June 30, 2004

Agnes Cunningham, Who Sowed the Seeds of Folk Music, Dies at 95

gnes Cunningham, a founder of the influential folk-song journal Broadside, died on Sunday at a nursing home in New Paltz, N.Y., her daughter Jane Friesen said. She was 95.

Broadside, begun by Ms. Cunningham and her husband, Gordon Friesen, in 1962, published more than 1,000 topical songs during its 26-year run, including some of the first works by Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Janis Ian, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Tom Paxton. Though its circulation never reached higher than four figures, it lasted for 187 issues and played a significant role in the development of the 60's folk style.

"This very small magazine, it reached key people throughout the country," Pete Seeger, a frequent contributor, said yesterday. "When a good song came along, it got picked up right away."

For the magazine's first issues, Ms. Cunningham, known as Sis, and Mr. Friesen invited musicians from the New York folk scene to their apartment in the Frederick Douglass housing project on West 104th Street in Manhattan to perform their newest songs into a reel-to-reel tape recorder.

They chose songs with strong leftist politics and a direct style, and stated their aims in the first issue with a quotation from Woody Guthrie that "a good song can only do good."

"We favored singers who were simple and didn't have all the fluff," Ms. Cunningham said in an interview with The New York Times in 2001. "Poetry set to music has to be mulled over. I think the more sharply and simply it's written, the better."

Mr. Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" was published on the cover of the sixth issue, in May 1962, shortly after the song was written. Malvina Reynolds, whose songs often appeared in Broadside, had "Little Boxes" in issue No. 20; "I Ain't Marching Anymore" by Mr. Ochs, another frequent contributor, was in issue No. 54.

The couple churned out the early issues using a mimeograph machine once owned by the American Labor Party. Because it was illegal to run a business in their housing project, they smuggled copies out the door in a baby carriage.

As a singer and an accordionist, Ms. Cunningham had played with Mr. Seeger and Mr. Guthrie in the Almanac Singers during the 1940's. At Broadside, she transcribed the chords and lyrics to songs from tape recordings made by musicians. Mr. Friesen, a novelist and journalist, wrote the commentaries.

Songs from the magazine were collected in 2000 on a five-CD boxed set, "The Best of Broadside, 1962-1988," on the Smithsonian Folkways label. The album was nominated for two Grammy Awards, for best historical album and best liner notes.

Born to a poor farming family in Watonga, Okla., Ms. Cunningham graduated from what was then called Southwestern State College in Weatherford, Okla., and married Mr. Friesen, another Oklahoman, in 1941. They came to New York late that year and moved into the communal Almanac House in Greenwich Village with Mr. Seeger, Mr. Guthrie and others. Ms. Cunningham joined the Almanac Singers and performed on their 1942 album, "Dear Mr. President."

With Mr. Friesen, who died in 1996, she wrote "Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography," which was published in 1999.

Besides Ms. Friesen, of New Paltz, Ms. Cunningham is survived by another daughter, Agnes Friesen, of Berkeley, Calif.; three grandchildren; and one great-grandson.