Rolling Stone named the CD box set Next Stop Is Vietnam 1961-2008 as one of the top 10 reissues of 2010. Thanks to Lydia Fish, folklorist and professor of anthropology, the set contains one disc of music made, not by the big-name musicians of the Vietnam era, but by the soldiers and civilians who were actually serving in Southeast Asia.

Fish’s interest in collecting this music grew out of her experiences teaching history for North Carolina State’s extension division at Fort Bragg, headquarters of the 82nd Airborne and the 5th Special Forces in the 1960s. At the time, Fish was a folksinger, and she played at the 82nd Airborne Officers’ Club at Fort Bragg.

Her interest led to the Vietnam Veterans Oral History and Folklore Project, which includes her research into the music and the soldier-singers who made it. She amassed more than 500 hours of music. From her personal archives, she contributed 23 songs to Next Stop Is Vietnam. Twenty of the 29 selections on disc 7 in the box set, Goodbye Travis Air Force Base, are from Fish’s collection.

Throughout the years, Fish has worked diligently to make the soldiers’ music available, first, to the original musicians, and then to scholars and to others who want a glimpse of what it was like to be serving in Southeast Asia in the middle of the twentieth century. “The box set belongs not just to collectors, but also to archives around the world,” Fish said.

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Posted: June 17, 2010
Anthropology Professor Contributes to Vietnam War Music Anthology