Read, Watch and Hear Max Hunter's Collection of Folk History in a Whole New, 3D Way
Many of the folk songs of the old Ozarks endure today, thanks to a traveling salesman from Springfield, Max Hunter. On his journeys, Hunter took his reel-to-reel tape recorder into the backwoods of the Ozarks, recording the songs, stories and voices of its people.
The result was the Max Hunter Collection, an archive of nearly 1,600 Ozark Mountain folks songs recorded between 1956 and 1976. Almost all of the songs predate World War II; some date back several hundred years.
You can access and listen to the recordings at maxhunter.missouristate.edu. It’s searchable by song title, singer or catalogue number. The site is a joint project of the Missouri State University Department of Music and the Springfield-Greene County Library District, where the permanent collection is housed.
The team digitized and transcribed Max Hunter’s original reel-to-reel tapes and typewritten lyrics from 1998-2001 to inspire researchers, listeners and musicians. Springfield duo Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu (Big Smith) recorded traditional songs in their 2015 CD, “Wolf Hunter,” from the collections of Max Hunter and another music preservationist, John Quincy Wolf.
Recently, the collection inspired the library’s Local History & Genealogy Department at the Library Center to present the Max Hunter Collection in a 3D format through its MagicBox®, (and soon in December through a 2D exhibit in Local History.) The box was a 2019 gift to the Library Foundation from David H. Jones.
The MagicBox® is the exhibit cabinet that combines physical objects inside a large glass box. The front glass panel is embedded with a transparent touch-screen that visitors can swipe to experience digital images, videos, audio and 3D renderings.
You can experience the Max Hunter Collection by tapping a digital image of a CD to hear collected songs; or tap an image of a cassette tape to hear jokes, or scroll through his typed, pocket song book, or see artifacts and videos; and tap an image of a reel-to-reel spool to hear collected sayings and watch KYTV video clips.
Take a moment, give a listen to those old songs at maxhunter.missouristate.edu, and then visit the Library Center’s MagicBox® to experience the Max Hunter Collection in a whole new way.
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