Following the removal of the archive copy of Peter Kennedy's website from the Wayback m/c a permanent home has been found for it as a reference for researchers and others interested in his work and the folktrax* song catalogue. The following is the text of the message that I put out last month:

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Peter Kennedy website relaunched

Peter Kennedy died in June 2006 and his wife Beryl in April 2007. Once the arrangements for the future of his archive and papers were completed his website was closed in September 2007. A number of people expressed their regret that the information it contains was no longer available, since it was regarded as a useful resource for folk music researchers.

After discussion with the Kennedy family and other interested parties, it was agreed that we should seek a permanent home for the website as a small memorial to Peter and Beryl and to ensure that the information should be made available to those who valued it. It has taken a little while to find a home for the site but now Mark Heiman of Loomis House Press has agreed to host the site. Loomis House Press is the publisher of the highly regarded 'new' edition of Child's 'The English and Scottish Popular ballads' which recently reached volume four (See http://www.loomishousepress.com/)

The Peter Kennedy website can now be found at http://www.folktrax-archive.org/. It has been presented as it was at the time of Peter's death, except that the home page has been changed to explain what has been done and the commercial and contact pages have been adapted to the new situation. It is not planned that any further changes will be made.

I would like to thank Mark Heiman for his kind offer to host the site and for his work in modifying the website for re-publication. While it would be disingenuous to ignore the critical views sometimes expressed on some aspects of Peter's approach to his work, I think there are very few who would not recognise the value of the content and of Peter's life-long commitment to the music that he loved and which was a part of his family heritage and legacy.

Martin Graebe
April 2009

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The website does contain a mass of useful stuff - though its organisation makes it a little hard to find until you start to understand Peter's logic. The home page says a litle more about what has happened to Peter's Archive and future plans.

Good progress is being made in cataloguing the books and recordings for the Kennedy Grant Memorial Library at halsway Manor. Keep an eye on Topic's website for news of their re-issue of the material. Meanwhile, as said above, Dick has a selection available through Camsco.

One thing that I didn't mention is that a small collection of papers and a number of photographs from Peter's collection which and which had belonged to his Aunt Maud (Karpeles), were given by the Kennedy family to the Vaughan Williams Memorial library. Many of the photographs were from trips to the USA and Newfoundland.

Martin


* Peter spelt it uncapitalised