<< Back 6/12/02 Haywood show features folk music legend SMN Joe Hickerson, who has had a 35-year career in the Archive of Folk Song (later the American Folklife Center) of the Library of Congress, will perform at 3 p.m. on June 16 in the Haywood County Library in Waynesille. The free show is sponsored by the Haywood County Arts Council and the Friends of the Library. Hickerson, a native of Illinois, spent his early years in New Haven, Conn. His interest in folk music, which was to become his life’s work, began in earnest at Oberlin College. At Oberlin, he earned a degree in physics, but perhaps more importantly, he met folk legend Pete Seeger. In 1960, Hickerson composed the fourth and fifth verses for a song Seeger had recorded, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” (based on a Russian folksong text). Seeger later heard and noted Hickerson’s verses, which were soon used by folk artists such as Peter, Paul, and Mary, Joan Baez and the Kingston Trio. Hickerson had found his true love, folk music, and soon earned his master’s degree in folklore at Indiana University. Not content just to compose, sing and play folk music, he also directed the Indiana Folklore Archive, chaired the archiving committee of the American Folklore Society, founded and served as president of the Folklore Society of Greater Washington and served on the advisory board of the Foxfire and Sing Out! publications. During his long career at the Library of Congress, he nurtured and encouraged folk performers and researchers in the field. His participation in the folksong revival of the 1960s alerted performers such as Judy Collins and Jose Feliciano to the resources in the Library’s Archive of Folk Culture. He has appeared on “A Prairie Home Companion” and in over 1,000 concerts in the United States, Canada, Finland, and Ukraine. In addition to his energetic performance and lecture schedule, Hickerson volunteers at the Library of Congress and does song and copyright research for film and recordings — most recently for “O Brother, Where Art Thou.” Throughout his career and upon his retirement from the Library of Congress in 1998, folk music authorities have heaped praise on Hickerson, calling him “the folksinger’s folksinger.” Pete Seeger called him “not just a good songleader, but a great songleader.” Washington area musician and archive researcher Stephen Wade said, “There can be no question that Joe Hickerson, who knows where everything is, is the treasurer of the national folk archive and its chief treasure.” In his Sunday Concert Series performance at the Waynesville Library, Hickerson will sing, accompany himself on guitar, talk about the audience’s favorite folk songs, and perhaps coax a few songs out of the gathering. His CDs will be available for purchase. The concert is free to the public partially through a grassroots grant from the North Carolina Arts Council and a grant from the Friends of the Library. For more information, please call the arts council at 828.452.0593.