Applied Folklorist and Blues Musician
Bowling Green, KY
Lamont Jack Pearley is the executive director and founder of Jack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation Foundation and the African American Folklorist Magazine. He is an applied folklorist, African American traditional music historian, and a traditional country blues practitioner inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame as a Great Blues Historian and TV/Radio Producer, and Great Blues Artist. Pearley works to conserve and sustain blues and black traditions through performance, documentation, and a repository of ethnographic interviews. He also works with communities to create sustainable cultural experiences and programming. Pearly earned his MA in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University and is currently working towards his doctorate in ethnomusicology at the University of Indiana Bloomington.