Texas
odd: label: Introduction
content: In 1968 the Festival began its ongoing concern with the regional cultures of America with a distinct "featured State" program about Texas. Festival Director Ralph Rinzler had devised the idea of State programming at the Newport Folk Festival but was not able to implement it. He enlisted Mack McCormick, whom he knew from Newport, to help put the Texas program together, received support through the Institute of Texan Cultures, and built upon a program at the 1968 Hemisfair in San Antonio. The Festival program included basket makers, a saddle maker and blacksmith, oven builders, a Czech dance band, a Tigua Indian group, corrido singers, a mariachi band, Lightnin' Hopkins, storytellers, and a variety of cooks. The program illustrated that regional culture often crosses ethnic communities and provides a particular cultural identity and aesthetic style. At the same time, the program showed, regions generally host considerable cultural variation and diversity.

The Texas presentations were produced by the newly formed Institute of Texan Cultures. Traditional food of the Southwest was prepared and served by the San Antonio Conservation Society.
label: Participants
content: Crafts

Kathryn Apelt, armadillo basket maker, Texas

Dorothy Buchanan, lye soap maker, Texas

Oscar Carvajal, Jr., 1906-1985, saddler maker, Texas

Dewey Compton, medicinal desert plants (pears and leaves of cactus, loco weed), Texas

John Davis, ceremonial desert plants (peyote, aloe vera), Texas

Arnold Griffin, stock feed desert plants (prickly pear, mesquite), Texas

George Ilse, desert plants beverages (tequila, mescal,  -- pulke -- ), Texas

Mary Johnson, lye soap maker, Texas

Julius Moultry, 1893-1978, blacksmith, Texas

Edith Perry, desert plants food (jelly, tunas, nopales), Texas

Maggie Poncho, 1888-1979, Coushatta, river cane basket maker, Alabama, Texas

Roger Stallings, desert plants fiber (yucca rope and huaraches, tumbleweed hats), Texas

Leona Syslestine, Coushatta, pine needle basket maker, Alabama, Texas

Tigua (Tiwa) Indians, bread baking and oven building, Texas

R. K. Wimberley, grist mill operator, Texas

C. W. Wimberley, grist mill operator, Texas

Performances

Baca Band, Czech dance band, Texas

Los Conquistadores, mariachi band, Texas

John Russell "Hondo" Crouch, 1916-1976, tale teller, Texas

Eldrich Dobie, tale teller, Texas

KJZT Dancers, Czech dancers, Texas

Lightnin' Hopkins, 1912-1982, blues singer and guitarist, Texas

Mance Lipscomb, 1895-1976, blues singer and guitarist, Texas

Jose Morante, 1918-1995, corridos singer, Texas

Bob Murphy, tale teller, Texas

Robert Shaw, 1908-1985, barrel house piano player, Texas

Solomon Family, fiddle band, Texas

Tigua (Tiwa) Indians, tribal dancers, Texas
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Smithsonian Institution. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
setName: label: See more items in
content: Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 1968 Festival of American Folklife
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
identifier: label: Identifier
content: CFCH.SFF.1968, Series 4
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials