American folksong scholar and academician. Wilgus was born December 1, 1918, at
West Mansfield, Ohio, not far from Columbus, where he later earned his B.A., M.A., and
Ph.D.degrees at Ohio State University. His M.A.thesis (1947) was the first academic
study of commercially recorded country music, and his doctoral dissertation (1954) was
the recipient of the 1956 Chicago Folklore Prize and the basis for his authoritative history
of Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898 (1959), still the definitive work on
the subject. Joining the faculty of Western Kentucky State College (now Western
Kentucky University) in 1950, Wilgus moved in 1963 to the University of California at
Los Angeles, where he helped establish the UCLA folklore program and acted for
seventeen years as its chair. Wilgus was elected a Fellow of the American Folklore
Society (AFS) in 1960, and was president of the AFS in 1971 and 1972. He served as
Professor of English and music at UCLA until his retirement in June 1989. Wilgus died
in Los Angeles on Christmas Day, 1989.
As a student of folksong, Wilgus was remarkable both for the depth of his scholarship
and the breadth of his interests. His eclectic, empiricist oudook is best summed up by his
own credo: “I have yet to find an approach to folklore from which I have learned nothing;
I have yet to find one whose dominance is not dangerous” (Wilgus 1973:252; see Wilgus
1964:237). In addition to championing the comparative method, he conducted extensive
fieldwork in the American South and in Ireland, simultaneously tackling monumental
problems in ballad classification (Wilgus 1970; Wilgus and Long 1985). Through his
research on “hillbilly” records, he was a pioneer in the study of folklore and mass media
(see Wilgus 1965, 1971). Primarily a student of music and song, he nonetheless worked
with other genres as well, most notably, the legend. In fact, the impossibility of neatly
summarizing or characterizing Wilgus’ accomplishments may constitute the most fitting
commentary of all on his wide-ranging contributions to the study of American folklore.
John Minton
References
Montell, William Lynwood. 1991. D.K.Wilgus, 1918–1989. Journal of American Folklore 104:72–
73.
Wilgus, D.K. 1964. Folksong and Folksong Scholarship: Changing Approaches and Attitudes. IV:
The Rationalistic Approach. In A Good Tale and a Bonnie Tune, ed. Mody C.Boatright, Wilson
M.Hudson, and Allen Maxwell. Publications of the Texas Folklore Society No. 32. Dallas:
Southern Methodist University Press, pp. 227–237, 268.
——. 1965. An Introduction to the Study of Hillbilly Music. Journal of American Folklore 78:195–
203.
——. 1970. AType-Index of Anglo-American Traditional Narrative Songs. Journal of the Folklore
Institute 7:161–170.
——. [1970] 1971. Country-Western Music and the Urban Hillbilly. In The Urban Experience and
Folk Tradition, ed. Americo Paredes and Ellen J.Stekert. American Folklore Society
Bibliographical and Special Series Vol. 22. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 137–159.
——. 1973. The Text Is the Thing. Journal of American Folklore 86:241–252.
——. 1986. The Comparative Approach. In The Ballad and the Scholars: Approaches to Ballad
Study, ed. D.K. Wilgus and Barre Toelken. Papers presented at a Clark Library Seminar,
October 22, 1983. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of
California, pp. 3–28.
Wilgus, D.K., and Eleanor R.Long. 1985. The Blues Ballad and the Genesis of Style in Traditional
Narrative Song. In Narrative Folksong, New Directions: Essays in Appreciation of W.Edson
Richmond, ed. Carol L. Edwards and Kathleen E.B.Manley. Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 435–
482