{"podcast":{"title":"American Songcatcher","slug":"american-songcatcher-688699","podcast_index_feed_id":688699,"rss_url":"https://rss.libsyn.com/shows/597330/destinations/5194670.xml","website_url":"http://www.americansongcatcher.com","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/2/a/3/8/2a38672ff32e18e2d959afa2a1bf1c87/AS-20251023-n6dhvh57fq.png","author":"Nicholas Edward Williams","episode_count":53,"summary":"Tracing the roots of American music from its cultured past to artists playing it forward, folk musician, musicologist and host Nicholas Edward Williams takes listeners on a unique documentary-style podcast experience. Dive into the stories of centuries-old Traditional songs and migrants who carried their musical heritage here, and uncover the lives of pioneers and integral musicians who created and shaped styles such as Bluegrass, Ragtime, Jazz and Swing, Country, Gospel, Blues, Old-Time, and the Folk music that's derived from it all. Here's to the songs of old, may they live on forever.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-10T08:21:59.502875+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/american-songcatcher-688699"},"episode":{"title":"LOCAL FOCAL // Last Wisps of the Old Ways","slug":"local-focal-last-wisps-of-the-old-ways","published_at":"2023-03-26T08:30:07+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/american-songcatcher-688699/local-focal-last-wisps-of-the-old-ways","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/american-songcatcher-688699","url":"https://a1526ccb-749b-4804-ba7b-a9ed7525149e.libsyn.com/local-focal-last-wisps-of-the-old-ways","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/a1526ccb-749b-4804-ba7b-a9ed7525149e/319656296-44100-2-6040d284d990c.m4a?dest-id=5194670","summary":"Today, we proudly present the first installment of the LOCAL FOCAL series, where we're collaborating with artists to share musical stories from different locations throughout America - in celebration of the parts that make up the whole fabric of American music history. First up, we're bringing you the works of Derek Piotr , a folklorist and musician who's been deep in research about a particular family of tradition-bearers from Avery County, North Carolina that have a lineage to Frank Proffitt, a key figure in Appalachian old time preservation. I was taken with Derek's story not only because by comparison, he's rather young in the immersive world of musicology, but also because of his unique interest in what's called Auto-Ethnography, which goes beyond detailed field notes and recordings, by linking the fieldwork to your own emotional life. A few years ago, Derek curated a compilation concerning this family, Last Wisps of the Old Ways , which intertwined field recordings he made with archival recordings of the family's lineage from The Library of Congress. Before that, he was merely preserving the legacy of his grandmother with a flip phone. His winding path to field recordings and eventually creating the Fieldwork Archive is a humbling journey. Last Wisps of the Old Ways Fieldwork Archive Official Support Independent Programming! Join the Patreon for as little as $1 a month! Send a one-time donation through Venmo or PayPal Follow American Songcatcher | Instagram | TikTok Credits: Nicholas Edward Williams - Production, Editing, Recording and Distribution Derek Piotr - Writing, Recording, Research","meta_description":"Today, we proudly present the first installment of the LOCAL FOCAL series, where we're collaborating with artists to share musical stories from different…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1081,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/american-songcatcher-688699/episodes/local-focal-last-wisps-of-the-old-ways/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/american-songcatcher-688699/local-focal-last-wisps-of-the-old-ways.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}