George Boswell Folk Songs
The
heart of the George Boswell collection consists of transcriptions of 1200 folk
songs and ballads collected throughout Middle 
Tennessee
between 1948 and 1952. A Nashville native, Boswell earned a B.A. and M.A. from
Vanderbilt University. While attending George Peabody College for Teachers in
Nashville, Boswell began collecting folk songs in conjunction with his doctoral
research. His efforts produced some 800 songs from country and city folk alike,
to amass what is regarded as a major anthology of Tennessee folk songs. In 1997
noted music scholar, Dr. Charles K. Wolfe edited and annotated Boswell's fieldwork.
The resulting volume, Folk Songs of MiddleTennessee: The George Boswell
Collection, brings together for the first time those tunes most representative
of the folk traditions of the region.
After completing his Ph.D. in 1951, George Boswell taught English at Austin
Peay State University (Clarksville, Tennessee), Morehead State University (Kentucky)
and the University of Mississippi in Oxford. In 1989 Professor Boswell retired
from teaching. He died on March 22, 1995 in Oxford, Mississippi.
Boswell also wrote prolifically and served for many years as the president
of the Tennessee Folklore Society. Personal papers, commercial sheet music,
choral arrangements, and student research papers round out this collection and
are housed at Vanderbilt's Special Collections and University Archives.
View a selection of songs from the Boswell Papers
Special Collections | Heard
Library | Vanderbilt University
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Last modified: April 10, 2008
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