D. K. Wilgus

Donald Knight Wilgus (December 1, 1918 – December 25, 1989) was an American folk song scholar and academic, most recognized for chronicling 'Hillbilly', blues music and Irish-American song and his contribution to ballad scholarship.

Wilgus moved to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1963. and around Ireland, recording the singers Tom Munnelly and John Reilly.

Between 1971 and 1972, Wilgus served as president of the American Folklore Society (AFS). His presidential lecture was titled "The Text is the Thing" and has been described as "a lively response to the [then] current fashion in the field for performance studies."

Wilgus served as vice-president of the AFS, secretary-treasurer of the Kentucky Folklore Society and president of the California Folklore Society. He also edited the journal of the California Folklore Society, Western Folklore, from 1970 to 1975.

Archive The Ethnomusicology Archive at UCLA includes the D.K. Wilgus Collection, his collection of 3,000 field recordings and 8,000 commercial recordings of folk music. It was donated by Wilgus's widow, Eleanor R. Long-Wilgus, an eminent ballad scholar in her own right and who had collaborated with Wilgus on research into blues and Irish ballads.

Selected publications

As editor