About SMPF

The Siglin Music Preservation Project is joining the best digital and internet technologies with the knowledge and memories of artists who performed at The Ark during its first four decades in Ann Arbor. Over the past few years, we have completed a full inventory of the tapes, matching the performers’ names with programs, photos, and schedules from the period. With generous support from the folk music community and Ann Arbor residents, we have digitized the entire collection of tape recordings, identified the dates and performers present on recordings of over 1,600 shows, and prepared the extensive collection of digital files for access.

The Siglin Music Preservation Project is now working with musical artists captured on the Siglin tapes to identify which of the recorded performances can be released for listening via internet streaming to ensure that a broader audience will come to appreciate the distinctiveness and extraordinary value of the recordings. Digital technologies can extend the “folk process” itself, which at its heart is handing songs across time and space from one performer to another. Our performer permission project is designed to lessen but not fully eliminate the risk of providing access to the Siglin recordings. The initial focus of the permissions process is on those recordings where the performing artists have the right and the incentive to authorize online access to their performances. Two priorities are live performances by musical artists who mostly interpret traditional folk songs and singer-songwriters who perform their own compositions (music and/or lyrics). The performer permission project builds on a pilot project showing that artists who performed at The Ark are enthusiastic about letting everyone hear their recorded legacy performances easily and for free.

Dave Siglin, a performer himself, joined The Ark in 1969 as the Manager/Director. Only the performers knew that, with their permission, Dave recorded over 3,000 hours of live shows from the soundboard. These recordings were made between 1969 and 1996 and exist on 313 very fragile ¼ inch reel-to-reel tapes and 1,300 cassette tapes. Dave maintained these tapes of historic and compelling performances with the vision that they would be shared as a priceless history of American musical roots. In 2010, he donated his collection of tape recordings, photographs, monthly programs, and hundreds of show flyers to the University of Michigan to make sure his collection would be preserved, digitized, and made widely available for others to enjoy.

The artists in this collection of tapes demonstrate the wide range of Americana music. For example:

• Eclectic folk song revivalists like Michael Cooney, Mike Seeger, and Joe Hickerson following in the footsteps of Pete Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers
• Troubadours like Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Pam Ostergren are cut from the same cloth as Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie
• The Putnam County and Highwood String Bands represent this style from the Appalachians and Ozarks.
• Folklorists like Gamble Rogers and Bruce “Utah” Phillips combine story with song.
• Artists like John Jackson and Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers preserve and spread the history, culture, songs, and more of the enslaved Africans. .
• Numerous Irish, Scottish and English folk artists like Clannad, the High Level Ranters, John Roberts and Tony Barrand, and the Friends of Fiddler’s Green draw the connections between American folk and country music with their musical and cultural origins in Canada and the British Isles.

By its very nature, the music is intimate. The performance circuit thrived at small-stage festivals, house concerts, school auditoriums, town halls, and cultural events. The setting of the original Ark in the house on Hill Street was the perfect combination of these venues.

The Siglin Music Preservation Fund is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, established to support the preservation, digitization, and online availability of the Dave Siglin collection from The Ark in Ann Arbor.

We greatly appreciate your tax-deductible donation of any amount! Please join us in our musical memory journey and pass the word about our amazing collection of live performances from The Ark in Ann Arbor.