AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Joe Hickerson, a beloved archivist at the Library of Congress, died last week in Portland, Oregon. He was 89. For more than three decades, he worked to preserve America's collection of folk music. NPR's Kathryn Fink has this remembrance.
KATHRYN FINK, BYLINE: In the tight-knit folk community, Joe Hickerson was the resident jokester.
STEPHEN WINICK: He loved puns and he loved pranks (laughter) and he loved jokes of all kinds.
FINK: That's Stephen Winick. He's a folklorist at the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center. Hickerson was a director there until his retirement in 1998. Winick says underneath all the pranking about song names and origins, though, Hickerson had a serious devotion to traditional folk music, a devotion that forever changed the genre.
WINICK: There are a lot of songs that nobody was singing until Joe kind of found them in the archive and arranged them and started singing them.
FINK: Folk music is a big umbrella term. It includes sea shanties, farming songs, field hollers. Hickerson was especially interested in ballads and spirituals. In 1958, fresh out of college, he and his band, The Folksmiths, put out an album that included the first known commercial recording of "Kumbaya."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KUMBAYA")
THE FOLKSMITHS: (Singing) Kumbaya, my lord. Kumbaya. Kumbaya, my lord. Kumbaya.
FINK: The African American spiritual went on to become a mainstay. Two years later, Hickerson made another big mark. It was May of 1960. He was gearing up for his second year as a counselor at a kids folk camp in the Catskill Mountains. And on his mind was a song by one of his idols, Pete Seeger, called "Where Have All The Flowers Gone."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE")
PETE SEEGER: (Singing) Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing.
FINK: Hickerson decided to write two new verses to add to the end of the song, fleshing out its antiwar themes. He told the story during an interview at the Library of Congress back in 2014.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOE HICKERSON: And I knew the kids would like it, but it was so short. And it occurred to me, soldiers into graves, graveyards covered with flowers, and put the verse at the end.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOE HICKERSON AND UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE: (Singing) Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards, every one. Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?
FINK: Those two new verses ended up getting back to Seeger. He liked them - so much so that he rerecorded the song with the additional lyrics and released it. That version became a folk standard. Hickerson is credited as the song's co-author.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HICKERSON AND UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE: (Singing) Covered with flowers, every one.
FINK: Hickerson went on to put out two solo folk albums and spent 35 years at the Library of Congress. At lecture halls, concerts and Zoom sing-alongs, he brought people together through music right up until the end of his life.
WINICK: I think Joe was probably, you know, on a Zoom sing at least the week before he died, if not the week that he died, because he just continued, whenever he could, to get around and sing with people.
FINK: In a Facebook post announcing Hickerson's death, the American Folklife Center wrote, quote, "his passing will be seen as the end of an era among folk music enthusiasts."
Kathryn Fink, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BURY ME NOT ON THE LONE PRAIRIE")
HICKERSON: (Singing) Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie. These words came low and mournfully. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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