Mickey Hart presents the Ralph J. Gleason Award in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building Washington, DC. Dec. 3. 2002


The REX FOUNDATION, the non-profit, charitable organization established in 1983 by friends and members of the Grateful Dead has designated the Save Our Sounds Zuni Storytelling Collection preservation project of the American Folklife Center to receive the $10,000 Ralph J. Gleason Award. Center director, Peggy Bulger will receive this award on behalf of the American Folklife Centers Save Our Sounds team. This award was established in 1986 to recognize outstanding contributions to culture, and is named in memory of the pioneering jazz and pop music journalist Ralph J. Gleason (1917-1975) who was a major figure in the advancement of creative music in America. The foundation is proud to present this award to Save Our Sounds given the importance of the Zuni Storytelling Collection to our culture. Mickey Hart, Rex Foundation board member, trustee of the American Folklife Center and Save Our Sounds Leadership Committee member, has noted the significance of being able to preserve these endangered recordings so that they will be permanently available to researchers, musicologists and avid fans of traditional music and story.


12/03/02 The Washington Times: Rock veteran sends out a musical SOS

Read Mickey's journal from this event.



Save Our History / Save Our Sounds, a one hour documentary, will premiere on the History Channel on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2002 at 8 p.m. ET/PT . The film chronicles the extraordinary efforts being undertaken by the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress to preserve America's recorded sound heritage.




The Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress, along with many top musicians, recordists, and experts in the field are preserving important collections of historical recordings of spoken word and music, from Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" to Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, from American Indian recordings of the 1890s to the oral histories of ex-slaves recorded in the 1930s....