Ellen’s personal archives include hundreds of photographs of interest to fans of folk music and folklore. We are just starting to digitize, clean up, and organize this treasure trove of images, which includes material from Ellen’s folksong collecting trips, her childhood in 1940s and 1950s New York, and Ellen’s concerts and other public appearances. We will be posting many of these here on ellenstekert.com, and plan to offer some of the best of these for sale as prints and posters in the near future. (More details on that very soon!) We thought we’d start with images taken at the historic Newport Folk Festival in 1964.
Newport Folk Festival 1964
Ellen attended the historic Newport Folk Festival in 1964 with her friend and Appalachian folksinger Sarah Ogan Gunning. The two had first met in early ’64 when Sarah recorded her album Girl Of Constant Sorrow in Detroit, where Ellen was a professor at Wayne State University. After meeting Sarah, Ellen began collecting songs and stories from her as part of Ellen’s research into folksongs. Ellen’s scholarship, as well as her singing, had also put her in touch with the Newport organizers, so when Gunning was asked to perform at the festival, Ellen helped her fly to and from Connecticut and accompanied her backstage. “It was exciting,” Ellen says. “I knew a great number of the people who were performing, and it was good to see so many of them personally. … Sarah had been frightened of being on the airplane for a long trip. And rightly so! Because, just as we were about to land back in Detroit, there was a problem with the landing gear. We had to circle the airport for a few minutes. Sarah and I had been seated in different parts of the airplane. From the back, I suddenly heard Sarah—loudly singing hymns! She put a smile on everyone’s face. She was as nervous as she could be.”
Ellen herself did not perform at Newport, but while she was backstage, she was able to take about two dozen photographs of the performers and audience. Most of these have never been publicly released before now. These photos include intimate and informal behind-the-scenes images of Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, Malvina Reynolds, Mississippi John Hurt, Doc Watson, and many more.
All images © Ellen Stekert. Click on the images to see larger versions.
Bob Dylan with Malvina Reynolds
Doc Watson
Peter Yarrow
Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten (center). Doc Reese (right). Two unknown people (left).
Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten
Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten
Bob Dylan, backstage
Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger and Sarah Gunning onstage
Left to right: Blues singers Yank Rachell, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Elizabeth Cotten, Doc Reese, and Sleepy John Estes.
Pete Seeger with Frank Proffitt (left) and unknown man (right)
Alan Lomax (center), instructing singers from unknown musical group
Sarah Ogan Gunning, singing onstage
Sarah Ogan Gunning, singing onstage
Sarah Ogan Gunning, singing onstage
Sarah Ogan Gunning, singing onstage
Sarah Ogan Gunning, singing on main stage
Hedy West
Sarah Ogan Gunning
Doc Watson (right) and his mother, in living room of the house where some performers stayed for the festival.
Jean Ritchie (center), sitting with her sister
Doc Watson (right), Doc Watson’s mother, and Ollie Gilbert (left), resting in living room of the house where some performers stayed for the festival. (The room was unlit because of Watson’s blindness.)
Crowd watching stage. On stage: Pete Seeger (sitting), Hedy West with banjo, Almeda Riddle with child. Peter Yarrow (in sunglasses) and Jean Ritchie (in white hairband) can be seen offstage to the right.
Porch of house where some performers stayed. Left to right: Jesse Fuller (far left). Sarah Ogan Gunning (far left). Unknown woman. Jimmy Driftwood, wearing black cowboy hat. Unknown man. Hobart Smith, holding banjo. Doc Watson (center). Mississippi Fred McDowell (center), wearing dark hat. Unknown man. Unknown woman. Yank Rachell (far right), wearing white hat.
Left to right: Peter Yarrow (in sunglasses, with guitar), Gershon Legman (in dark suit), Hedy West
Crowd at topical songs workshop. Onstage, Pete Seeger, Sarah Ogan Gunning (white dress), Jimmy Driftwood (with guitar)
Gershon Legman (left). Theodore Bikel (center, with camera).
Glenn Ohrlin (wearing hat), Bruce Jackson (right, in dark sweater)
Crowd watching the topical songs workshop, which featured Sarah Ogan Gunning, Bob Dylan, and Malvina Reynolds. On this stage, later on, Dylan would debut his song “Mr. Tambourine Man.”