Folksongs of Illinois
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Halker defines folk pretty loosely, and the only restriction for a track’s inclusion was that it had to be written or performed by an Illinois native or recorded in the state. He combed through archives and asked scholars and music enthusiasts for suggestions and came up with a list of about 3,000 songs. He listened to those, whittled the list down to 1,000, and then listened some more. He kept a record of where in Illinois each song originated, the ethnicity, race, and gender of each artist, and the quality of the recording and performance–each factor playing a part in his decision making. “I probably listened to almost all of [the songs] twice, or parts of them twice, and others I listened to 10 to 20 times as it got closer,” he says.
By March 2006, five years into the project, Halker had narrowed the selection down to 300 songs, but he needed help making the final selections. He called on Nicole Saylor, who besides being a folk-music expert is the University of Iowa’s head digital librarian, and musician Janet Bean of Freakwater and Eleventh Dream Day.
In 1996 Halker took the job as program officer for the Illinois Humanities Council, where he manages grants and organizes seminars for K-12 teachers on topics ranging from horror literature to Native American artifacts. The job, plus the touring he did as a musician, took him all around the state, exposing him to a variety of local musical styles. He observes that Illinois has a rich musical history in part because Chicago has been home to so many immigrant groups: “They’re pouring in from all over the world,” he says. But, he adds, “There are so many good musicians who never get recording contracts, even from indies, and if they do get contracts, they don’t get the attention they deserve.” He cites Skokie mandolinist Don Stiernberg as just one example: “I think he’s the greatest mandolin player in the United States, but no one really knows him.” In 2001 Halker approached Kristina Valaitis, the executive director of the Humanities Council, with the idea for the series, and she gave him the go-ahead.
Volume 3, tentatively scheduled to come out this fall, will be another eclectic sampler. Its theme, according to Saylor, is: “We had so much good stuff, here’s another one.”
