A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Bluegrass legend cuts radio ad for Obama

This is not an endorsement (at least not on my part) ... but Ralph Stanley has cut a 60-second radio spot for Barack Obama that has begun airing in southwest Virginia. Stanley, who along with the late Bill Monroe is considered a founder of bluegrass music, has fronted the Clinch Montain Boys since the 1940s and is still going strong at the age of 81.

No comments:

Blog Archive

About Me

Springfield (Ill.), United States
I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.