Folklore Program alumnus Dr. James Revell Carr has been awarded the 2015 Alan Merriam Prize honoring the most distinguished English language monograph on the field of Ethnomusicology.  Dr. Carr graduated from the Folklore Program at the University of Oregon with a Master’s Degree, attained his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at UC Santa Barbara, and is presently an Associate Professor in Ethnomusicology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  He teaches courses in American vernacular music and non-Western music cultures, and he directs the UNCG Old Time Ensemble. Carr’s research focuses on the importance of travel and commerce in the development of hybrid music and dance cultures around the world. His major interests include sea chanteys, Hawaiian music, Anglo-American balladry, folk music revivals, and improvisational rock.

Dr. Carr’s book, Hawaiian Music in Motion: Mariners, Missionaries, and Minstrels, “is a sophisticated social history of Hawaiian music and globalization, as told through carefully researched, evocatively drawn, and richly interpreted discussions of Hawaiian performance, both at home and abroad,” according to Alan Merriam Prize Committee spokesperson Dr. Harris M. Berger.  “From the early colonial encounters of the late eighteenth century, to interactions between Hawaiian, American, European, and African sailors in the whaling industry, to the performances of Hawaiians in North America, and struggles among American missionaries, American sailors, and native Hawaiians that played out in theatre and song, Carr reveals the complex ways in which situated actors with contrasting identities struggle for meaning in a world shot through with power relations.”

In a recent interview, Dr. Carr states that his training in Folklore “underscores everything I do.  I think of myself more as a folklorist than an ethnomusicologist.”  Carr’s work focuses on the music and culture of “average working class people, not elite culture.”  He considers songs as texts and pores through archives for primary documents such as sailors’ journals and transcribed music that can date back hundreds of years.  His experience as an archivist during his time in the UO Folklore Program is central to his ongoing research.  Carr believes that “Folklore combines synchronistic fieldwork research with archival historical research in a very beautiful way,” and he is committed to bringing that approach to the field of ethnomusicology.

Carr cites Dianne Dugaw of the UO Folklore faculty as a vital influence, Carol Silverman as a consistent and supportive colleague, and Dan Wojcik for broadening his horizons concerning the value of studying popular music.  Dr. Carr is currently working on his next book, an ethnography examining folk beliefs and culture that manifested during the last ten years of the Grateful Dead.