as Jimi Hendrix 

and Charlie Parker for his innovations 

on the Dobro, an acoustic resonator 

guitar played with a slide. His father, 

John, who had emigrated from West 

Virginia in search of work, was a 

steelworker who played bluegrass. 

As a boy, Jerry began performing on an 

acoustic guitar with his father’s band on 

weekends. When he was eleven, Jerry 

Douglas fell in love with the Dobro 

when his father took him to a Flatt & 

Scruggs concert. Uncle Josh Graves’ 

Dobro playing inspired the boy to 

devote his life to the instrument. 

As soon as he graduated 

from high school, Douglas 

became a touring professional 

musician. In 1973, he joined the 

bluegrass band The Country 

Gentlemen. The next year, 

he joined J.D. Crowe & the 

New South, which was taking 

the music in a new direction. 

Douglas won his first Grammy 

in 1983 and was the top Dobro 

player on Nashville recording 

sessions during the 1980s.

Douglas collaborated with 

producer T Bone Burnett on 

the soundtrack for the film O 

Brother, Where Art Thou? and 

appeared in the movie, playing 

with the Soggy Bottom Boys 

on “I Am a Man of Constant 

Sorrow.” He has played with 

everyone from jazz violinist 

Stephane Grappelli to Ray 

Charles to classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma 

and has written an opera that has been 

performed in Italy. In 1998, he began 

performing with Alison Krauss & Union 

Station, which gave him time for other 

projects, including fronting his own 

band.

Asked about his expansion of his 

instrument’s role, Douglas said, “I try 

not to distract from the vocal but to add 

to it. I think that it’s an art form to stay 

out of the way, to be subliminal in a way 

and to enhance whatever the vocalist is 

saying and trying to put across.”

The annual banquet in the Great Hall of 

the Library of Congress is always one 

of the highlights of the NEA National 

Heritage Fellowships festivities. 

Following a sumptuous meal, each 

fellow is asked to say a few words to 

the assemblage of family and friends. 

In these auspicious surroundings, 

Skokomish storyteller and cultural 

conservator Gerald “Subiyay” Miller 

addressed his fellow recipients 

with words, later entered into the 

Congressional Record, that summed up 

the spirit of these fellowships: “I want 

to extend my gratitude on receiving this 

award to all of our ancestors who left us 

the gifts that we exhibit today; the gift of 

the song, the gift of the dance, the gift 

of the story, and the gift of creativity. As 

long as we keep these traditional arts 

alive, we speak for our people.... We 

all live our own story. We all come 

from different walks of life. But right 

here... tonight and right here in these 

next few days we will share the same 

story. From this moment in time we are 

brothers and sisters.”

The 2004 Smithsonian Folklife 

Festival presented Latino NEA National 

Heritage Fellows as part of its “Nuestra 

Musica: Music in Latino Culture” 

program. For the first time in its history, 

the NEA published a bilingual program 

booklet to accompany these workshops 

and concerts.

2004

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Yuqin Wang & Zhengli Xu

C h i n e s e R o d P u pp e t e e r s

Husband-and-wife puppeteers 

Zhengli Xu and Yuqin Wang 

both began studying the performing arts 

while growing up in China. Wang was 

born September 21, 1946. Her father 

was a Beijing Opera performer, and she 

began studying at the Beijing Opera 

School when she was ten years old. In 

seven years there, she learned acrobatics, 

mime, martial arts, singing, history, 

and acting. In 1964, the director of the 

Puppet Art Troupe of China asked 

her to join his theater, and she began 

to study rod puppetry. In this ancient 

form, the puppeteers must hold large, 

heavy puppets overhead, manipulating 

their movable parts with long rods. 

Zhengli Xu was born August 

27, 1945. As a child, “Rocky,” as he 

was called, staged puppet shows for 

neighborhood kids and joined school 

puppet clubs. Like his wife, he was 

trained by the Puppet Art Troupe 

of China. He also traveled to villages 

to learn directly from masters of rod 

puppetry. At that time, the Communist 

government had banned the traditional 

stories he had learned, many of which 

were fables with a moral message. After 

the ban was relaxed, the company added 

some of these tales to its repertoire, and 

Xu became a respected director.

The couple came to the United 

States in the mid-1990s and settled in 

Portland, Oregon, where for two years 

Wang worked with a local professional 

puppet company as a teacher and 

performer. She also was a master artist 

in the Oregon Folklife Program’s 

Traditional Arts Apprenticeship 

Program from 1997-99. They became 

permanent U.S. residents in 1999 and 

have continued to teach and perform, 

mostly around the Northwest. 

2004

Fellowship 

Winners

Anjani Ambegaokar

North Indian Kathak Dancer

Diamond Bar, CA

Charles “Chuck” T. Campbell

Sacred Steel Guitar Player

Rochester, NY

Joe Derrane

Irish-American Button 

Accordionist

Randolph, MA

Jerry Douglas

Dobro Player

Nashville, TN

Gerald “Subiyay” Miller *

Skokomish Tradition Bearer/

Carver/Basketmaker

Shelton, WA

Chum Ngek

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Cambodian Musician/Teacher

Gaithersburg, MD

Milan Opacich

Tamburitza Instrument Maker

Shererville, IN

Eliseo * & Paula * Rodriguez

Straw Appliqué Artists

Santa Fe, NM

Koko Taylor *

Blues Singer

Country Club Hills, IL

Yuqin Wang & Zhengli Xu

Chinese Rod Puppeteers

Aloha, OR

*Deceased

Photo by Tom Pich 
Earl Barthé

D e c o r a t i v e B u i l d i n g C r a f t sm a n

Earl Barthé, born June 6, 1922, 

in New Orleans, was a 

fifth-generation master plasterer. He 

is a Creole of color whose great-greatgrandfather Leon Barthé came from 

France via Haiti. In an interview with 

Nick Spitzer on the American Routes

radio program, Barthé told of his 

ancestor’s 19th-century journey to 

the United States: “He stopped off 

in Haiti, and that’s where he met my 

grandmother. And he brought her over 

to New Orleans with him. ... My daddy 

told me that old man Leon could look 

at you and produce you in plaster as he 

was looking. No sketches. No drawings, 

anything. That’s the type of mechanic 

that he was.” 

Most of New Orleans’ plasterers, 

Barthé remarked, have been Creoles 

of color, “a mix of white and Negro 

blood.” His grandfather Peter Barthé 

organized Local 93 of the plasterers’ 

union in New Orleans in 1901. The 

plastering trade was passed down from 

generation to generation. His father and 

grandfather “trained us right from the 

jump, trained us to appreciate this work. 

You cannot do this work if you don’t 

appreciate it. It’s not something you’re 

just doing out of the sky. It’s some 

precious work. It’s like a diamond, like 

a jewel, and it’s for you to preserve it,” 

said Barthé. The real art of plastering, he 

commented, is “the ornamental work, 

the cornice work ... the medallions 

in the ceilings and the corbels in the 

arches, that’s the bottom of the arch.”

Barthé’s son and daughter, 

Hurchail and Terry, are carrying on 

the family tradition, keeping alive his 

passion and dedication to the craft. 

The roster of 2005 NEA National Heritage 

Fellows included a first. For the first time 

an artist was honored who previously 

had apprenticed himself to musicians 

who were NEA National Heritage 

Fellows. Fiddler Michael Doucet, from 

Lafayette, Louisiana, had been given an 

NEA-funded apprenticeship grant in 1975 

to study with master cajun and zydeco 

artists from the region, including laterto-be NEA National Heritage Fellows 

Dewey Balfa and Canray Fontenot. An 

apprentice had indeed become a master 

and as Michael Doucet noted, this honor 

made him feel as if he were standing on 

the shoulders of giants.

Two artists from Louisiana were 

honored in the year 2005. In addition 

to Michael Doucet, a fifth-generation 

Creole decorative plasterer from New 

Orleans, Earl Barthé, was recognized. 

Less than a month before the Heritage 

ceremonies, Hurricane Katrina had 

devastated the city of New Orleans. Earl 

Barthé, the 83-year-old master artisan 

got out of his Seventh Ward home just 

before the hurricane struck, with only the 

clothes on his back. He later discovered 

that one of his tools, a treasured mitre 

trowel he had inherited from his father, 

was saved from the flood because it 

was in the back of a pick-up truck that 

a family member used to escape from 

the storm. The family rendezvoused in 

the Houston area and money collected 

by the Southern Arts Federation helped 

pay for clothing and travel expenses for 

Mr. Barthé and his family to travel to the 

events in Washington, DC.

2005

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Wanda Jackson

E a r l y C o u n t r y , R o c k a b i l l y , G o sp e l S i n g e r

Wanda Jackson was born 

October 20, 1937, in 

Maud, Oklahoma, 50 miles southeast 

of Oklahoma City. She was among the 

fierce young performers who created 

a new music called rockabilly in the 

1950s. In a largely all-male club, she 

performed hot, sexy music while 

wearing heels and dresses. In 1943, 

Jackson’s father bought her a guitar, 

which she practiced incessantly. After 

the family moved to Oklahoma City in 

1949, Wanda won a talent show at a 

local radio station and was rewarded 

with her own 15-minute daily radio 

show. Country star Hank Thompson, 

also an Oklahoma City resident, heard 

her and invited her to audition for his 

band, the Brazos Valley Boys. She 

passed and performed with the band on 

weekends. 

After graduating from high 

school in 1955, Jackson joined the 

“Ozark Jubilee” traveling show, which 

included the young Elvis Presley. He 

encouraged her to sing rock ‘n’ roll and 

recommended material that would suit 

her voice. Jackson signed with Capitol 

Records and made her first record for 

the label in Los Angeles in June 1956. 

“I Gotta Know,” which shifts back and 

forth from country waltz to sizzling 

rockabilly, hit number 20 on the country 

charts. She went on to record such 

uproarious classics as “Let’s Have a 

Party” and her own “Fujiyama Mama.”

As her rockabilly career waned 

in the early 1960s, Jackson switched 

to country music. Her country career 

thrived, and she had a syndicated 

TV show, Music Village, from 1965 to 

1967, and played to capacity crowds 

in Las Vegas.

In the 1970s, moved by her 

religious feelings, Jackson expressed 

interest in doing a gospel album, but 

Columbia wasn’t interested, and she left 

the label.

She toured Europe, performing a 

mix of rock, country, and gospel. Now 

in her late 60s, she continues to perform 

and record, still singing with youthful 

verve and raw sexual energy. In 2010, 

she recorded a new album with White 

Stripes frontman Jack White, bringing 

her music to a new generation.

Photo by Tom Pich

2005

Fellowship 

Winners

Eldrid Skjold Arntzen

Norwegian-American 

Rosemaler 

Watertown, CT

Earl Barthé *

Creole Building Artisan 

New Orleans, LA

Chuck Brown

African-American Musical 

Innovator 

Brandywine, MD

Janette Carter * 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Appalachian Musician/Advocate 

Hiltons, VA

Michael Doucet

Cajun Fiddler/Composer/

Bandleader 

Lafayette, LA

Jerry Grcevich

Tamburitza Musician/Prim 

Player

North Huntingdon, PA

Grace Henderson Nez *

Navajo Weaver 

Ganado, AZ

Wanda Jackson

Early Country/Rockabilly/Gospel 

Singer 

Oklahoma City, OK

Herminia Albarrán Romero

Paper-cutting Artist 

San Francisco, CA

Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman

Yiddish Singer/Poet/Songwriter 

Bronx, NY

Albertina Walker *

Gospel Singer 

Chicago, IL

James Ka’upena Wong

Hawaiian Chanter 

Waianae, HI

*Deceased
Doyle Lawson

G o sp e l a n d B l u e g r a ss S i n g e r , A r r a n g e r , 

a n d B a n d l e a d e r

Doyle Lawson, born April 20, 

1944, grew up surrounded 

by music in Ford Town, a rural 

community near Kingsport, in eastern 

Tennessee. “My father, mother, and 

sister all sang gospel music when I was 

young,” he said. “They were members 

of trios and quartets that sang a cappella 

music in churches and at revivals and 

such. No doubt, that was where I 

acquired my love of quartet music.”

Radio was another source of 

music. One group in particular caught 

Lawson’s ear. “Though I listened to all 

the stars on the [Grand Ole] Opry, the 

group that impressed me most was Bill 

Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. His 

music was different, more intense.”

When he was 11 or 12, Lawson 

began teaching himself to play a 

mandolin borrowed from a neighbor. 

He later learned guitar, banjo, bass, and 

fiddle to enhance his job prospects, but 

mandolin and voice remain his primary 

instruments. In 1963, Lawson took a job 

playing banjo with Jimmy Martin and 

his band, the Sunny Mountain Boys. 

Over the next several years, Lawson 

alternated playing with Martin and with 

J.D. Crowe’s band. 

In 1979, seeking the freedom to 

play his own music, Lawson formed 

the band that became Quicksilver. 

For the past five years, Doyle Lawson 

and Quicksilver have received 

the International Bluegrass Music 

Association’s Vocal Group of the 

Year award.

Lawson’s band has made many 

recordings of classic bluegrass tunes, 

but Quicksilver is best known for its 

beautiful gospel vocal arrangements, 

which resulted in a renaissance of tight 

harmony bluegrass singing. “Gospel 

music has to be from the heart,” Lawson 

said, “more than just words on a piece 

of paper with a melody to it. For me, 

gospel has always been about the song 

itself and what you have to say....I’m 

serious about my gospel music—I don’t 

do it just for monetary gain. I love the 

message.” 

In 2006 the NEA National Heritage 

Fellowships gained a new sponsor, 

Darden Restaurants Foundation. In 

addition the celebratory concert moved 

to a new facility, the recently completed 

Music Center at Strathmore located in 

Bethesda, Maryland. In another first, 

recipient Mavis Staples became the 

first honoree to receive this recognition 

following in the footsteps of her father. 

Pops Staples, founder of the legendary 

Staple Singers, had received the same 

recognition eight years earlier.

Tragically, 94-year-old Esther 

Martinez, a revered storyteller and elder 

from Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan 

Pueblo) was killed in an automobile 

accident returning to her home in 

northern New Mexico. In the months 

following, Congress passed the Esther 

Martinez Native American Languages 

Preservation Act authorizing the 

support of native language programs for 

students and their families to preserve 

the indigenous languages of Native 

American tribes.

Candlewick Press published a book 

in 2006 entitled Extraordinary Ordinary 

People: Five American Masters of 

Traditional Arts, by Alan Govenar. This 

combination of photo-documentation 

and text focuses on the lives of five 

NEA National Heritage Fellows: Qi Shu 

Fang, Beijing Opera singer from New 

York; Ralph W. Stanley, boatmaker from 

Maine; Genoveva Castellanoz, coronamaker from Oregon; Dorothy Trumpold, 

weaver from Iowa; and Allison “Tootie” 

Montana, a maker of Mardi Gras 

costumes from Louisiana.

2006

Doyle Lawson (left) with his band at the 2006 

NEA National Heritage Fellows concert.

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Esther Martinez

N a t i v e A m e r i c a n L i n g u i s t a n d S t o r y t e l l e r

Esther Martinez was born 

May 26, 1912, in Ignacio, 

California, where her parents had gone 

to do farm work. She was raised by 

her grandparents in San Juan Pueblo 

(now called Ohkay Owingeh), New 

Mexico, and often traveled by covered 

wagon to see her parents. She and other 

Native American children were sent to 

a government boarding school 25 miles 

away, where they were punished harshly 

if caught speaking their native languages. 

Martinez, also known by her 

American Indian name, P’oe Tsawa,

or Blue Water, graduated from the 

Albuquerque Indian School in 1930. 

She married and spent the next three 

decades raising ten children and 

working at various jobs to support 

them. When Martinez was 54, she 

was approached by a linguist about 

documenting the Tewa tongue. From 

1974-89, she taught the language at 

schools in San Juan Pueblo. She helped 

translate the New Testament into Tewa 

and compiled dictionaries of the various 

dialects. 

In 1988, Martinez began telling 

her stories in English to non-Tewa 

audiences through Storytelling 

International. She was revered in her 

community and was known by many 

as Ko’oe Esther, or Aunt Esther. She 

was honored with New Mexico’s 

Living Treasures Award, the National 

Association for Bilingual Education’s 

Pioneer Award, the New Mexico Arts 

Commission’s Governor’s Award for 

Excellence, and the 1997 Teacher of the 

Year Award from the National Council 

of American Indians.

Martinez wrote two books, 

The Naughty Little Rabbit and Old 

Man Coyote and My Life in San Juan 

Pueblo: Stories of Esther Martinez. In the 

latter, she wrote, “Storytelling was done 

mainly in the wintertime, not summer. 

It was done in the wintertime because it 

shortened the evenings, the long winter 

nights. And it was the time when the last 

snake had crawled in, the bear and other 

animals had gone hibernating, and we 

have heard the last of the thunders. At 

storytelling, children’s stories were told 

first. Stories were told to teach us tips 

for survival and for socialization in the 

community. They were fun. Our whole 

life is about storytelling.”

2006

Fellowship 

Winners

Charles M. Carrillo

Santero 

Santa Fe, NM

Delores E. Churchill

Haida Weaver

Ketchikan, AK

Henry Gray

Blues Pianist/Singer

Baton Rouge, LA

Doyle Lawson

Gospel/Bluegrass Singer/

Arranger/Bandleader

Bristol, TN

Esther Martinez *

Native American Storyteller

San Juan Pueblo, NM

Diomedes Matos

Cuatro Maker

Deltona, FL

George Na’ope *

Hula Master

Hilo, HI

Wilho Saari

Finnish Kantele (Lap-harp) 

Player

Naselle, WA

Mavis Staples

Gospel, rhythm and blues 

singer Chicago, IL

Nancy Sweezy * 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Advocate/Scholar/Presenter/

Preservationist

Westwood, MA

Treme Brass Band

New Orleans Brass Band

New Orleans, LA

*Deceased

Esther Martinez with her daughter speaking 

to Nick Spitzer at the 2006 NEA National 

Heritage Fellows concert.

Photo by Tom Pich
Sidiki Conde

G u i n e a n D a n c e r a n d M u s i c i a n

Many believe that traditional artists do 

what they do because they can’t help 

it; they have no choice. Geographic 

isolation, economic impoverishment, 

or lack of opportunity, from this point of 

view, may lead individuals to practice 

an art form that others would consider 

antiquated or impractical in the modern 

world. The 2007 NEA National Heritage 

Fellows demonstrate the fallacy of this 

thinking. Among the artists honored we 

find a third-generation stone letterer who 

refined his type design and calligraphy 

by studying with European masters in 

Basel, Switzerland; a Native-American 

basketmaker who earned a B.A. in 

mathematics and physics and who worked 

as a computer specialist for 13 years before 

devoting her life to her craft; a Rio Grande 

weaver who received a degree in civil 

engineering and worked in that profession 

before moving back to northern New 

Mexico to develop a studio with his father 

and other family members and create 

spectacular woven pieces; an African 

musician and dancer who at the age of 14 

contracted polio but learned to dance on 

his hands to surmount this difficulty; and the 

first woman graduate in percussion from 

the Curtis Institute of Music who decided 

to continue playing in the klezmer musical 

tradition of the past two generations of her 

family.

It would be fair to say that, considering 

the 2007 Fellows, the road to recognition 

was paved with more than good intentions. 

Persistence and effort played a large part 

in their artistic journeys. Faced with an 

abundance of artistic and career choices, 

they pursued paths combining tradition and 

creativity in ways that have resulted in their 

recognition as 21st-century masters.

2007

At the age of 14, Sidiki Conde 

lost the use of his legs as the 

result of polio. In his village in Guinea, 

West Africa, disabled people commonly 

were banished from their homes in 

order not to bring shame or bad luck 

upon their family, so he was sent to 

his grandfather’s village deep in the 

forest. Knowing that he would not be 

able to participate in the coming-of-age 

ceremony if he could not dance, Sidiki 

reconstructed the traditional steps using 

his hands instead of his feet. His call to 

dance and sing, he said, came to him in 

a dream. 

He became so adept that he was 

able to travel to the capital city, Conakry, 

and form Message de Espior (Message 

of Hope), an orchestra of artists with 

disabilities he recruited from the city’s 

streets. At the same time, he worked to 

develop programs to help people with 

disabilities gain job skills through his 

position as manager of operations for 

AJAFREIS (The National Association 

of the Republic of Guinea for the 

Handicapped). 

In 1987, he was asked to join 

the prestigious troupe Les 

Merveilles de Guinea, and he 

composed, directed, and 

choreographed pieces for 

the company, often 

performing as a soloist. He worked 

with popular African musicians such as 

Youssou N’Dour, Salifa Keita, and 

Baba Maal. 

After coming to the United States, 

Conde has continued to work as a 

musician and arranger. In addition, 

he has made a special effort to teach 

workshops for VSA Arts and to instruct 

other young people with challenges in 

life, as well as teaching African dance 

and music in schools, hospitals, and 

universities. In 1998, he formed the 

Tokounou All-Abilities Dance and 

Music Ensemble.

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Irvin L. Trujillo

R i o G r a n d e W e a v e r

At the age of 10, Irvin L. 

Trujillo began weaving under 

the tutelage of his father, renowned 

weaver Jacobo Ortega Trujillo. This 

begat the seventh generation of weavers 

of the Trujillo and Ortega families of 

Chimayo, in northern New Mexico. 

Although he graduated from college 

as a civil engineer and worked in that 

profession for a time, Trujillo continued 

to study ancient weaving techniques. 

In 1980, he and his wife Lisa 

founded the Centinela Traditional Arts 

studio in Chimayo, making it possible 

for them to work alongside Jacobo but 

also allowing them to teach others in 

the community. Work in the studio 

included related traditional techniques 

such as dyeing, spinning, and loom 

construction. A 1985 exhibition at 

the Millicent Rogers Museum focused 

on the Trujillo family artistry. Both a 

keeper of tradition and an innovator, 

Irvin has received the Grand Prize 

and the Master’s Award for Lifetime 

Achievement from the Spanish Market 

in Santa Fe. 

His work reflects who he is and 

where he comes from. While still using 

traditional designs, Trujillo’s work 

sometimes offer personal stories, such 

as Buscando la Malinche, which depicts 

the Matachines dance that is popular in 

New Mexico’s Hispanic communities. 

As a child, Trujillo’s parents took him 

to see the dance performed in the town 

square. 

He says, “When I do a major piece, 

it is like putting my life on the line. All of 

my experience goes into it. I am trying 

to approach the spirit of the old pieces. 

In doing that, I need to learn how to live 

in my environment.” 

2007

Fellowship 

Winners

Nicholas Benson

Stone Letter Cutter/Carver

Newport, RI

Sidiki Conde

Guinean Dancer/Musician

New York, NY

Violet de Cristoforo *

Haiku Poet/Historian

Salinas, CA

Roland Freeman 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Photo Documentarian/Author/

Exhibit Curator

Washington, DC

Pat Courtney Gold

Wasco Wapaas (sally bag) 

Weaver

Scappoose, OR

Eddie Kamae

Hawaiian Musician/Composer/

Filmmaker

Honolulu, HI

Agustin Lira

Chicano Singer/Musician/

Composer

Fresno, CA

Julia Parker

Kashia Pomo Basketmaker

Lee Vining, CA

Mary Jane Queen *

Appalachian Musician

Cullowhee, NC

Joe Thompson

African-American String Band 

Musician

Mebane, NC

Irvin L. Trujillo

Rio Grande Weaver

Chimayo, NM

Elaine Hoffman Watts

Klezmer Musician

Havertown, PA

*Deceased

Photo by Tom Pich
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Horace Axtell

N e z P e r c e D r u m m a k e r , S i n g e r , a n d

T r a d i t i o n - b e a r e r

Horace P. Axtell is a Nez Perce 

tribal historian, language 

preservationist, storyteller, drum maker, 

and singer, as well as the spiritual leader 

of the Nimiipuu longhouse. He was 

born in Ferdinand, Idaho, in 1924 

and raised by his grandmother in the 

Christian faith, but was well versed 

in traditional Nez Perce ways as well. 

As a child he spoke only Nez Perce 

(Nimiipuutimpt) until he encountered 

English in school. During World War 

II, he left high school and joined the 

army—his platoon was among the first 

of the expeditionary forces to enter 

Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was 

dropped, an experience which made 

a lifelong impression on Axtell. After 

The annual concert featuring the honorees 

often proves to be transformative for both 

the artists and the audience. A writer for

The Christian Century captured the magic 

that often happens at the concert. In an 

article entitled “Concert of the Year: A Holy 

Joy,” Mark Gauvreau wrote: “On Friday, 

September 19, I witnessed one of the most 

miraculous things I’ve ever seen on a stage. 

I use that adjective with purpose; the only 

way to describe what happened is with 

language of religion.” 

He continues: “After almost three 

hours, it was time for a curtain call––one 

last bow to end the evening... that’s when 

something happened. The audience at the 

Strathmore rose to its feet to acknowledge 

the fellowship winners––it seemed at the 

time like one last blast of applause before 

the exit. But as they––we––clapped in 

time to ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’ 

the performers onstage began to dance.... 

Onstage, the performers formed a conga 

line, led by one of the jazz musicians, then 

a circle, each person taking his or her turn 

in the center. The invisible line between 

performers and audience evaporated. It 

had turned into one big party––or revival 

meeting.” 

Finally, he sums up his experience: 

“Staggering outside, I heard a woman say 

she was ‘swimming in joy.’ I myself was 

speechless. Then I heard someone say, 

‘God, I hope there was someone from the 

media there.’ I thought of saying that I was 

in the media. But then I had the decency 

to admit there were times when language 

failed. Like everyone else, I just wanted to 

stay inside the joy.”

2008

the war, Axtell returned home, married 

and for the next 36 years worked at the 

Potlatch Mill in Lewiston, Idaho, near 

where he was raised. 

He took up the Seven Drum 

religion of his ancestors and continued 

to immerse himself in the traditional 

culture of his people. He studied with 

tribal elders to learn how to make the 

traditional drum and the traditional 

Seven Drum songs. By the late 1970s, he 

was known for his ingenuity and ability 

to improve upon the old designs and 

make them his own. He has also been 

instrumental in reviving and maintaining 

the ancient songs used in Nez Perce 

ritual. 

Upon retiring from the Potlach Mill 

in 1986, Axtell accepted an invitation 

from Lewis-Clark State College to teach 

the Nez Perce language at the college, 

the first time the language had been 

formally taught, and Axtell was awarded 

an honorary doctorate for his pioneering 

work. With one of his students, Margo 

Aragon, Axtell co-authored his memoir 

A Little Bit of Wisdom: Conversations 

with a Nez Perce Elder. It was the first 

memoir of a Nez Perce Elder in more 

than 50 years, and has been reprinted by 

the University of Oklahoma Press.

In recent years Axtell has received 

many honors for his work in preserving 

the Nez Perce language and culture, 

including the Idaho Humanities 

Council 2002 Award for Outstanding 

Achievement in the Humanities, 

the University of Idaho President’s 

Medallion, and the Washington 

State Historical Society’s Peace and 

Friendship Award.

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Moges Seyoum

E t h i o p i a n S p i r i t u a l S o n g l e a d e r

Moges Seyoum is an expert 

in the performance of 

the liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox 

Christian Church, a scholar of the 

unique notational system with which 

the tradition of this unique chant is 

preserved, and a dedicated teacher of 

these traditions. For the past 18 years 

he has led the performance of the 

musical liturgy at the Debre Selam Kidist 

Mariam Church in Washington, DC. 

Under Moges Seyoum’s leadership, the 

church follows one of the most active 

and sophisticated Ethiopian Orthodox 

Christian liturgical cycles anywhere 

outside of Ethiopia. 

Liqe Mezemran Moges (Liqe 

Mezemran is an honorary title indicating 

he is an accomplished liturgist and 

musician) was born in 1949 in the 

Manz region of northern Shoa Province 

of Ethiopia. He was the son of an 

accomplished church musician, and 

began his liturgical and musical training 

at the age of eight. Seyoum studied at 

several important church schools in 

Ethiopia, becoming an accomplished 

singer in the Bethlehem vocal style, 

as well as an expert in various genres 

of Ethiopian Christian chant, sacred 

dance, and associated instrumental 

music. At the unusually young age of 

17 he received the title qanygeta, “the 

leader of the right hand side,” giving 

him the responsibility for directing one 

of the two choirs that alternate as they 

intone plainchant. Seyoum became one 

of the most respected liturgical masters 

in Ethiopia, receiving the honorary 

black sash from the late Emperor Haile 

Selassie I, before being driven into exile 

in Greece during the 1970s. While 

in Greece, Seyoum earned degrees in 

divinity and law, and delved into the 

differences and similarities in ritual and 

dogma between the Greek and Ethiopian 

Orthodox Churches.

Seyoum was granted asylum and 

came to the United States in 1982. He 

settled in Alexandria, Virginia, and 

began directing the liturgical services 

at the church. Seyoum is revered 

throughout the Ethiopian diaspora 

for his encyclopedic knowledge of 

the intricacies of church ritual. In 

2006 he recorded a collection of six 

CDs containing the most complicated 

selections from the wereb, the annual 

liturgy. Seyoum has also written a 

monograph in his native Amharic on 

the teachings and music of Saint Yared, 

a sixth-century saint and the revered 

founder of the Ethiopian Christian 

musical tradition. 

2008

Fellowship 

Winners

Horace P. Axtell

Nez Perce Elder/Spiritual Leader/

Drum maker

Lewiston, ID

Walter Murray Chiesa

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Traditional Crafts Advocate

Bayamón, PR

Dale Harwood

Saddlemaker

Shelley, ID

Bettye Kimbrell

Quilter

Mt. Olive, AL

Jeronimo E. Lozano

Retablo Maker

Salt Lake City, UT

Oneida Hymn Singers of 

Wisconsin

Hymn Singers

Oneida, WI

Sue Yeon Park

Korean Dancer/Musician

New York, NY

Moges Seyoum

Ethiopian Church Musician

Alexandria, VA

Jelon Vieira

Capoeira Master

New York, NY

Dr. Michael G. White

Jazz Clarinetist/Bandleader/

Scholar

New Orleans, LA

Mac Wiseman

Bluegrass/Country Musician

Nashville, TN

Photo by Tom Pich

Moges Seymoum (center) and 

members of the Debre Selam Kidist 

Mariam Church in Washington, DC.
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Queen Ida Guillory

Z y d e c o M u s i c i a n

Queen Ida” Guillory was born 

Ida Lewis in Lake Charles, 

 Louisiana, into a family 

of Creole rice farmers. As a child, she 

helped cook for 30 to 40 field hands and 

later drove a tractor during the planting 

season. She grew up speaking creole 

French patois and listening to zydeco, 

the vigorous blend of Cajun and R&B 

music, played at weekend fais dos dos 

(dance parties). 

When she was 18, her family 

moved to San Francisco along with 

many other Louisiana emigrants to 

pursue work in the shipyards. After 

marrying Raymond Guillory, the 

couple raised three children and she 

drove a school bus for a living. Her 

mom had taught her a bit about playing 

the accordion, and once her children 

had grown up, Guillory pulled out 

her accordion and began to sit in 

occasionally with her brother’s band. 

She also cooked big pots of gumbo for 

the band’s club dates, which was a big 

hit. Guillory’s culinary skills would 

later lead to her publishing a popular 

cookbook, Cookin’ with Queen Ida. 

In January of 2009 The New York Public 

Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln 

Center displayed a photography exhibition 

of portraits of NEA National Heritage 

Fellows entitled Living Legacy: Portraits 

of NEA National Heritage Fellows 1982-

2008, featuring photos by Tom Pich, a 

professional photographer, who has been 

traveling around the country photographing 

the fellows in their homes and local 

communities. 

In 2009 the awards ceremony was 

held at the newly opened Capitol Visitors’ 

Center. While looking for a spot to shoot 

the group photo, Pich noticed 2007 NEA

National Heritage Fellow Nick Benson up 

on some scaffolding and carving quotations 

in the marble façade of the interior, 

quietly practicing his craft in the midst of 

this celebration. One couldn’t ask for a 

more telling metaphor for the value of the 

fellowships, which draw much-deserved 

attention to artists who continue to practice 

their skills, often with little fanfare or 

recognition, but who make a lasting mark 

on our nation’s cultural heritage. 

The day after Thanksgiving in 2009, 

Bess Lomax Hawes passed away. When 

Bess retired in 1992 Congressman Sidney 

R. Yates of Illinois, who chaired the House 

Subcommittee overseeing the agency 

budget, entered into the Congressional 

Record a statement about Bess, describing 

her as “... a woman who has devoted 

herself to the arts, who has preserved 

and gained recognition for an important 

segment of our national cultural heritage. 

She has immeasurably improved our whole 

world through these contributions.”

2009

In 1975, Guillory’s brother, Al 

Lewis, asked her to sit in on a few 

numbers with his Barbary Coast band at 

a fundraiser. The emcee jokingly said, 

“Tonight we’re going to crown you, Ida: 

Queen of the Zydeco Accordion and 

Queen of Zydeco Music.” A journalist 

with the San Francisco Chronicle was 

on hand taking pictures, and a week 

later Guillory saw a photo of herself 

proclaimed “Queen Ida” on the cover of 

the Chronicle’s weekend magazine. 

Guillory was soon headlining 

“Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Zydeco 

Band” and playing dates locally—

including the Monterey Jazz Festival—

but she kept her day job as a school bus 

driver. Her touring and recording career 

subsequently took off—more than 200 

dates per year—and in 1982 her On 

Tour album won a Grammy Award. Her 

high-energy performances made Queen 

Ida and the Bon Temps Zydeco Band 

popular nationally and internationally, 

appearing on programs such as A Prairie 

Home Companion, Saturday Night Live, 

and Austin City Limits. 

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Dudley Laufman

C o n t r a D a n c e L e a d e r , D a n c e C a l l e r , a n d M u s i c i a n

2009

Fellowship 

Winners

Birmingham Sunlights

Gospel Group

Birmingham, AL

Edwin Colón Zayas

Cuatro Player

Aguadilla, PR

Chitresh Das

Kathak Dancer/Choreographer

San Francisco, CA

LeRoy Graber

German-Russian Willow 

Basketmaker

Freeman, SD

“Queen” Ida Guillory

Zydeco Musician

Daly City, CA

Dudley Laufman

Dance Caller/Musician

Canterbury, NH

Amma D. McKen

Yoruba Orisha Singer

Queens, NY

Joel Nelson

Cowboy Poet

Alpine, TX

Teri Rofkar

Tlingit Weaver/Basketmaker

Sitka, AK

Mike Seeger *

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Musician/Cultural Scholar/

Advocate

Lexington, VA

Sophiline Cheam Shapiro

Cambodian Classical Dancer/

Choreographer

Long Beach, CA

*Deceased

Dudley Laufman is so well 

known in New Hampshire 

for his dance calling that many people 

there refer to traditional dance gatherings 

as “Dudley Dances.” He called his first 

dance in 1948 and has continued calling 

in town halls and grange buildings 

throughout New England for more 

than 60 years. In addition to his fiddle 

playing and dance calling, Laufman is 

an accomplished poet, composer, and 

storyteller.

Traditional dancing has been 

going on in New England ever since 

the first colonists arrived from England. 

Over time two basic dance formations 

developed—contra dancing, where lines 

of partners face one another, and square 

dancing, where sets of four couples are 

arranged in a square. 

When Laufman began calling 

dances in 1948, traditional dancing was 

in a slump, but he has never been one to 

follow the crowd. He insisted on having 

live music—anyone who showed up 

with a fiddle, accordion, or harmonica 

was welcome to sit in with the band. 

Eventually Laufman and a group 

of likeminded musicians 

formed the Canterbury 

Country Dance 

Orchestra in 1966. 

By the 1970s the 

orchestra made a 

series of popular 

recordings and 

had become 

a fixture in the 

New England 

contra dance world. 

The orchestra performed 

and taught dance at schools, 

community centers, and 

public parks, averaging 300 or more 

engagements each year.

Since the 1960s he has been able 

to support himself as a fiddler and caller 

while supplementing his income with 

occasional labor as an apple picker, 

carpenter, and farmer. In the 80s 

Dudley and his partner, Jacqueline, 

led a movement to return to the roots 

of traditional New England country 

dancing as a duo known as Two Fiddles. 

They perform often and lead workshops 

throughout New England, especially 

focusing on schoolchildren. They also 

participate in the New Hampshire 

Council on the Arts’ apprenticeship 

program, passing on their knowledge 

to others.

Photo by Tom Pich
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Mary Jackson

S w e e t g r a ss B a s k e t m a k e r

Adescendent of the 

Gullah community 

of coastal South Carolina, 

Mary Jackson was born in 

1945 in Mount Pleasant, 

South Carolina. Jackson 

learned the art of making 

baskets at the age of four from 

her mother and grandmother. 

Following chores, Jackson’s 

family would gather to make 

bulrush and sweetgrass 

baskets, using skills brought 

to the United States by their 

West African ancestors. 

Sweetgrass, a plant named for 

the sweet smell of its reeds, 

is indigenous to the coastal 

lowlands of South Carolina. 

Despite this tradition 

in her family, Jackson did not take up 

basketmaking as an adult until 1973 

when she began producing baskets 

full-time and she began teaching 

her daughter the art form. Today, 

basketmaking is still a family affair––her 

husband and son gather the sweetgrass 

from local marshes while her daughter 

provides administrative support. For the 

last seven years, she has been teaching 

her granddaughter the art of sweetgrass 

basketmaking.

Jackson’s intricately coiled baskets 

preserve the centuries-old craft of 

sweetgrass basketry and continue to 

push the tradition in new directions. 

While preserving the culture and history 

of her ancestors, Jackson infuses the 

art form with a contemporary aesthetic 

and expressiveness all her own. With 

masterful technique, Jackson translates 

practical designs into finely detailed, 

sculptural forms. Today, her baskets 

are owned by such noted individuals as 

In April of 2010 a photographic exhibition 

entitled Recognizing Our Cultural Heritage: 

An American Flemish Dialogue was 

mounted at the UNESCO Headquarters 

in Paris, France. This exhibit, curated 

by two non-governmental organizations, 

Documentary Arts of Dallas, Texas, 

and FARO (Flemish Interface Centre for 

Cultural Heritage) based in Belgium, 

featured photographic portraits of NEA

National Heritage Fellows. The exhibition 

and accompanying public programs 

were sponsored by the Intangible 

Cultural Heritage Section of UNESCO as 

one of the opening events of the 2010 

International Year for the Rapprochement 

of Cultures. Heritage Fellow Michael 

Doucet performed at the opening 

and during the course of the public 

programming films documenting Heritage 

Fellows Qi Shu Fang and Simon Shaheen 

were premiered. 

Later in the year the photographic 

exhibition toured to five cities in Belgium 

and 10,000 copies of the exhibition 

catalogue, written in Flemish, were 

distributed. Alan Govenar, the co-curator 

of this exhibition and the photographer 

of these portraits of master artists in 

both the U.S. and Belgium, observed that 

the use of human scale portraits with 

a neutral background allows viewers 

to look directly into the eyes of the 

artists, seeing their unique character but 

also their common humanity. He says: 

“Face-to-face we are encouraged to 

interact with the people before us and to 

participate in the fundamental process 

of recognition that is so essential to our 

intangible cultural heritage and to our 

understanding of the world in which we 

live and work.” 

2010

Prince Charles and the Empress of Japan.

“My grandmothers used to sell their 

baskets,” Jackson said, “sometimes in 

the city market with their vegetables. So 

a whole new attention was coming to 

this art form. But I also wanted to bring 

my work into the art world where it had 

never been seen before.”

A founding member of the Mount 

Pleasant Sweetgrass Basket Makers’ 

Association, Jackson also leads efforts to 

protect the threatened wetland habitats 

of sweetgrass and ensure continued 

local access to these resources. In 2008 

she was awarded the Environmental 

Stewardship Award of Achievement 

given by the South Carolina Aquarium.

Jackson’s work has been exhibited 

at numerous institutions throughout 

the United States, and she has earned 

numerous awards, including a United 

States Artists Donnelley Fellowship and 

a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. 

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Kamala Lakshmi Narayanan

I n d i a n D a n c e r / T e a c h e r

2010

Fellowship 

Winners

Yacub Addy

Ghanaian Drummer

Latham, NY

Jim “Texas Shorty” 

Chancellor

Fiddler

Rockwall, TX

Gladys Kukana Grace

Lauhala Weaver

Honolulu, HI

Mary Jackson,

Sweetgrass Basketweaver

Johns Island, SC

Delano “Del” McCoury

Bluegrass Guitarist/Singer

Nashville, TN

Judith McCulloh

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Folklorist/Editor

Urbana, IL

Kamala Lakshmi Narayanan

Bharatanatyam Indian Dancer

Mastic, NY

Mike Rafferty

Irish Flute Player

Hasbrouck Heights, NJ

Ezequiel Torres

Afro-Cuban Drummer/Drum 

Builder

Miami, FL

Kamala Lakshmi Narayanan 

is recognized the world 

over as the foremost proponent of 

Bharatanatyam, a southern Indian 

classical dance that combines artistic 

expression with rhythmic footwork. 

Known simply as “Kamala” in India, 

her name has become synonymous with 

the art. She is a preeminent artist of the 

Vazhuvoor tradition of the dance, named 

for her guru, Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai. 

Born on June 16, 1934, in 

Mayuram, India, Narayanan began 

dancing at age five, taking lessons in 

Kathak, the classical dance of northern 

India. Her uncommon ability brought 

her to the attention of Bombay’s movie 

producers, and she was offered one of 

her first roles as a young dancer in the 

Hindi film, Ram Rajya (Reign of Ram), 

released in 1939. 

When her family moved to southern 

India during the Second World War, 

she began to study Bharatanatyam and 

was soon after introduced to Vazhuvoor 

Ramiah Pillai. Under his training, she 

became an exquisite artist and 

established the Vazhuvoor tradition 

of Bharatanatyam as a leading style of 

the art. 

During the course of her long 

career, Narayanan has performed 

thousands of times on stage and in scores 

of film roles. Between the 1940s and the 

1970s, Narayanan represented India at 

cultural festivals and events all over the 

world and performed before many world 

dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth 

on the occasion of her coronation 

in 1953 and former U.S. President 

Eisenhower during his state visit to India 

in 1959. In the late 1970s, Narayanan 

moved to the United States and 

established the Sri Bharatha Kamalalaya 

School of Dance. She has been teaching 

in the New York and New Jersey area 

for the past 30 years and, though in her 

seventies, continues to dance and teach.

Narayanan has received numerous 

honors and awards, including the 

prestigious title of Padma Bhushan given 

by the president of India in 1970. 

Photo by Tom Pich
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Bo Dollis

M a r d i G r a s I n d i a n C h i e f

A leader of the Mardi Gras 

Indian tribe the Wild 

Magnolias for more than 45 years, 

Theodore Emile “Bo” Dollis has taken 

the music and traditions of New Orleans 

from community gatherings to festivals 

and concert halls in cities all over 

the world including New York City, 

London, Nice, and Berlin.

Widely believed to have started 

in the late 1800s as a way of honoring 

Native-American traditions, Mardi 

Gras Indian tribes are made up of 

neighborhood groups. Each year, the 

participants create handmade elaborate, 

vibrant costumes with intricate 

beadwork that take up to a year to 

create.

Dollis was born in New Orleans in 

1944. While growing up in the Central 

City, behind St. Charles Avenue’s grand 

mansions, Dollis became interested in 

the tradition of the New Orleans Mardi 

Gras Indians and in high school he 

secretly began attending Sunday night 

Indian practice in a friend’s back yard. 

He followed the White Eagles tribe, 

playing and singing the traditional 

repertoire, and in 1957, he masked 

(created and wore his suit) for the first 

time with the Golden Arrows. Not 

telling his family of his involvement with 

the Indians, he made his suit at someone 

else’s house and told his parents he was 

going to a parade. Hours later, his father 

discovered him underneath a crown of 

feathers.

In 1964, Dollis became Chief of the 

Wild Magnolias, a tribe named in honor 

of Magnolia Street in New Orleans’ 

uptown/mid-city area. Dollis went on 

to gain renown for his handcrafted 

suits, but in addition to his skills as a 

craftsman, Dollis is also known for his 

The 2011 fellowships honored three 

traditions not previously recognized: 

Brazilian-American pandeiro (frame drum) 

playing as part of Carnaval celebrations, 

Old Regular Baptist a cappella singing, 

and Bulgarian wedding music performed 

on the saxophone by a Roma artist. Each 

of these traditions has taken root in the 

United States and has become part of our 

cultural heritage. The geographic and 

cultural contexts of these three traditions 

could not be more different—the sprawling 

urban Los Angeles area where Brazilian 

musicians gather in studios or in public 

places to practice and perform, a rural 

mining community in southwestern Virginia 

where the singing occurs privately within 

the church and consistent with particular 

religious beliefs, and the New York-New 

Jersey metro region with tight-knit and 

culturally demarcated neighborhoods 

where artists perform at weddings or family 

gatherings or in social settings such as 

ethnically specific nightclubs.

In its 30th year, the NEA National 

Heritage Fellowships continue to present 

a view of American cultural life that makes 

a distinct and ever-evolving statement 

about our nation—both the diversity of the 

artists themselves and the vitality of the 

communities in which they reside. Master 

slack key guitar player and 2011 fellow 

Ledward Kaapana has commented about his 

upbringing in an isolated Hawaiian village: 

“People say that in Kalapama, the music 

got better as you went further down the 

road.” These fellowships have frequently 

given us a glimpse beyond the cultural main 

streets and digital superhighways, taking 

us down paths we may never have known 

and allowing us to celebrate a diversity of 

excellence we may never have imagined.

2011

vocal artistry. His recordings merge the 

Mardi Gras Indian sound with New 

Orleans funk and rhythm-and-blues. In 

1970, the Wild Magnolias performed at 

the first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage 

Festival along with Monk Boudreaux, 

Chief of the Golden Eagles. The 

Wild Magnolias have performed both 

nationally and internationally, as well 

as working with seminal New Orleans 

artists such as Allen Toussaint, Earl 

King, and Snooks Eaglin.

Although the uptown/mid-city area 

was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, 

Dollis opened a club there, named 

Handa Wanda’s after one of the chants, 

where tribal members can congregate, 

work on costumes, and practice chanting 

and singing.

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Yuri Yunakov

B u l g a r i a n S a x o p h o n i s t

2011

Fellowship 

Winners

Laverne Brackens

Quilter

Fairfield, TX

Bo Dollis

Mardi Gras Indian Chief

New Orleans, LA

Jim Griffith

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Folklorist

Tucson, AZ

Roy and PJ Hirabayashi

Taiko Drum Leaders

San Jose, CA

Ledward Kaapana

Ukulele/Slack Key Guitarist

Kaneohe, HI

Frank Newsome

Old Regular Baptist Singer

Haysi, VA

Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro

Pandeiro Player/Percussionist

Los Angeles, CA

Warner Williams

Piedmont Blues Songster

Gaithersburg, MD

Yuri Yunakov

Bulgarian Saxophonist

Bloomfield, NJ

Developed in the 1970s, 

Bulgarian wedding music is 

described by the University of Oregon’s 

Carol Silverman as emphasizing 

“virtuosic technique, improvisation, fast 

speeds, daring key changes, and eclectic 

musical sources such as jazz, rock, 

Turkish, and Indian musics, as well as 

Balkan village folk music.” A pioneer of 

this music, Yuri Yunakov is the leading 

Bulgarian Roma musician in the United 

States and largely responsible for creating 

the saxophone’s role in this style. During 

communism, wedding music became 

an anti-government countercultural 

phenomenon that united Roma and 

Bulgarians. With this new contemporary 

fusion, Yunakov has raised the profile 

of Balkan music in the United States, 

playing for both Romani and nonRomani audiences alike.

Of Turkish Romani ancestry, 

Yunakov was born in 1958 in 

Haskovo, a city in the Thracian region 

of southeastern Bulgaria. His greatgrandfather, grandfather, and three 

uncles were all violinists 

and his father was a popular 

clarinet player. At a young 

age, Yunakov learned the 

kaval (a shepherd’s flute) 

followed by the davul (a 

traditional two-headed 

drum) that he used to 

accompany his father and 

older brothers at local 

weddings. In his teens, 

Yunakov also accompanied 

his father on the clarinet 

while training as a boxer. 

Following a time in the 

army in the mid-1970s, 

Yunakov returned to music 

Photo by Tom Pich

and began playing the saxophone. In 

1984, Yunakov began playing with Ivan 

Milev’s group Mladost, where he was 

noticed by Ivo Papasov. Yunakov went 

on to play in Papasov’s band Trakija for 

nearly 10 years. Together with Trakija, 

Yunakov performed at hundreds of 

weddings in his native Bulgaria and 

toured extensively in Europe and North 

America. 

After consistent persecution by 

the Bulgarian socialist government for 

performing Romani music, Yunakov 

emigrated to the United States in 1994 

and formed his own band, the Yunakov 

Ensemble. The band has toured 

extensively throughout the United 

States and abroad but continues to play 

at weddings and family gatherings in 

New York’s tri-state Bulgarian, Turkish, 

Romani, and Macedonian communities. 

The Yunakov Ensemble has made four 

recordings for Traditional Crossroads: 

New Colors in Bulgarian Wedding 

Music, Balada, Roma Variations, and 

Together Again. 
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Bess Lomax 

Hawes Award

The Bess Lomax Hawes Award, 

introduced by the National Endowment 

for the Arts in 2000, is given annually to 

artists whose contributions, primarily 

through teaching, advocacy, and 

organizing and preserving important 

repertoires, have greatly benefited 

their artistic tradition. It also recognizes 

individuals, such as producers and 

activists, who have comprehensively 

increased opportunities for and public 

visibility of traditional artists. 

2000

Chris Strachwitz

R e c o r d P r o d u c e r a n d L a b e l F o u n d e r

Chris Strachwitz was born in 

1931 in Gross Reichenau, a 

little village in lower Silesia. His father, 

Count Alexander Graf von Strachwitz, 

was a landowner and managed a farming 

and dairy business. At the end of World 

War II, Strachwitz and his family 

fled Silesia in the wake of the Russian 

invasion, moving first to Hamburg, 

Germany, and then to the United States 

in 1947, settling in Reno, Nevada.

Strachwitz served in the U.S. Army 

from 1954-56, and then graduated from 

the University of California at Berkeley 

and got secondary school teaching 

credentials. All the time, he pursued 

his interest in music. “I’ve always loved 

radio,” he said. “In Germany, I listened 

to American and British Armed Forces 

Radio, and in California, XERB played 

hillbilly music all day long...I saw the 

movie called New Orleans and was 

absolutely knocked out by that music, 

featuring Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, 

Meade Lux Lewis, and Billie Holiday, 

among others. I became a total New 

Orleans jazz nut. And I bought all the 

records I could afford.” He met with 

noted musicologist Sam Charters and 

started a correspondence with British 

blues aficionado Paul Oliver.

In 1959, Charters sent Strachwitz 

a postcard saying that the legendary 

bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins was 

living in Houston, Texas. Strachwitz 

went down to meet him, and ended 

up meeting the blues songster Mance 

Lipscomb as well. Strachwitz recorded 

Lipscomb and decided to start his own 

record label called Arhoolie (named after 

a kind of field holler or work song).

Over the years since then, 

Strachwitz has recorded hundreds of 

musicians across America, spanning 

virtually every culturally defined 

traditional style, from blues and jazz 

to zydeco and conjunto. He has also 

been equally committed to reissuing 

vintage folk recordings from the early 

20th century, including MexicanAmerican border music, Greek, Polish, 

and Ukrainian folk music, and Cajun 

classics. 

In addition to recording activities, 

Strachwitz produced concerts that 

brought important folk musicians 

such as Lightnin’ Hopkins and Fred 

McDowell to large audiences. In 1995, 

he founded the nonprofit Arhoolie 

Foundation to ensure that the music he 

has collected will be available for future 

generations. Among its holdings is the 

Frontera Collection, one of the nation’s 

largest archives of Spanish-language 

vintage recordings.

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2001

Joseph T. Wilson F o l k l o r i s t , A d v o c a t e , a n d P r e

s e n t e r

Joseph T. 

Wilson was born in 1938 

in Trade, Tennessee, in the Blue 

 Ridge Mountains. He has worked 

as a Nashville country music producer, 

a door-to-door salesman, a civil rights 

reporter, and a Madison Avenue 

consultant. His life’s work, however, is 

folklore; he served from 1976 to 2004 

as excecutive director of the National 

Council for the Traditional Arts 

(NCTA) in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

Founded in 1933, it is the oldest 

organization in the nation devoted to 

the presentation and documentation 

of folk arts. Wilson was interested in music 

from an early age, with members of 

his family being traditional musicians. 

His interest in folk material grew as he 

worked in other jobs, and he discovered 

that others around the country shared 

this fascination and were recording folk 

musicians. “I learned that this level of 

great folk culture existed everywhere. I 

heard Mexican music over the border 

radio stations in the early 1950s and 

loved it. Later on, hearing Harry 

Choates, the Cajun violinist, I realized 

he, too, was making great music—music 

that was kin to the French Canadian 

sounds I also liked.” Wilson began 

producing records by musicians in his 

hometown.

Joining the National Council for 

the Traditional Arts, then called the 

National Folk Festival Association, gave 

him the opportunity to make a living 

at his avocation. The not-for-profit 

educational organization conducts 

research in folklore, ethnography, 

and related areas; assists the National 

Park Service with planning and 

interpretation; and produces tours 

by American folk artists as well as the 

National Folk Festival, films, videotapes, 

recordings, museum exhibits, and 

publications. Wilson had been involved in all 

these activities as executive director for 

the organization, and continues on as 

chairman of NCTA. He also has served 

as a panelist for the National Endowment 

for the Arts and on the grants panels 

of four state agencies. 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

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2002

Jean Ritchie

A pp a l a c h i a n M u s i c i a n , S o n g w r i t e r , a n d C u l t u r a l A c t i v i s t

Jean Ritchie was born in 1922 into a 

singing family in Viper, Kentucky, 

 in the Cumberland Mountains 

of the eastern part of the state. The 

youngest of 14 children, she studied at 

Viper High School and Cumberland 

College, before going on to the 

University of Kentucky where she 

graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree 

in social work. Her first job was with the 

Henry Street Settlement on New York’s 

Lower East Side, teaching Kentucky 

songs, ballads, and singing games to 

children.

During this time, Alan Lomax 

encountered her, recorded her songs 

and lap dulcimer playing for the 

Library of Congress, and arranged 

her first formal concert at Columbia 

University. By 1952, she was traveling 

on a Fulbright Fellowship to trace and 

document the roots of her heritage 

in the British Isles. In 1955, 

her first book, Singing Family 

of the Cumberlands, was hailed as 

an American classic. 

Her many recordings and 

appearances at major folk festivals, 

including the early Newport Folk 

Festivals, cultivated a revival 

of interest in Appalachian music and 

culture. She also became known as an 

insightful songwriter, penning such 

classics as “Blue Diamond Mines,” 

“Black Waters,” and “The L & N 

Don’t Stop Here Anymore,” about 

life in eastern Kentucky coal country. 

By sharing her music as well as her 

commitment and strong ties to her 

Appalachian home with audiences 

around the nation and around the 

world, Jean Ritchie has come to define 

and embody the dual concepts of 

ambassador and steward of tradition.

Photo by Tom Pich

Bess Lomax Hawes Award
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2003

Carmencristina Moreno M e x i c a n - A m e r i c a n S i n g e r , C o mp

os e r , a n dT e ac h e r

Carmencristina Moreno is the 

daughter of popular singers, 

Luis M. and Carmen Moreno, who 

performed on radio in the Los Angeles 

area from the 1930s through the 1950s 

as El Dueto de Los Moreno. Her father 

also composed hundreds of songs, many 

of which are considered standards in 

the ranchera tradition. “I was raised on 

Mexican music, weaned on mariachi 

music,” Moreno told her hometown 

newspaper, the Fresno Bee, in 2003. 

“I think of myself as a keeper of the 

traditions. If you do it, you have to do 

it right.” 

After World War II, the family 

moved to California’s San Joaquin 

Valley, where Moreno’s parents did 

farm work while continuing to 

perform. Inspired by her parents and 

their friends, Moreno decided to pursue 

a musical career. 

In 1976, Moreno gained 

widespread attention through her 

appearance (accompanied by Los 

Lobos) on the United Farm Workers 

(UFW) fundraiser recording Si Se 

Puede! (Yes, It Can Be Done!), for which 

she composed the songs “El Corrido de 

Dolores Huerta” and “Sangre Antigüa.” 

She later wrote an ode to César Chávez, 

who had founded the United Farm Workers union with Dolores Huerta. 

Moreno became increasingly 

involved in teaching broader audiences 

about the musical heritage of Mexican 

Americans. She took part in the 1993 

Smithsonian Festival of American 

Folklife, conducting workshops and 

performing her songs of labor and life in 

the Central Valley. As a follow-up, the 

Smithsonian asked her to participate in 

six workshops held in six border cities 

in the United States and Mexico for 

educators in 1996. She also became a 

folk-guitar instructor in prisons for the 

California Arts in Corrections programs. 

Through a teaching program she 

created, Parallel Histories of the United 

States and Mexico through Music,

she educates broader audiences about 

Mexican-American musical heritage. 

In 2001, the Fresno Arts Council 

presented her the Horizon Award in 

recognition of her lifetime of work as

an educator and performer.

Moreno sings in both Spanish 

and English, and her wide-ranging 

repertoire includes a variety of Mexican 

and Mexican-American material. She 

continued to perform, record, and teach. 

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Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. His life 

was spared when a guard at a detention 

camp remembered his beautiful flute 

playing. Chum was in a group that 

managed to escape to a refugee camp 

in Thailand. Recognized as a krou, or 

master teacher, he taught there and at 

orphanages before moving to a refugee 

camp in Indonesia, where he continued 

to teach. 

Chum arrived in the United States 

in 1982 and settled in the Washington, 

DC area. He has remained in demand 

as a teacher and performer around the 

country, though his travel has been 

limited by the demands of a full-time day 

job. He often consults with Cambodian 

music groups and provides guidance 

on repertoire for ceremonies and 

celebrations. He also has composed and 

performed music for dancers. 

Balancing work and art has been 

a struggle, but one worth waging. “I 

don’t want to lose my music,” he said. 

“If I don’t teach, it will disappear. 

Actually, at first, when I realized how 

hard it was going to be to have a job and 

be a musician in the United States, I 

wanted to quit teaching and playing....

But then I thought, ‘I have a lot of 

musical knowledge. What am I doing, 

throwing it all away? I love my music. 

I don’t want to keep my music all to 

myself. I’m supposed to teach.’ So I 

made time. I was very tired. I still am, 

but I don’t want to lose it. So I decided 

that I needed to dedicate Saturdays and 

Sundays to music. Ever since then, I’ve 

tried to do both, work and music.”

2004

Chum Ngek

C a mb o d i a n M u s i c i a n a n d T e a c h e r

Chum Ngek was born in 

the Battambang Province 

of Cambodia, and by the age of ten 

began learning the repertoire of 

the major Khmer musical genres, 

spanning classical and folk traditions. 

His grandfather Um Hene taught 

him several instruments: the sralai

(oboe), kong (semicircle of gongs) 

and sampho (small barrel drum). At 

twelve, he began studying with other 

teachers and went on to master the 

roneat ek (treble xlyophone), khimm

(hammered dulcimer), and tror (violin). 

Within a few years, he was performing 

professionally. 

Chum was among the few artists to 

escape the brutal reign of the communist 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

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2005

Janette Carter A pp a l a c h i a n M u s i

c i a n a n dA d v oc a t e

Janette Carter was born in Little 

Valley Virginia, on July 2, 1923. 

 She was not quite four years old 

when her parents, A.P. and Sara Carter, 

and her aunt Maybelle Carter made 

their first recordings over a shoe store 

in Bristol, Tennessee. Those sessions 

on the RCA label are viewed as the 

beginning of commercial country music When she was about six years 

old, Janette Carter began performing 

with her family as a buck dancer. At 

twelve, she took up the autoharp and 

began traveling with the family act. She 

also accompanied her father on songcollecting expeditions to rural homes, 

where he would write down the words 

and she would remember the tunes. He 

later said, “She was my tape recorder.”

In the late 1930s, Janette Carter 

performed with her family on radio 

station XERA, whose transmitter was 

located across the Rio Grande from Del 

Rio, Texas. After A.P. Carter died in 

1960, Janette Carter retired from music 

and raised her three children. But a few 

years later, she began performing solo, 

and in 1974 she began staging shows in 

her father’s old grocery store. She went 

on to found the Carter Family Memorial 

Music Center, which includes a 1,000-

seat music amphitheater and a museum 

in the old store. Among family members 

who provided support were Maybelle 

Carter’s daughter June Carter Cash and 

her husband, country star Johnny Cash. 

The center holds a festival each August.

Janette Carter directed the center 

and served as master of ceremonies 

and performer at the Saturday night 

shows, often accompanied by her 

brother Joe. She toured in the United 

States and aboard, appeared on radio 

and TV and was recognized as a living 

musical treasure. But by all accounts 

she remained an unaffected country 

woman who called everybody, including 

former British Prime Minister Margaret 

Thatcher, “honey.” 

Carter told a Washington Post 

reporter in 1989 that a visitor to the 

center had once asked her what she was 

striving for. “That’s when it hit me,” she 

said. “I’m not striving for anything. I’ve 

reached it.” 

Carter passed away on January 22, 

2006 in Kingsport, Tennessee. 

Photo by Michael G. Stewart

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craftspeople up from the South as well, 

to forge a larger cultural connection. 

Sweezy, Rinzler, and Norman Kennedy, 

who later became an NEA National 

Heritage Fellow, established a not-forprofit organization, Country Roads Inc., 

dedicated to the research and marketing 

of unsold craft items from the festival.

In 1968, Country Roads purchased 

the historic Jugtown Pottery in 

Seagrove, North Carolina, and Sweezy 

moved there to direct the operation. She 

established apprenticeship programs, 

developed new glazes to replace the 

prohibited traditional lead glazes, and 

improved firing techniques to make the 

pottery more durable. She later wrote 

the authoritative book on Southern 

pottery for Smithsonian Press entitled 

Raised in Clay: The Southern Folk 

Pottery Tradition, published in 1984. 

The following year, Sweezy 

organized the Refugee Arts Group in 

Boston and through that organization 

administered festivals, workshops, 

exhibitions, apprenticeships, and school 

programs focusing on Cambodian, Lao, 

Hmong, and Vietnamese folk artists. 

In the 1990s, she began a study of 

Armenian folk crafts, resulting in another 

book, Armenian Folk Art, Culture, and 

Identity. In October 2005, with potter 

Mark Hewitt, she curated the exhibition 

The Potter’s Eye: Art and Tradition in 

North Carolina Pottery at the North 

Carolina Museum of Art. She and 

Hewitt wrote the University of North 

Carolina Press book of the same title. 

Sweezy passed away on February 

6, 2010.

2006

Nancy Sweezy

A d v o c a t e , S c h o l a r , P r e s e n t e r , a n d P r e s e r v a t i o n i s t

Nancy Sweezy was born 

October 14, 1921, in 

Flushing, New York. Her interest in 

crafts began with seeing pottery in a 

shop. “They were heavy and large, 

nothing like the delicate little china 

things I had seen all my life,” she said. “I 

liked them because they were strong and 

sturdy and honest.” Soon she enrolled 

in a pottery class. “As soon as I got my 

hands in clay, I said, ‘Okay, this is what 

I want to do,’” she said. “And I did it 

from 1950 to when I stopped because 

my hands got arthritic.”

While living in Cambridge, 

Massachusetts, in the late 1960s, 

Sweezy became involved in the folk 

music scene and met Ralph Rinzler, 

who was working for the Newport Folk 

Foundation, finding Southern musicians 

to bring to the Newport Folk Festival. 

She collaborated with him to bring 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

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2007

Roland Freeman

P h o t o D o c u m e n t a r i a n , A u t h o r , a n d E x h i b i t C u r a t o r

Roland Freeman was inspired 

by the socially conscious 

Depression-era photography of Gordon 

Parks and Roy DeCarava, as well as 

the Farm Security Administration 

photographers. At the age of 14, he 

met the author/folklorist Zora Neale 

Hurston, who also greatly influenced 

his life’s work. 

A native of Baltimore, he began 

photographing in the Washington, 

DC area in the late 1960s. In 1968, 

he participated in and documented the 

historic Poor People’s Campaign and the 

Mule Train from Marks, Mississippi, to 

the nation’s capital. Even while working 

as a stringer for Time magazine and 

Magnum Photos, including coverage as 

a White House photographer, his real 

passion throughout his career has been 

the documentation of African-American 

and Southern folk culture.

In the early 1970s, Freeman 

co-directed the Mississippi Folklife 

Project for the Smithsonian Institution’s 

Center for Folklife and Cultural 

Heritage. That work resulted in the 

exhibition Mississippi: Tradition and 

Change, now housed at the Mississippi 

State Archives. Continuously since 

then, Freeman has been a research 

associate/field research photographer 

with the Center. His interest in craft 

traditions led to his documentation and 

collection of quilts made by African 

Americans long before others were 

taking an interest in this distinct but 

little-recognized artistic tradition. This 

work resulted in the publication of the 

books: Something to Keep You Warm

and A Communion of the Spirits: 

African-American Quilters, Preservers 

and Their Stories. 

In 1990, Freeman consolidated 

two decades of documentation of the 

disappearing tradition of Baltimore 

street vendors, many of whom still 

used horse-drawn carts, for a major 

exhibition titled The Arabbers of 

Baltimore at the Baltimore Museum of 

Art and the publication of a similarly 

titled book. Freeman consistently works 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Photo by Roland Freeman

in collaboration with others: for more 

than 30 years, folklorist Worth Long 

and cultural historian Bernice Johnson 

Reagon have been invaluable guides 

and partners, and he has worked closely 

with folklorists Glenn Hinson, Charles 

Camp, and Jerrilyn McGregory. Over 

the years, Freeman’s major projects have 

led to four national and international 

touring exhibits and the publication of 

six widely acclaimed books.
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Walter Murray Chiesa 

was born in Bayamón, 

Puerto Rico, on June 21, 1923. For 

the past 45 years, Murray Chiesa has 

traveled the winding mountain roads 

and coastal plains of his native Puerto 

Rico, identifying traditional crafts 

workers, mapping crafts traditions, and 

creating public programs to heighten 

public awareness and appreciation for 

the island’s artisans. His passion and 

concern for Puerto Rico’s rich but 

previously ignored crafts traditions 

have contributed immeasurably to the 

renaissance of these arts, giving new life 

to traditions that were threatened by the 

rapid encroachment of mass culture. 

In 1962, he was invited to be 

director of the crafts division of the 

Institute for Puerto Rican Culture 

2008

Walter Murray Chiesa

T r a d i t i o n a l A r t s S p e c i a l i s t a n d A d v o c a t e

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

by Dr. Ricardo Alegria, a pioneer in 

recognizing the country’s traditional 

arts. Murray Chiesa spent the next 

12 years documenting Puerto Rico’s 

threatened handicrafts, organizing craft 

fairs throughout the island, expanding 

markets, and raising consciousness of 

Puerto Rico’s crafts heritage. During 

this period he also assembled a glossary 

of terms, tales, and sayings associated 

with the island’s crafts, as well as 

documenting crafts techniques and 

workers’ family histories.

In 1976 Murray Chiesa founded 

the Office of Crafts Development at 

Fomento, now known as the Puerto 

Rican Industrial Development 

Corporation (PRIDCO). Murray 

Chiesa’s strong leadership at PRIDCO 

resulted in several major initiatives 

that have taken firm root in the island. 

He instituted an annual Month of the 

Craftsman (Mes del Artesano) and the 

designation of a Master Craftsman of the 

Year. Murray Chiesa also created the 

Crafts Tool Bank to give needy workers 

access to the tools of their trade.

In 1998 he received an honorary 

doctorate from the Center for Advanced 

Studies of Puerto Rico and the 

Caribbean. Two years later, at the First 

International Arts and Crafts Fair in 

Puerto Rico, Murray Chiesa and Bess 

Lomax Hawes were awarded the Orden 

del Guatiao (Order of the Brotherhood) 

for their lifelong common cause of 

promoting, preserving, and advocating 

the folk and traditional arts. 

Photo by Tom Pich
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Mike Seeger stood out in 

a family of prominent 

scholars and musical performers as 

an advocate, a documenter, a teacher, 

and an artist. His parents, Charles 

and Ruth Crawford Seeger, moved 

to Washington, DC, in 1935, when 

his father got a job with the New Deal 

programs of the Works Progress 

Administration. 

Seeger was exposed to the 

documentation of traditional music 

through the work of John and Alan 

Lomax, based at the Library of 

Congress. During the early 1950s, 

Seeger began seriously recording 

traditional musicians, focusing first on 

old-time solo and duet music, along 

with the string band music of southwest 

Virginia. He also performed with greater 

frequency, eventually co-founding 

the seminal group the New Lost City 

Ramblers. Concurrent with the growing 

popularity of commercial folk music, 

the Ramblers performed music rooted 

in the regionally distinct repertoire of 

Appalachia and the upper South. 

While recognized widely for his 

mastery of the guitar, banjo, mandolin, 

fiddle, and autoharp, Seeger continued 

to seek out and record musicians who 

were not known except in their own 

communities. Thanks to his work, 

artists such as Dock Boggs, Maybelle 

Carter, Kilby Snow, Sam and Kirk 

McGee, and Hazel Dickens reached a 

broad public audience. (He was also 

responsible, along with his sister Peggy, 

for discovering Elizabeth Cotten, who 

was working as the family’s cook—due 

to their encouragement, she enjoyed 

a second career as a public performer, 

and received the NEA National Heritage 

Fellowship in 1984.) 

Seeger produced more than 30 

documentary recordings and performed 

on another 40 recordings, as well as 

several video instruction guides for 

instrumentalists and a documentary book 

and video on Southern traditional dance. 

Until his passing on August 7, 2009, 

Seeger continued to perform and tour, 

but as Joe Wilson—himself a recipient of 

the Bess Lomax Hawes NEA National 

Heritage Fellowship—said of Seeger, 

“His contributions as an advocate of 

great artists who had been ignored will 

shine for generations to come; he is our 

teacher in inclusiveness, the one always 

willing to put others before himself, to 

say ‘You need to hear this.’”

2009

Mike Seeger

M u s i c i a n , C u l t u r a l S c h o l a r , a n d A d v o c a t e

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

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people such as John Philip Sousa, 

Marian McPartland, Charles Ives, Bill 

Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Hazel Dickens, 

Robert Johnson, Tito Puente, and Elvis 

Presley. Her music books garnered 

twenty ASCAP Awards.

At the University of Illinois Press 

McCulloh also created the series 

Folklore and Society. These sixteen 

books, bracketed by Edward D. 

Ives’s George Magoon and the Down 

East Game War and Archie Green’s 

Tin Men, stand as models of folklore 

scholarship.

McCulloh’s contributions have 

been a major force in the preservation, 

understanding, and documentation of 

American folk culture. “I think part 

of the inescapable appeal of folklore is 

its intimacy and its significance for the 

people who carry it on and shape it or 

reshape it in some way,” McCulloh said.

She has served as president of 

the American Folklore Society and 

served on the Board of Trustees of 

the American Folklife Center at the 

Library of Congress at a time when her 

leadership and vision helped to save the 

center from dissolution in the 1990s. 

McCulloh’s hard work and vigilance 

have been recognized on numerous 

occasions, including a Society for 

American Music Distinguished Service 

Award, an International Bluegrass Music 

Association Distinguished Achievement 

Award, and an International 

Country Music Conference Lifetime 

Achievement Award. 

As a devoted scholar, folklorist, 

 and folk arts advocate, Judith 

McCulloh embodies the very spirit 

of the Bess Lomax Hawes National 

Heritage Fellowship. She 

was born in 1935 in Spring 

Valley, Illinois, and grew up 

at Northmoor Orchard near 

Peoria, where she helped her 

parents sell their apples and 

cider. At the National Folk 

Festival in St. Louis in 1954 

she systematically wrote down 

the words and music to songs 

she heard backstage, unaware 

she was “collecting” or “doing 

fieldwork.” Her fascination 

with traditional music grew 

more serious during her 

studies at Cottey College, 

Ohio Wesleyan University, 

and Ohio State University.

McCulloh completed 

her PhD in folklore at Indiana 

University and spent 35 years 

at the University of Illinois 

Press, where her positions 

included executive editor, 

assistant director, and director 

of development. During this 

time McCulloh spearheaded 

the renowned series Music 

in American Life, making 

her an important force in 

expanding and transforming 

music scholarship. The 130 

titles she published cover all 

aspects of American music 

and instruments as well as 

2010

Judith McCulloh

F o l k l o r i s t a n d E d i t o r

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

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Mexican American Community and 

Saints of the Southwest. In addition, Griffith has hosted Southern Arizona 

Traditions, a television spot on KUATTV’s Arizona Illustrated program. He 

has curated numerous 

exhibitions on regional 

traditional arts including 

La Cadena Que No Se 

Corta/The Unbroken 

Chain: The Traditional 

Arts of Tucson’s Mexican 

American Community at 

the University of Arizona 

Museum of Art. Griffith has 

been honored for his 

distinguished service to 

folklore and the state of 

Arizona with awards such 

as the 2005 Henry Glassie 

Award and the 2009 

Pima County Library 

Lifetime Achievement 

Award and served as the Grand Marshall for the 

2010 Tucson Rodeo 

Parade. His professional 

commitment has always 

been to understand the 

cultures of the Southwest 

region and to pass along that knowledge 

and understanding to the public as 

respectfully and accurately as possible. 

For more than four decades, Jim Griffith has been devoted to 

celebrating and honoring the folkways 

and religious expression found along 

the United States-Mexico border. “Big 

Jim,” as he is affectionately known, is 

known for his influential work both 

as an academic and public folklorist 

that has proliferated into numerous 

cultural ventures, including directing 

the Southwest Folklore Center at the 

University of Arizona and founding the 

annual Tucson Meet Yourself Festival.

Born in Santa Barbara, California, 

Griffith came to Tucson in 1955 to 

attend the University of Arizona, where 

he received three degrees, including 

a PhD in cultural anthropology and 

art history. From 1979 to 1998, Griffith led the university’s Southwest 

Folklore Center, dedicated to defining, 

illuminating, and presenting the 

character of the Greater Southwest. 

In 1974, Griffith co-founded Tucson 

Meet Yourself, a festival that celebrates 

Tucson’s ethnic and cultural diversity, 

with more communities participating 

every year. The festival currently 

draws more than 100,000 participants 

annually. Griffith has written several 

books on southern Arizona and 

northern Mexico folk and religious art 

traditions, including Hecho a Mano: 

The Traditional Arts of Tucson’s 

2011

Jim Griffith F o l k l o r i s t

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Photo by Steven Meckler Photography

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S t a t e L ist o f N a tio na l H e rit a g e F e llows h ip Re cipi en t s 

Note: City and state locations are residences of artists at the time awards were given.

Alabama

Mozell Benson (2001)

African-American Quilter

Opelika, AL

Birmingham Sunlights (2009)

Gospel Group

Birmingham, AL

Jerry Brown (1992)

Stoneware Potter

Hamilton, AL

Nora Ezell (1992)

African-American Quilter

Eutaw, AL

Bettye Kimbrell (2008)

Quilter

Mt. Olive, AL

John Henry Mealing (1996)

African-American Railroad Work 

Song Singer

Birmingham, AL

Dewey Williams (1983)

Shape Note Singer

Ozark, AL

Cornelius Wright, Jr. (1996)

African-American Railroad Work 

Song Singer

Birmingham, AL

Alaska

Elena & Nicholas Charles (1993)

Yupik Woodcarver/Maskmaker/

Skinsewer

Bethel, AK

Delores E. Churchill (2006)

Haida Weaver

Ketchikan, AK

Belle Deacon (1992)

Athabascan Basketmaker

Grayling, AK

Nathan Jackson (1995)

Tlingit Woodcarver/

Metalsmith/Dancer

Ketchikan, AK

Esther Littlefield (1991)

Tlingit Regalia Maker 

Sitka, AK

Teri Rofkar (2009)

Tlingit Weaver/Basketmaker

Sitka, AK

Dolly Spencer (1996)

Inupiat Dollmaker

Homer, AK

Jenny Thlunaut (1986)

Tlingit Chilkat Blanketweaver

Haines, AK

Paul Tiulana (1984)

Inupiaq Eskimo Maskmaker/

Dancer/Singer

Anchorage, AK

Arizona

Jim Griffith (2011)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Folklorist

Tucson, AZ

Evalena Henry (2001)

Apache Basketweaver

Peridot, AZ

Grace Henderson Nez (2005)

Navajo Weaver

Ganado, AZ

Chesley Goseyun Wilson (1989)

Apache Fiddle Maker

Tucson, AZ

Arkansas

Glenn Ohrlin (1985)

Cowboy Singer/

Storyteller/Illustrator

Mountain View, AR

Almeda Riddle (1983)

Ballad Singer

Greers Ferry, AR

California

Francisco Aguabella (1992)

Afro-Cuban Drummer

Manhattan Beach, CA

Anjana Ambegaokar (2004)

North Indian Kathak Dancer

Diamond Bar, CA

Jesus Arriada (2003)

Basque (Bertsolari) Poet

San Francisco, CA

George Blake (1991)

Hupa-Yurok Craftsman 

Hoopa, CA

Loren Bommelyn (2002)

Tolowa Tradition Bearer

Crescent City, CA

Charles Brown (1997)

Blues Pianist/Composer

Berkeley, CA

Natividad Cano (1990)

Mexican-American Mariachi 

Musician

Monterey Park, CA

Johnny Curutchet (2003)

Basque (Bertsolari) Poet

South San Francisco, CA

Violet de Cristoforo (2007)

Haiku Poet/Historian

Salinas, CA

Chitresh Das (2009)

Kathak Dancer/Choreographer

San Francisco, CA

Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro 

(2011)

Pandeiro Player/Percussionist

Los Angeles, CA

Kansuma Fujima (1987)

Japanese-American Dancer

Los Angeles, CA

Felipe García Villamil (2000)

Afro-Cuban Drummer/Santero

Los Angeles, CA

Ulysses “Uly” Goode (1999)

Western Mono Basketmaker

North Fork, CA

Eduardo “Lalo” Guerrero (1991)

Mexican-American Singer/

Guitarist/Composer

Cathedral City, CA

“Queen” Ida Guillory (2009)

Zydeco Musician

Daly City, CA

José Gutiérrez (1989)

Mexican Jarocho Musician/

Singer

Norwalk, CA

Richard Avedis Hagopian (1989)

Armenian Oud Player

Visalia, CA

Roy and PJ Hirabayashi (2011)

Taiko Drum Leaders

San Jose, CA

John Lee Hooker (1983)

Blues Guitarist/Singer

San Carlos, CA

Wen-yi Hua (1997)

Chinese Kunqu Opera Singer

Arcadia, CA

Zakir Hussain (1999)

North Indian Tabla Drummer

San Anselmo, CA

Khamvong Insixiengmai (1991)

Laotian Singer

Fresno, CA

Danongan Kalanduyan (1995)

Filipino-American Kulintang 

Musician

San Francisco, CA

Ali Akbar Khan (1997)

Sarod Player/Raga Composer

San Anselmo, CA

Agustin Lira (2007)

Chicano Singer/

Musician/Composer

Fresno, CA

Sosei Shizuye Matsumoto 

(1994)

Japanese Tea Ceremony Master

Los Angeles, CA

Brownie McGhee (1982)

Blues Guitarist/Singer

Oakland, CA

Carmencristina Moreno (2003)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Mexican-American Singer/

Composer/Teacher

Fresno, CA

John Yoshio Naka (1992)

Bonsai Sculptor

Los Angeles, CA

Luis Ortega (1986)

Hispanic-American 

Rawhide Worker

Paradise, CA

Julia Parker (2007)

Kashia Pomo Basketmaker

Lee Vining, CA

Herminia Albarrán Romero 

(2005)

Paper-cutting Artist

San Francisco, CA

Manoochehr Sadeghi (2003)

Persian Santur Player

Sherman Oaks, CA

Sophiline Cheam Shapiro (2009)

Cambodian Classical Dancer/

Choreographer

Long Beach, CA

Chris Strachwitz (2000)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Record Producer/Label Founder

El Cerrito, CA

Seiichi Tanaka (2001)

Taiko Drummer/Dojo Founder

San Francisco, CA 1989 NEA National Heritage Fellow 

Vanessa Paukeigope Jennings. 

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Lily Vorperian (1994)

Armenian Marash-Style 

Embroiderer

Glendale, CA

Gussie Wells (1991)

African-American Quilter

Oakland, CA

Arbie Williams (1991)

African-American Quilter

Oakland, CA

Colorado

Eppie Archuleta (1985)

Hispanic Weaver

San Luis Valley, CO

Francis Whitaker (1997)

Blacksmith/Ornamental 

Ironworker

Carbondale, CO

Connecticut

Eldrid Skjold Arntzen (2005)

Norwegian-American 

Rosemaler

Watertown, CT

Ilias Kementzides (1989)

Pontic Greek Lyra Player

Norwalk, CT

Tanjore Viswanathan (1992)

South Indian Flute Master

Middletown, CT

District of Columbia

Hazel Dickens (2001)

Appalachian Singer/Songwriter

Washington, DC/Montcalm, WV

Roland Freeman (2007)

Photo Documentarian/

Author/Exhibit Curator

Washington, DC

Florida

Epstein Brothers (1998)

Klezmer Musicians

Tamarac, FL

Israel “Cachao” López (1995)

Afro-Cuban Bassist/Composer/

Bandleader

Miami, FL

Diomedes Matos (2006)

Cuatro Maker

Deltona, FL

Ezequiel Torres (2010)

Afro-Cuban Drummer/Drum 

Builder

Miami, FL

Nicholas Toth (2003)

Diving Helmet Designer/Builder

Tarpon Springs, FL

Nikitas Tsimouris (1991)

Greek-American Bagpipe Player

Tarpon Springs, FL

Georgia

McIntosh County Shouters 

(1993)

African-American Spiritual/

Shout Performers

Towsend, GA

The Blind Boys of 

Alabama (1994)

African-American Gospel 

Singers

Atlanta, GA

Georgia Harris (1997)

Catawba Potter

Atlanta, GA

Claude Joseph Johnson (1987)

African-American Religious 

Singer/Orator

Atlanta, GA

Bessie Jones (1982)

Georgia Sea Island Singer

Brunswick, GA

Hugh McGraw (1982)

Shape Note Singer

Bremen, GA

Lanier Meaders (1983)

Potter

Cleveland, GA

Lucinda Toomer (1983)

African-American Quilter

Columbus, GA

Guam

Joaquin “Jack” Lujan (1996)

Chamorro Blacksmith

Barrigada, GU

Hawaii

Gladys Kukana Grace (2010)

Lauhala Weaver

Honolulu, HI

Richard Ho’opi’i (1996)

Hawaiian Falsetto Singer/

Musician

Wailuku, HI

Solomon Ho’opi’i (1996)

Hawaiian Falsetto Singer/

Musician

Pukalani, HI

Ledward Kaapana (2011)

Ukulele/Slack Key Guitarist

Kaneohe, HI

Meali’i Kalama (1985)

Hawaiian Quilter

Honolulu, HI

Eddie Kamae (2007)

Hawaiian Musician/Composer/

Filmmaker

Honolulu, HI

Nalani Kanaka’ole (1993)

Hula Master 

Hilo, HI

Pualani Kanaka’ole Kanahele 

(1993)

Hula Master 

Hilo, HI

Raymond Kane (1987)

Hawaiian Slack-Key Guitarist/

Singer

Wai’anae, HI

Genoa Keawe (2000)

Hawaiian Falsetto Singer/

Ukulele Player

Honolulu, HI

Marie MacDonald (1990)

Hawaiian Lei Maker

Kamuela, HI

Seisho “Harry” Nakasone 

(1991)

Okinawan-American Musician

Honolulu, HI

George Na’ope (2006)

Hula Master

Hilo, HI

Clyde “Kindy” Sproat (1988)

Hawaiian Cowboy Singer/

Ukulele Player

Kapa’au, HI

James Ka’upena Wong (2005)

Hawaiian Chanter

Waianae, HI

Emily Kau’i Zuttermeister (1984)

Hula Master 

Kaneohe, HI

Idaho

Horace P. Axtell (2008)

Nez Perce Elder/Spiritual 

Leader/Drum maker

Lewiston, ID

Rose Frank (1991)

Nez Perce Cornhusk Weaver

Lapwai, ID

Dale Harwood (2008)

Saddlemaker

Shelley, ID

Jimmy Jausoro (1985)

Basque Accordionist

Boise, ID

Elmer Miller (1993)

Bit and Spur Maker/Silversmith

Nampa, ID

Illinois

Eddie Blazonczyk (1998)

Polish-American Polka 

Musician/Bandleader

Bridgeview, IL

Liz Carroll (1994)

Irish-American Fiddler

Chicago, IL

David “Honeyboy” Edwards 

(2002)

Delta Blues Guitarist/Singer

Chicago, IL

Michael Flatley (1988)

Irish-American Stepdancer

Palos Park, IL

Albert “Sunnyland Slim” 

Luandrew (1988)

Blues Pianist/Singer

Chicago, IL

Judith McCulloh (2010)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Folklorist/Editor

Urbana, IL

Adam Popovich (1982)

Tamburitza Musician

Dolton, IL

Joe Shannon (1983)

Irish Piper

Chicago, IL

Mavis Staples (2006)

Gospel/Rhythm-and-Blues 

Singer

Chicago, IL

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Roebuck “Pops” Staples (1998)

Gospel/Blues Musician

Dolton, IL

Koko Taylor (2004)

Blues Singer

Country Club Hills, IL

Albertina Walker (2005)

Gospel Singer

Chicago, IL

Indiana

Earnest Bennett (1986)

Anglo-American Woodcarver

Indianapolis, IN

Milan Opacich (2004)

Tamburitza Instrument Maker

Shererville, IN

Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins 

(2000)

Blues Piano Player

La Porte, IN

Iowa

Everett Kapayou (1993)

Mesquakie Singer

Tama, IA

Genevieve Mougin (1984)

Lebanese-American Lacemaker

Bettendorf, IA

Nadjeschda Overgaard (1998)

Danish-American Hardanger 

Embroiderer

Kimballton, IA

Dorothy Trumpold (2001)

Rug Weaver

East Amana, IA

Kansas

Kepka Belton (1988)

Czech-American Egg Painter

Ellsworth, KS

Sonia Domsch (1986)

Czech-American Bobbin 

Lacemaker

Atwood, KS

Kentucky

Clyde Davenport (1992)

Appalachian Fiddler

Monticello, KY

Lily May Ledford (1985)

Appalachian Musician/Singer

Lexington, KY

Eddie Pennington (2001)

Thumbpicking-Style Guitarist

Princeton, KY

Jean Ritchie (2002)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Appalachian Musician/

Songwriter/Cultural Activist

Port Washington, NY/Viper, KY

Morgan Sexton (1991)

Appalachian Banjo Player/

Singer

Linefork, KY

Louisiana

Alphonse “Bois Sec” Ardoin 

(1986)

Creole Accordionist

Eunice, LA

Dewey Balfa (1982)

Cajun Fiddler

Basile, LA

Earl Barthé (2005)

Creole Building Artisan

New Orleans, LA

Inez Catalon (1993)

French Creole Singer

Kaplan, LA

Wilson “Boozoo” Chavis (2001)

Zydeco Accordionist

Lake Charles, LA

Clifton Chenier (1984)

Zydeco Accordionist

Lafayette, LA

Gladys LeBlanc Clark (1997)

Cajun Spinner/Weaver

Duson, LA

Luderin Darbone (2002)

Cajun Fiddler

Sulphur, LA

Bo Dollis (2011)

Mardi Gras Indian Chief

New Orleans, LA

Michael Doucet (2005)

Cajun Fiddler/

Composer/Bandleader

Lafayette, LA

Edwin Duhon (2002)

Cajun Accordionist

Westlake, LA

Canray Fontenot (1986)

Creole Fiddler

Welsh, LA

Thomas Edison “Brownie” Ford 

(1987)

Anglo-Comanche Cowboy 

Singer/Storyteller

Hebert, LA

Henry Gray (2006)

Blues Pianist/Singer

Baton Rouge, LA

D.L. Menard (1994)

Cajun Musician/Songwriter

Erath, LA

Allison “Tootie” Montana 

(1987)

Mardi Gras Chief/Costume 

Maker

New Orleans, LA

Irvan Perez (1991)

Isleno (Canary Islands) Singer 

Poydras, LA

Marc Savoy (1992)

Cajun Accordion Maker/

Musician

Eunice, LA

Ada Thomas (1983)

Chitimacha Basketmaker

Charenton, LA

Treme Brass Band (2006)

New Orleans Brass Band

New Orleans, LA

Dr. Michael G. White (2008)

Jazz Clarinetist/Bandleader/

Scholar

New Orleans, LA

Maine

Sister Mildred Barker (1983)

Shaker Singer

Poland Springs, ME

Mary Mitchell Gabriel (1994)

Passamaquoddy Basketmaker

Princeton, ME

Clara Neptune Keezer (2002)

Passamaquoddy Basketmaker

Perry, ME

Simon St. Pierre (1983)

French-American Fiddler

Smyrna Mills, ME

Ralph W. Stanley (1999)

Boatbuilder

Southwest Harbor, ME

Maryland

Apsara Dancers (1998)

Cambodian Musicians & 

Dancers

Reston, VA/Fort Washington, 

MD

Chuck Brown (2005)

African-American Musical 

Innovator

Brandywine, MD

Peou Khatna (1986)

Cambodian Court Dancer/

Choreographer

Silver Spring, MD

Chum Ngek (2004)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Cambodian Musician/Teacher

Gaithersburg, MD

Harilaos Papapostolou (1998)

Greek Byzantine Chanter

Potomac, MD

Ola Belle Reed (1986)

Appalachian Banjo Picker/

Singer

Rising Sun, MD

Lem Ward (1983)

Decoy Carver/Painter

Crisfield, MD

Warner Williams (2011)

Piedmont Blues Songster

Gaithersburg, MD

Joseph T. Wilson (2001)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Folklorist/Advocate/Presenter

Silver Spring, MD/Trade, TN

Massachusetts

Joseph Cormier (1984)

Cape Breton Violinist

Waltham, MA

Joe Derrane (2004)

Irish-American Button 

Accordionist

Randolph, MA

Peter Kyvelos (2001)

Oud Maker

Bedford, MA

James “Jimmy Slyde” Godbolt 

(1999)

Tap Dancer

Hanson, MA

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Nancy Sweezy (2006) 

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Advocate/Scholar/Presenter/

Preservationist

Westwood, MA

Michigan

Howard Armstrong (1990)

African-American String Band 

Musician

Detroit, MI

Nadim Dlaikan (2002)

Lebanese Nye (reed flute) Player

Southgate, MI

Wade Mainer (1987)

Appalachian Banjo Picker/

Singer

Flint, MI

Art Moilanen (1990)

Finnish Accordionist

Mass City, MI

Yang Fang Nhu (1988)

Hmong Weaver/Embroiderer

Detroit, MI

Minnesota

Bounxou Chanthraphone (2000)

Laotian Weaver/Embroiderer

Brooklyn Park, MN

Paul Dahlin (1996)

Swedish-American Fiddler

Minneapolis, MN

Christy Hengel (1989)

German-American Concertina 

Maker

New Ulm, MN

Maude Kegg (1990)

Ojibwe Tradition Bearer

Onamie, MN

Leif Melgaard (1985)

Norwegian-American 

Woodcarver

Minneapolis, MN

Mississippi

Riley “B.B.” King (1991)

Blues Guitarist/Singer

Itta Bena, MS/Las Vegas, NV

Jack Owens (1993)

Blues Singer/Guitarist

Bentonia, MS

Hystercine Rankin (1997)

African-American Quilter

Lorman, MS

Othar Turner (1992)

African-American Fife Player

Senatobia, MS

Elder Roma Wilson (1994)

African-American Harmonica 

Player

Blue Springs, MS

Missouri

Lyman Enloe (1995)

Old-Time Fiddler

Lees Summit, MO

Bob Holt (1999)

Ozark Fiddler

Ava, MO

Mabel E. Murphy (1989)

Anglo-American Quilter

Fulton, MO

Mone & Vanxay 

Saenphimmachak (1993)

Laotian Weavers/

Needleworkers/Loommakers

St. Louis, MO

Willie Mae Ford Smith (1988)

African-American Gospel Singer

St. Louis, MO

Henry Townsend (1985)

Blues Musician/Songwriter

St. Louis, MO

Claude “The Fiddler” Williams 

(1998)

Jazz/Swing Fiddler

Kansas City, MO

Montana

Agnes “Oshanee” Kenmille

Salish Beadworker/Regalia 

Maker

Ronan, MT

Wallace McRae (1990)

Cowboy Poet

Forsyth, MT

Nebraska

Albert Fahlbusch (1984)

Hammered Dulcimer Maker/

Player

Scottsbluff, NE

Nevada

Jesus Goni (2003)

Basque (Bertsolari) Poet

Reno, NV

Riley “B.B.” King (1991)

Blues Guitarist/Singer

Itta Bena, MS/Las Vegas, NV

Norma Miller (2003)

African-American Dancer/

Choreographer

Las Vegas, NV

New Hampshire

Dudley Laufman (2009)

Dance Caller/Musician

Canterbury, NH

Bob McQuillen (2002)

Contra Dance Musician/

Composer

Peterborough, NH

Newton Washburn (1987)

Split Ash Basketmaker

Littleton, NH

New Jersey

Giuseppe and Raffaela 

DeFranco (1990)

Southern Italian Musicians and 

Dancers

Belleville, NJ

Charles Hankins (1993)

Boatbuilder

Lavallette, NJ

Mike Rafferty (2010)

Irish Flute Player

Hasbrouck Heights, NJ

Harry V. Shourds (1989)

Wildfowl Decoy Carver

Seaville, NJ

Eudokia Sorochaniuk (1999)

Ukrainian Weaver/Textile Artist 

Pennsauken, NJ

Yuri Yunakov (2011)

Bulgarian Saxophonist

Bloomfield, NJ

New Mexico

Charles M. Carrillo (2006)

Santero

Santa Fe, NM

Helen Cordero (1986)

Pueblo Potter

Cochiti Pueblo, NM

Frances Varos Graves (1994)

Hispanic-American Colcha 

Embroiderer

Ranchos de Taos, NM

George López (1982)

Santos Woodcarver

Cordova, NM

Ramón José López (1997)

Santero/Metalsmith

Santa Fe, NM

Esther Martinez (2006)

Native-American Storyteller/

Linguist

Ohkay Owingeh, NM

Roberto & Lorenzo Martínez 

(2003)

Hispanic Musicians

Albuquerque, NM

Eliseo & Paula Rodriguez (2004)

Straw Appliqué Artists

Santa Fe, NM

Emilio & Senaida Romero 

(1987)

Hispanic-American 

Craftsworkers in Tin and 

Embroidery 

Santa Fe, NM

Margaret Tafoya (1984)

Santa Clara Pueblo Potter

Espanola, NM

Irvin L. Trujillo (2007)

Rio Grande Weaver

Chimayo, NM

Cleofas Vigil (1984)

Hispanic Storyteller/Singer

San Cristobal, NM

New York

Yacub Addy (2010)

Ghanaian Drummer

Latham, NY

Frisner Augustin (1999)

Haitian Drummer

Brooklyn, NY

Edward Babb (1997)

Shout Gospel Trombonist/

Band Leader

Jamaica, NY

Bao Mo-Li (1995)

Chinese-American Jing Erhu 

Player

Flushing, NY

Charles “Chuck” T. Campbell 

(2004)

Sacred Steel Guitar Player

Rochester, NY

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Jack Coen (1991)

Irish-American Flautist

Bronx, NY

Sidiki Conde (2007)

Guinean Dancer/Musician

New York, NY

Elizabeth Cotten (1984)

African-American Singer/

Songwriter

Syracuse, NY

Rosa Elena Egipciaco (2003)

Puerto Rican Mundillo (Bobbin 

Lace) Maker

New York, NY

Donny Golden (1995)

Irish-American Stepdancer

Brooklyn, NY

Juan Gutiérrez (1996)

Puerto Rican Drummer 

New York, NY

Periklis Halkias (1985)

Greek Clarinetist

Astoria, NY

Joe Heaney (1982)

Irish Singer

Brooklyn, NY

Fatima Kuinova (1992)

Bukharan Jewish Singer

Rego Park, NY

Frankie Manning (2000)

Lindy Hop Dancer/

Choreographer/Teacher

Corona, NY

Mike Manteo (1983)

Sicilian Marionettist

Staten Island, NY

Amma D. McKen (2009)

Yoruba Orisha Singer

Queens, NY

Martin Mulvihill (1984)

Irish-American Fiddler

Bronx, NY

Kamala Lakshmi Narayanan 

(2010)

Bharatanatyam Indian Dancer

Mastic, NY

Ng Sheung-Chi (1992)

Chinese Toissan muk’yu Folk 

Singer

New York, NY

João “João Grande” Olivera 

dos Santos (2001)

Capoeira Angola Master

New York, NY

Konstantinos Pilarinos (2000)

Orthodox Byzantine Icon 

Woodcarver

Astoria, NY

Qi Shu Fang (2001)

Beijing Opera Performer

Woodhaven, NY

Sue Yeon Park (2008)

Korean Dancer/Musician

New York, NY

Jean Ritchie (2002)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Appalachian Musician/

Songwriter/Cultural Activist

Port Washington, NY/Viper, KY

Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman 

(2005)

Yiddish Singer/Poet/Songwriter

Bronx, NY

Simon Shaheen (1994)

Arab-American Oud Player

Brooklyn, NY

Howard “Sandman” Sims 

(1984)

Tap Dancer

New York, NY

Liang-xing Tang (1993)

Chinese-American Pipa (lute) 

Player

Bayside, NY

Dave Tarras (1984)

Klezmer Clarinetist

Brooklyn, NY

Sanders “Sonny” Terry (1982)

Blues Harmonica Player/Singer

Holliswood, NY

Jelon Vieira (2008)

Capoeira Master

New York, NY

North Carolina

Etta Baker (1991)

African-American Guitarist

Morgantown, NC

Shirley Caesar (1999)

Gospel Singer

Durham, NC

Walker Calhoun (1992)

Cherokee Musician/

Dancer/Teacher

Cherokee, NC

Bertha Cook (1984)

Knotted Bedspread Maker

Boone, NC

Burlon Craig (1984)

Potter

Vale, NC

Bea Ellis Hensley (1995)

Blacksmith

Spruce Pine, NC

Ray Hicks (1983)

Appalachian Storyteller

Banner Elk, NC

Stanley Hicks (1983)

Appalachian Musician/

Storyteller/Instrument Maker

Vilas, NC

John Dee Holeman (1988)

African-American Musician/

Dancer/Singer

Durham, NC

Tommy Jarrell (1982)

Appalachian Fiddler

Mt. Airy, NC

Vernon Owens (1996)

Stoneware Potter

Seagrove, NC

Mary Jane Queen (2007)

Appalachian Musician

Cullowhee, NC

Joe Thompson (2007)

African-American String 

Band Musician

Mebane, NC

Douglas Wallin (1990)

Appalachian Ballad Singer

Marshall, NC

Arthel “Doc” Watson (1988)

Appalachian Guitarist/Singer

Deep Gap, NC

North Dakota

Francis & Rose Cree (2002)

Ojibwa Basketmakers/

Storytellers

Dunseith, ND

Mary Louise Defender Wilson 

(1999)

Dakotah-Hidatsa Traditionalist/

Storyteller

Shields, ND

Sister Rosalia Haberl (1988)

German-American Bobbin 

Lacemaker

Hankinson, ND

Northern Mariana

Islands

Felipe & Joseph Ruak (2003)

Carolinian Stick Dance Leaders

Commonwealth of the Northern 

Mariana Islands

Ohio

Robert Lockwood, Jr. (1995)

Delta Blues Guitarist/Singer

Cleveland, OH

Phong Nguyen (1997)

Vietnamese Musician/Scholar

Kent, OH

Elijah Pierce (1982)

Carver/Painter

Columbus, OH

Kenny Sidle (1988)

Anglo-American Fiddler

Newark, OH

Oklahoma

Bruce Caesar (1998)

Sac and Fox-Pawnee 

Silversmith

Anadarko, OK

Wanda Jackson (2005)

Early Country/Rockabilly/

Gospel Singer

Oklahoma City, OK

Vanessa Paukeigope Jennings 

(1989)

Kiowa Regalia Maker

Anadarko, OK

Joyce Doc Tate Nevaquaya 

(1986)

Comanche Flutist

Apache, OK

Georgeann Robinson (1982)

Osage Ribbonworker

Bartlesville, OK

Fred Tsoodle (2001)

Kiowa Sacred Song Leader

Mountain View, OK
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Oregon

Obo Addy (1996)

Ghanaian-American Drummer 

Portland, OR

Kevin Burke (2002)

Irish Fiddler

Portland, OR

Genoveva Castellanoz (1987)

Mexican-American Corona 

Maker

Nyssa, OR

Sophia George (1998)

Yakama-Colville Beadworker

Gresham, OR

Pat Courtney Gold (2007)

Wasco Wapaas (sally bag) 

Weaver

Scappoose, OR

Bua Xou Mua (1985)

Hmong Musician

Portland, OR

Duff Severe (1982)

Western Saddlemaker

Pendleton, OR

Yuqin Wang & Zhengli Xu 

(2004)

Chinese Rod Puppeteers

Aloha, OR

Pennsylvania

Dixie Hummingbirds (2000)

African-American Gospel 

Quartet

Philadelphia, PA

Em Bun (1990)

Cambodian Silk Weaver

Harrisburg, PA

Jerry Grcevich (2005)

Tamburitza Musician/

Prim Player

North Huntingdon, PA

Losang Samten (2002)

Tibetan Sand Mandala Painter

Philadelphia, PA

Mick Moloney (1999)

Irish Musician

Philadelphia, PA

LaVaughn E. Robinson (1989)

Tap Dancer

Philadelphia, PA

Elaine Hoffman Watts (2007)

Klezmer Musician

Havertown, PA

Horace “Spoons” Williams 

(1985)

Percussionist/Poet

Philadelphia, PA

Puerto Rico

Juan Alindato (1987)

Carnival Maskmaker

Ponce, PR

Celestino Avilés (2001)

Santero

Orocovis, PR

Rafael Cepeda (1983)

Bomba Musician/Dancer

Santurce, PR

Walter Murray Chiesa (2008)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Traditional Crafts Advocate

Bayamón, PR

José González (2000)

Hammock Weaver

San Sebastián, PR

Julio Negrón-Rivera (1985)

Puerto Rican Instrument Maker

Morovis, PR

Emilio Rosado (1990)

Woodcarver

Utuado, PR

Edwin Colón Zayas (2009)

Cuatro Player

Aguadilla, PR

Rhode Island

Nicholas Benson (2007)

Stone Letter Cutter/Carver

Newport, RI

South Carolina

Janie Hunter (1984)

African-American Singer/

Storyteller

Johns Island, SC

Mary Jackson (2010)

Sweetgrass Basketweaver

Johns Island, SC

Mary Jane Manigault (1984)

African-American Seagrass 

Basketmaker

Mt. Pleasant, SC

Philip Simmons (1982)

Ornamental Ironworker

Charleston, SC

South Dakota

LeRoy Graber (2009)

German-Russian Willow 

Basketmaker

Freeman, SD

Kevin Locke (1990)

Lakota Flute Player/Singer/

Dancer/Storyteller

Mobridge, SD

Nellie Star Boy Menard (1995)

Lakota Sioux Quiltmaker

Rosebud, SD

Alice New Holy Blue Legs 

(1985)

Lakota Sioux Quill Artist

Oglala, SD

Tennessee

Fairfield Four (1989)

African-American Gospel 

Singers

Nashville, TN

Kenny Baker (1993)

Bluegrass Fiddler

Cottontown, TN

Ralph Blizard (2002)

Old-Time Fiddler

Blountville, TN

Dale Calhoun (1998)

Boatbuilder 

Tiptonville, TN

Jerry Douglas (2004)

Dobro Player

Nashville, TN

Will Keys (1996)

Appalachian Banjo Player

Gray, TN

Doyle Lawson (2006)

Gospel/Bluegrass Singer/

Arranger/Bandleader

Bristol, TN

Delano “Del” McCoury (2010)

Bluegrass Guitarist/Singer

Nashville, TN

Jim & Jesse McReynolds (1997)

Bluegrass Musicians

Gallatin, TN

Bill Monroe (1982)

Bluegrass Musician

Nashville, TN

Earl Scruggs (1989)

Bluegrass Banjo Player

Madison, TN

Robert Spicer (1990)

Flatfoot Dancer

Dickson, TN

Alex Stewart (1983)

Cooper/Woodworker

Sneedville, TN

Joseph T. Wilson (2001)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Folklorist/Advocate/Presenter

Silver Spring, MD/Trade, TN

Mac Wiseman (2008)

Bluegrass/Country Musician

Nashville, TN

Nimrod Workman (1986)

Appalachian Ballad Singer

Mascot, TN/Chattaroy, WV

Texas

Pedro Ayala (1988)

Mexican-American Accordionist

Donna, TX

Laverne Brackens (2011)

Quilter

Fairfield, TX

Jim “Texas Shorty” Chancellor 

(2010)

Fiddler

Rockwall, TX

Antonio De La Rosa (1998)

Tejano Conjunto Accordionist

Riviera, TX

Johnny Gimble (1994)

Western Swing Fiddler

Dripping Springs, TX

Santiago Jiménez, Jr. (2000)

Tejano Accordionist/Singer

San Antonio, TX

Valerio Longoria (1986)

Mexican-American Accordionist

San Antonio, TX

Narciso Martínez (1983)

Conjunto Accordionist/

Composer

San Benito, TX

Lydia Mendoza (1982)

Mexican-American Singer

Houston, TX
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w ships 89

Alex Moore, Sr. (1987)

Blues Pianist

Dallas, TX

Joel Nelson (2009)

Cowboy Poet

Alpine, TX

Buck Ramsey (1995)

Cowboy Poet/Singer

Amarillo, TX

Domingo “Mingo” Saldivar 

(2002)

Conjunto Accordionist

San Antonio, TX

Don Walser (2000)

Western Singer/Guitarist

Austin, TX

Utah

Mary Holiday Black (1995)

Navajo Basketmaker

Mexican Hat, UT

Jeronimo E. Lozano (2008)

Retablo Maker

Salt Lake City, UT

Vermont

Amber Densmore (1988)

Quilter/Needleworker

Chelsea, VT

Norman Kennedy (2003)

Weaver/Singer/Storyteller

Marshfield, VT

Virgin Islands

Sylvester McIntosh (1987)

Crucian Singer/Bandleader

St. Croix, VI

Virginia

Apsara Ensemble (1998)

Cambodian Musicians & 

Dancers

Reston, VA/Fort Washington, 

MD

Janette Carter (2005)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Appalachian Musician/Advocate

Hiltons, VA

John Cephas (1989)

Piedmont Blues Guitarist/Singer

Woodford, VA

Wayne Henderson (1995)

Appalachian Luthier/Musician

Mouth of Wilson, VA

John Jackson (1986)

African-American Singer/

Guitarist

Fairfax Station, VA

Flory Jagoda (2002)

Sephardic Musician/Composer

Falls Church, VA

Frank Newsome (2011)

Old Regular Baptist Singer

Haysi, VA

Mike Seeger (2009)

Bess Lomax Hawes Award

Musician/Cultural Scholar/

Advocate

Lexington, VA

Moges Seyoum (2008)

Ethiopian Church Musician

Alexandria, VA

Ralph Stanley (1984)

Appalachian Banjo Player/Singer

Coeburn, VA

Washington

Santiago Almeida (1993)

Conjunto Musician

Sunnyside, WA

Alfredo Campos (1999)

Horse-Hair Hitcher

Federal Way, WA

Violet Hilbert (1994)

Skagit Storyteller

Seattle, WA

Nettie Jackson (2000)

Klickitat Basketmaker

White Swan, WA

Gerald “Subiyay” Miller (2004)

Skokomish Tradition Bearer/

Carver/Basketmaker

Shelton, WA

Wilho Saari (2006)

Finnish Kantele (Lap-harp) 

Player

Naselle, WA

West Virginia

Hazel Dickens (2001)

Appalachian Singer/Songwriter

Washington, DC/Montcalm, WV

Elliott “Ellie” Manette (1999)

Trinidadian Steel Pan Builder/

Tuner/Player

Morgantown, WV

B. Dorothy Thompson (2000)

Appalachian Weaver

Davis, WV

Melvin Wine (1991)

Appalachian Fiddler

Copen, WV

Nimrod Workman (1986)

Appalachian Ballad Singer

Mascot, TN/Chattaroy, WV

Wisconsin

Louis Bashell (1987)

Slovenian Polka Accordionist

Greenfield, WI

Lila Greengrass Blackdeer (1999)

Hocak Black Ash Basketmaker/

Needleworker

Black River Falls, WI

Betty Pisio Christenson (1996)

Ukranian-American Egg 

Decorator

Suring, WI

Gerald R. Hawpetoss (1992)

Menominee/Potowatomie 

Regalia Maker

Milwaukee, WI

Ethel Kvalheim (1989)

Norwegian Rosemaler

Stoughton, WI

Oneida Hymn Singers of 

Wisconsin (2008)

Hymn Singers

Oneida, WI

Ron Poast (2003)

Hardanger Fiddle Maker

Black Earth, WI

Wyoming

Martin Goicoechea (2003)

Basque (Bertsolari) Poet

Rock Springs, WY

Don King (1991)

Western Saddlemaker 

Sheridan, WY

Eva McAdams (1996)

Shoshone Regalia Maker

Fort Washakie, WY

S t a t e L ist o f N a tio na l H e rit a g e F e llows h ip Re cipi en t s 

A detail of the masterful 

decorative architectural work by

2005 NEA National Heritage 

Fellow Earl Barthé. 

Photo courtesy of Earl Barthé
The DVD-Rom is an interactive learning experience and is the most comprehensive 

documentation of the NEA National Heritage Fellows, 1982-2011, compiled to date. 

The DVD-Rom includes 368 biographical entries, 4,643 photographs, 1,724 music 

and interview segments (39.75 hours), and 553 videos (10.79 hours) and is easily 

sortable. Whether you are researching a particular art form or artist, or randomly 

exploring this vast cultural landscape, what you’ll find is amazing. 

A computer with a DVD drive is required to view the DVD-Rom—it will not work 

in a DVD player.

(System requirements: Mac: Mac OS 10.2 or higher, 256 MB RAM, 1 Ghz 

Processor or faster; PC: Windows XP, 256 MB RAM, 1 Ghz Processor or faster)

The DVD-Rom was produced for the NEA by Documentary Arts, Inc.

Project Director: Alan Govenar

Technical design: Alan Hatchett, Andrew Dean, Daniel S. Dunnam

Flash programming: Chris Griffith

Copyediting: Jay F. Brakefield

The 80-page Masters of Traditional Arts Education Guide by Paddy Bowman, 

Betty Carter, and Alan Govenar—created in 2002 and updated in 2011 to 

accompany this version of the DVD-Rom—is available as a PDF document on this 

DVD-Rom. The Masters of Traditional Arts Education Guide can also be found 

online at www.mastersoftraditionalarts.org.

For more information on Documentary Arts, Inc., visit www.documentaryarts.org. 

DVD label photo credits (clockwise from top left):

2009 Fellow Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, 2006 Fellow George Na’ope, 2008 Fellow 

Bettye Kimbrell, 2007 Fellow Sidiki Conde, 1989 Fellow Chesley Goseyun Wilson, 

2001 Fellow Mozell Benson, 1989 Fellow Antonio De La Rosa, 2000 Fellow 

Konstantinos Pilarinos.

Photographs by Alan Govenar

NEA National Heritage 

Fellowships DVD-Rom
The National Endowment for the Arts was established 

by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the 

federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded 

more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, 

creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals 

and communities. The NEA extends its work through 

partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other 

federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. 

2010 NEA National Heritage Fellow Yacub 

Addy (center with drum) performing at the 

annual awards ceremony concert. 

Photo by Michael G. Stewart
national endowment for the arts

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. 

Washington, D.C. 20560-0001

Not for sale––Available for free at arts.gov