CHARLES KEIL, Ethnomusicologist

This exhibition documents the career and writing process of investigative reporter and best-selling author Dick Lehr.

This single-case exhibition, CHARLES KEIL, Ethnomusicologist, pays tribute to the career and varied interests of scholar/teacher/activist Charles Keil. The exhibition begins in Chicago, with a corrected typescript page from the manuscript for Keil's first book, URBAN BLUES (1966). There is also a copy of the book on display: the Japanese edition, published in 2000. Also included is a letter to Keil from activist Malcolm X, accepting an invitation from Keil to speak at the University of Chicago in 1964. The exhibition moves on to include draft pages and photographs from Keil's next project on the Tiv people of Nigeria. TIV SONG was published in 1979 and is also on display. Keil's outspoken nature is represented in a 45 rpm record, "Hayes Hall Blues" (1970). Written by Keil and a fellow professor, the song documents the arrest of 45 University of Buffalo professors and was issued in an attempt to raise money for their defense fund. There is also material related to Keil's interest in Polka music, the subject of another book, as well as research done on a project called MY MUSIC (1993), which finds Keil interviewing regular Americans on the place music holds in their lives.

This exhibition is no longer on view.