Donald Knight Wilgus (1 December 1918 – 25 December 1989) was an American folksong scholar and academic, most recognised for chronicling 'Hillbilly', Blues Music and Irish-American song and his contribution to

Ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

scholarship.

Early life and education

Wilgus was born on 1 December 1918 at West Mansfield,

Logan County, Ohio Logan County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,150. The county seat is Bellefontaine. The county is named for Benjamin Logan, who fought Native Americans ...

and attended

East High School (Columbus, Ohio) East High School is a public high school located on the near east side of Columbus, Ohio at 1500 E. Broad Street. It is a part of Columbus City Schools. It was originally constructed in 1922. Renovation work at East High School was completed in ...

and obtained his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. Wilgus's M.A. thesis has been cited as "the first academic study of commercially recorded country music". His doctoral dissertation, given in 1954 was awarded the 1956 Chicago Folklore Prize. It formed the basis for his ''Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898'' (1959), which was described in the 1990s as "still the definitive work on the subject".

Career

Wilgus worked as an administrator at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

(1941–1942) and served in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

1942–1945. From 1950 to 1963 he taught at Western Kentucky State College, as Associate Professor and, from 1961, full professor. In 1955, Wilgus founded the ''Kentucky Folklore Record'', which he edited until 1961. Wilgus moved to

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(UCLA) in 1963. At UCLA he was Professor of Music and English at from 1963 until his death in 1989. At the University, together with his colleague

Wayland D. Hand Wayland Debs Hand (March 19, 1907, Auckland, New Zealand – October 22, 1986, Moon Township, Pennsylvania, United States) was an American folklorist. Biography Hand was born in New Zealand, where his parents had emigrated. A few years after hi ...

, Wilgus established the discipline of Folklore Studies. Wilgus was the first Chair of the Folklore & Mythology Program at UCLA, a post he held from the its founding in 1965 until 1982. Wilgus also organized and directed five folk festivals on the UCLA campus, suggestive of his interest in the performance as well as of the study of folklore. During his career, Wilgus carried out fieldwork around the

Cumberland River The Cumberland River is a major waterway of the Southern United States. The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 8, 2011 river drains almost of southern Kentucky and ...

, in Kentucky and Tennessee (with Lynwood Montell and around Ireland, recording the singers

Tom Munnelly Tom Munnelly (25 May 1944 – 30 August 2007) was an Irish folk-song collector. Early years Tom Munnelly was born in Rathmines in Dublin, and went to Clogher Road Technical College. He took up factory work at the age of 15. At a scout camp ...

and John Reilly. His work around the Cumberland River made the case for the blues ballad to be seen as a subgenre of American balladry.

Recognition

Between 1971 and 1972, Wilgus served as President of the

American Folklore Society The American Folklore Society (AFS) is the US-based professional association for folklorists, with members from the US, Canada, and around the world, which aims to encourage research, aid in disseminating that research, promote the responsible ...

(AFS). His Presidential lecture was titled 'The Text is the Thing' and has been described as "a lively response to the

hen Hen commonly refers to a female animal: a female chicken, other gallinaceous bird, any type of bird in general, or a lobster. It is also a slang term for a woman. Hen or Hens may also refer to: Places Norway *Hen, Buskerud, a village in Ringer ...

current fashion in the field for performance studies". Wilgus also served as Vice-President of the AFS, Secretary-Treasurer of the Kentucky Folklore Society and President of the California Folklore Society. He also edited the journal of the California Folklore Society, ''

Western Folklore ''Western Folklore'' is a quarterly academic journal for the study of folklore published by the Western States Folklore Society (formerly the California Folklore Society). It was established in 1942 as the ''California Folklore Quarterly'' and obt ...

,'' from 1970 to 1975. In 1955 he was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in the field of Folklore and popular culture. ''Includes 1955 photo''

Death

Wilgus died on 25 December 1989 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

Selected publications

* Wilgus, D. K. (1959). ''Anglo-American folksong scholarship since 1898''. New Brunswick, NJ. . . * Wilgus, D.K. (1964). 'Folksong and Folksong Scholarship: Changing Approaches and Attitudes. IV: The Rationalistic Approach', in ''A Good Tale and a Bonnie Tune'', ed. Mody C.Boatright, Wilson M.Hudson, and Allen Maxwell. ''Publications of the Texas Folklore Society'' No. 32. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, pp. 227–237, 268. . . * Wilgus, D.K. (1965). 'An Introduction to the Study of Hillbilly Music'. ''Journal of American Folklore'' 78:195– 203. . . * Wilgus, D.K. (1970). 'A Type-Index of Anglo-American Traditional Narrative Songs'. ''Journal of the Folklore Institute'' 7:161–170. . . * Wilgus, D.K. (1971). Country-Western Music and the Urban Hillbilly. In ''The Urban Experience and Folk Tradition'', ed. Americo Paredes and Ellen J.Stekert. American Folklore Society Bibliographical and Special Series Vol. 22. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 137–159 . . * Wilgus, D.K. (1973). 'The Text Is the Thing'. ''Journal of American Folklore'' 86:241–252. . . * Wilgus, D.K.(1986). 'The Comparative Approach'. in ''The Ballad and the Scholars: Approaches to Ballad Study'', ed. D.K. Wilgus and

Barre Toelken John Barre Toelken (June 15, 1935 – November 9, 2018) was an award-winning American folklorist, noted for his study of Native American material and oral traditions. Early life and education Barre Toelken was born in Enfield, Massachusetts, to ...

. Papers presented at a Clark Library Seminar, October 22, 1983. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, pp. 3–28. . * Wilgus, D.K., and Eleanor R.Long (1985). 'The Blues Ballad and the Genesis of Style in Traditional Narrative Song', in ''Narrative Folksong, New Directions: Essays in Appreciation of W. Edson Richmond'', ed. Carol L. Edwards and Kathleen E.B.Manley. Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 435– 482. .

References

External links

Image of Wilgus recording blues guitarist Son House at the 3rd annual UCLA Folk Festival, 1965
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilgus, D.K. 1918 births 1989 deaths American folklorists Ohio State University alumni University of California, Los Angeles faculty Western Kentucky University faculty 20th-century American musicologists Presidents of the American Folklore Society