Reel to reel tapes, LP recordings, and digitized CD’s covering the nearly 70-year career of one of the country’s most active and distinguished contradance leaders. Correspondence and newspaper articles, books, magazine articles, and photographs including the Newport Folk Festival, the Beers Festival, the Club 47, and other venues. Books and recordings of Ralph Page, Newt Tolman, and others. A major work in progress, supported by volunteer financial support 2015-16.
GOALS OF THE DUDLEY LAUFMAN 
AND CANTERBURY COUNTRY DANCE ORCHESTRA ARCHIVE PROJECT 2017
Folk New England is a non-profit musical archive whose primary collections are of tapes and oral histories of the 1960’s folk revival, with particular emphasis on the coffeehouses of Boston and Cambridge, including the Club 47, where singers like Joan Baez and Tom Rush began their careers and Dudley performed as well. This project connects the folk coffeehouse era to the old frontier when music was performed in taverns and townhouses and dancers flocked in on horseback, wagons, and sleighs. www.folknewengland.org
For nearly 70 years, Dudley has absorbed a tradition of rural New England dance music stretching back to colonial times, has kept faith with the old tunes and has presided over thousands of dances in hundreds of towns throughout the region. Over the course of the years and the miles, Dudley has preserved a broad collection of his own and earlier performances on audio tape reels some of which stretch back to the 1920’s. It is now time to preserve this wonderful legacy for posterity.
GOALS
- Convert Dudley’s collection of cassette tapes of old-time New England fiddlers and callers (1926-1990) to digital format, catalog, and archive. (Approximately 14 hours of material of material)
- Convert collection of Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra unreleased recordings, Robert J. Lurtsema Morning Pro Musica appearance, live recordings from early 1970’s, and cassettes to digital format, catalog, and archive. (Approximately 7 hours)
- Secure and register copyrights to all Dudley Laufman and Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra compact discs, tapes and LP’s.
- Create 3 professional grade digital masters from six 12-inch, reel-to-reel master tapes of “Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra” (1972), “Mistwold” (1973), and “Belle of the Contra Dance” (1986).
- Create professional grade digital masters from 16, 7” reel-to-reel master tapes of unreleased Canterbury Country dance Orchestra concert performances from the 1970’s. (Approximately 10 hours)
- Fund recording and mastering of 3/20/16 Middlesex School performance of “Welcome Here Again” to compact disc.
- Fund production of video documentary of the 3/20/16 recording of “Welcome Here Again.”
- Restore, print, and digitize photographs of Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra performances at the Newport Folk Festival and Beers Family Festival (1965), the Club 47 (1965, 1966) and 1970’s dance held in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Archival copies of all above materials donated to the collections of the
The University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH, and,
Folk New England in Cambridge, MA.
Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to:
Dudley Laufman Archive Project
c/o Folk New England
393 North Main St. #207
Mansfield, MA 02048