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Central Park Concert 1965

A concert of Southern African American "antebellum musical traditions" held in New York City's Central Park in the summer of 1965, the height of the Civil Rights era. Produced by Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival in cooperation with the Newport Folk Foundation, the concert was directed by Ralph Rinzler and MC'd by Alan Lomax. It featured the Georgia Sea Island Singers (Bessie Jones, John Davis, Peter Davis, Emma Ramsay, and Mable Hillery), Ed Young's Southern Fife and Drum Corps, and Reverend Gary Davis. Fred McDowell's name appeared on the promotional material for the concert but apparently canceled. Joan Halifax assisted Lomax with the recording and tape notes. (This concert was ostensibly the second the Shakespeare Festival and Newport Foundation produced that summer, with a Newport Folk Festival Preview held a month earlier.)

New York City 8/65

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