What better time than the Illinois Bicentennial to invite the citizens of our state to hear and appreciate the folk music legacy of the Land of Lincoln? From the beginning of Illinois statehood through the folk revival that swept the nation and state in the 1950s, the many people who have made Illinois their home produced a huge body of folksongs and music. This music includes historical ballads, protest songs, labor anthems, gospel songs, fiddle tunes, legions of bluegrass and early country songs, and dance tunes from every ethnic group to settle in the Prairie State.

“Booth Shot Lincoln” brings a sample of these songs to life through both performance and commentary. Bucky Halker draws on his extensive knowledge of Illinois folk music gained from years of research and his production of the five-volume CD series, Folksongs of Illinois. Halker has also spent twenty years curating concerts and festivals featuring folk and ethnic music from throughout the state and its many communities.

Bucky Halker is director of Company of Folk, which documents, conserves, and presents folk culture of the Midwest. An accomplished guitarist, singer, and songwriter, he has produced many recordings of his own music, as well as a five-volume series entitled Folksongs of Illinois, which surveys musical traditions found throughout the state. He is also a labor historian and the author of For Democracy, Workers, & God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest (University of Illinois Press, 1991). As a program officer with the Illinois Humanities Council in the 1990s, he was involved in founding the Illinois Humanities Council Road Scholars Speakers Bureau.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.