Evening honors Dan Patterson, Southern Folklife Collection

When folklorist Dan Patterson taught a course on British and American folksong at UNC in the 1960s, he had to purchase out-of-pocket the sound recordings he used in class. Over the next two decades, Patterson, with help from colleagues and donors, nurtured that private teaching collection into what is now the Southern Folklife Collection (SFC) in UNC's Wilson Library.

On Oct. 3, the Library will celebrate Patterson's 80th birthday with an evening of music and reminiscences about the Kenan Professor Emeritus of English and former chair of the Curriculum in Folklore. The evening will also commemorate the opening of the SFC in 1989.

Authors Bland Simpson and Jill McCorkle will host the program that will also feature:

• Clips from the movie "A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle," about the Landis family and the gospel quartet The Golden Echoes. Patterson co-produced the film with Tom Davenport; representatives of the family will make remarks.
• Storyteller Bobby McMillon.
• Fiddler Alan Jabbour, banjo player Bill Mansfield, old-time music duo Amy Davis and Jon Newlin, and others.

Steve Weiss, head of the SFC since 1999, will discuss Patterson's career and his significant role in creating the SFC, which has grown to hold more than 200,000 field and commercial sound recordings, 3,000 videos, 18 million feet of motion-picture film, and tens of thousands of photographs, song folios, posters, manuscripts, and research files.

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