Barry Pearson

Professor, English
Affiliate Faculty, School of Music
Affiliate Professor, American Studies

(301) 405-3780
bpearson@umd.edu

African American/African Diaspora
American
Film Studies and Cultural Studies
Musicology & Ethnomusicology
Mythology and Folklore

Dr. Barry Pearson has produced four books and over one hundred other publications, including articles, reviews, program and recording notes, and sound recordings dealing with African American traditional music. He has written on oral biography, which is the focus of Sounds So Good to Me: The Bluesman's Story; regionalism and the relationship between life story and repertoire in Virginia Piedmont Blues: The Lives and Art of Two Virginia Blues Men; blues artists as narrators in "Jook right On": Blues Stories and Storytellers; and has co-authored a historiography of blues icon Robert Johnson entitled Robert Johnson: Lost and Found. He has produced nine CDs for the Smithsonian Folkways, and in 1993 was nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album, Roots of Rhythm and Blues: A Tribute to the Robert Johnson Era.

Currently a Professor in the English Department at the University of Maryland, he works with organizations engaged in preesenting traditional American music, including the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the National Council for the Traditional Arts, the nation's olders folk arts organization for which he serves as President.

As a performing musician he has toured for the Arts America Program visiting Africa, South and Central America. In general, his work involves preaching and teaching, and presenting traditional music and musicians in a painlessly educational format.