A new Arhoolie Foundation brochure (8 pages illustrated and in color) outlining our history and accomplishments is now available. It has been mailed to all donors and is available online or to anyone who requests it.

Labels: Arhoolie Foundation

The California Council for the Humanities awarded a $40,000 grant for the California Stories: California Documentary Project proposal "Squeezebox Stories." This will fund a radio documentary by project directors Julie Caine and Marie Abé exploring the stories and rich traditions of the accordion in California's diverse cultural landscape. "Squeezebox Stories is a sound-rich, narrative-driven public radio documentary that explores the social history, multicultural adaptation, and musical variation of this eclectic, loud, and portable people's instrument."

Labels: documentary, folk music, radio

Los Tigres del Norte, the UCLA Chicano Research Center, the UCLA Digital Music Library and the Arhoolie Foundation are holding a press conference on March 26th at 10 AM. This event, to be held on the UCLA campus, celebrates the completion of digitizing part I (over 32,000 recordings from 78 rpm discs) of the Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican-American commercial recordings dating roughly from 1908 - 1958 (or the end of 78s). The Frontera Collection and UCLA's Frontera website was mentioned in Billboard Magazine's on-line business column.

Labels: Frontera, Mexican music

"Always Been a Rambler - featuring The New Lost City Ramblers" (a film by Yasha Aginsky) - is now finished and will have its world premier at the Mendocino Film Festival May 29 - 31, 2009. We will also have a DVD ready by then, which includes as bonus footage an early archival film of the group in full color!

Labels: documentary, film